Quilting

These Moda Blockheads take more time to cut & sew than I anticipate each month, so my yellow is going slowly. But here is Rocky Mountain Puzzle & Devil’s Claw on the top row; Trail of Tears, Night Flight & Twice the Friendship on the bottom row.

I got my Strippy Slab Star made with small pieces from my crumb bag in the center & strips from the yellow strip bin for the points.

I sewed the other February blocks for the Frightful Fun! BOM. These are the FPP candy blocks & I got a start on March’s blocks by doing the bird that sits on the cauldron that I still need to make, plus the five bones. Those may fall into April since we will be gone for a week on vacation.

I had to finish up my blue blocks before beginning March’s yellow, so here are my five Moda blockheads. They are Lawyer’s Puzzle, Bow Tie Quartet, Puzzled, Ohio Star Variation, & T Block. I’m doing 5/month. The yellows are County Fair blocks by Amy Smart in the book, “Scrap School” by Lissa Alexander. I did them first, mostly because they are quick & I could get a start on yellow! (Update: a sharp-eyed reader saw my Ohio Star had a problem, so here’s a photo with the repaired star.)

This is the new Thursday group project. It’s a free pattern called Fireworks that’s going to be a table topper. My partners are making theirs in RW&B & I was excited to follow along, but then realized that was not smart as I’d made a square RW&B topper last year & what I really need is a spring one. I have a naked table now that Val Day is over. So I decided to make mine spring inspired & it can finish out this season (maybe), but definitely be ready for next year. So I dug in my stash for green, pink/coral, aqua, with gray background. I cut it all on my own time, then together, we got one of the four blocks made with a start on the other three.

Sometimes life throws you a curve & you just have to breathe & run with it. I had been slowly working on the Split 4-Patch blocks for Many Hands Many Hearts & for some reason I had in my head that they were due at the end of March. Then I saw the post announcing the block drive for March/April was LV 9-patches. (face palm) So this week I spent time getting my 43 Splits all done & then made 16 LV 9-patches to send in at the same time. Along with some cutting out for other projects, that was my week. No scrap blues.

We got the Wholehearted by A Bright Corner all sewed up this week in our FaceTime quilt group, so it goes in the closet to wait for the quilter. I’m so in love with that Albion fabric line by Amy Smart!

The last of my blue RSC blocks will have to get done next week while I start on yellow. I was frustrated at first, but then I realized that nobody is making me do any of this, so relax & enjoy & if I don’t make deadlines, there’s still time next month. It’s all good!

Finishes first! This RSC2022 project got derailed by my accident & sat in a box until last year when I got it out to see what I had left to do. Turned out I only had 2 colors left, so I got those done during the appropriate months, got it quilted & sewed on the binding this month.

Another finish is this March small quilt for the stand. It slipped in for a photo shoot, but won’t make its appearance until 1 March. Sorry it’s so dark, but all the colors are Sparkler fabrics.

This is Scrappy Hearts by Quilty Love. I was making these for RSC2024 & when I went to put the flimsy together at the end of the year, I found that I was short 3 hearts. So I laid them out & determined I needed a navy, light green & dark green. So whenever green rolls around, I’ll make those & get busy putting it together.

Here are the blue Scrap Stash Plus blocks from a free pattern by Quilty Love. They are using up a background jelly roll from another project where I only used a couple strips, & a clearance curated jelly roll from a shop going out of business. Seemed like a perfect project to “roll” these fabrics out of my stash.

The last of the WholeHearted blocks got put together in this week’s FaceTime quilt group, so next week we begin the sashing. So far, this is the quickest we’ve ever worked a quilt & we are astonished. It means we finished up our meeting by discussing ideas for our next project.

One of my goals this year is to turn a WIP into a finished flimsy. Since this Rocky Road to Grayson has a blue background, I thought it would be a good project for this month. By assembling all the various pieces I had already made, I ended up with 10 blocks. I don’t see any notes in the box (eye roll), so don’t know what I planned originally, except I know I never planned to make the giant size of the pattern. So the next step is to sit down with the pattern & do some quilt math & see if I can really get it done this month.

The top is the navy blue Scraptastic Stars by Melissa Corry of HappyQuilting. This one has really nice contrast.

Then below are 4 more rail fence variations to add to the pile from last year’s accumulation. The pile is getting bigger & soon I’ll get them all out & see where I’m at with putting together quilts. Or I’ll just keeping making them all year & then see. Who knows?

Halfway through the month & I have half of my blue projects done, so I’d say that’s staying on track! I haven’t tackled a WIP for the month yet, but there’s still time. I have a goal to finish one each month in 2025.

Remember how I started working on Bonnie Hunter’s winter mystery, Old Town, in November? Well, it’s been sitting neglected, so I got it out & did clue #2, which is 244 little four patches. You know Bonnie’s quilts are always full of lots of piecing, so they take time. And I’m in no hurry on this one, except to finish it before this year’s mystery arrives!

Our quilt group progress on the WholeHearted quilt means there are 5 more full blocks to put together, then we start the sashing. So it’s really moving along. I wish I could get the photos to reflect the real colors, as the pinks are much more pink than the reddish shown here.