More progress on February goals

Sometimes I surprise myself by how much progress I can make. It’s taken several years to get the mixture of projects and the breakdown of steps refined, and this month it seems just right!

Linedriedquilt: The blocks for section 2 are completed - even the teeny-tiny ones! Don’t worry, though, I’ll alternate them with 3 1/2” blocks so I won’t have to match the points. On track for #monikasuzchallenge2020!

Venusquilt: The first column is done :) The pieces go together better than I had feared though I can foresee some seams matching better than others - so far so good.

Sparklerquilt: The blocks go together so quickly, even more so when pre-cutting the strips. One more block to go to meet my 10/20 blocks goal for February.

Patchworkcity2020: I have started cutting the sashing strips (after much deliberation I have cut 5 1/2” wide after all). I won’t cut all just yet, I want to see the first couple of rows pieced together first.

Metrorings: The feathers are done (TG, I really want to get this finished...). March goal will be to finish the 9 corresponding ghost blocks

This gives me time to finish the centre SID on Celebration / Perseverance next weekend.

Rainbow at Sea Quilt: 2 more parts to piece before I can piece my 9 ‘orange ‘ blocks together. I need to think carefully how I break this project down so it doesn’t still hang around as WIP in 2025...

Summer Sampler 2017: I’ll make up my mind on the fabric choices by next weekend. I want to use my Alison Glass Rainbow FQ pack that also makes Linedried but the colours don’t quite match the pattern so I need to do a bit of juggling.

While work has been no less busy than a couple of weeks ago, some of the stress has lessened and I have been able to do some ‘other stuff’, too. With the very dry summer (officially in drought) the peaches and tomatoes have been plentiful so I got back into some of my past homemade pursuits: Bottled peaches, frozen tomatoe paste and soap :)

Happy Sewing!

February progress (copied from IG)

As expected too busy to sew regularly but small goals help me make some progress:

#linedried needs just one more block to piece from Section 2 for by #februarygoals 

#sparklerquilt has plenty of coloured strips pre-cut and 1 of 3 blocks for the month pieced.

#rainbowatseaquilt: The current colourway is slowly coming together.

I have also started cutting the sashing for #patchworkcity2018

Any progress is good, right? #sewdayfromacrosstheditch 

February goals

Having been back at work for 3 weeks I do feel like I need another holiday, and that is despite two Public Holidays thrown in! A week of hui (meetings) with the nationwide Raranga Matihiko team, followed by our annual Waitangi Day festivities at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds PLUS  the opening of our new museum Te Rau Aroha have taken their toll already - and we have barely started teaching...

Luckily, life is not just about work and we have enjoyed two weekends of camping over the last month. This summer seems endless at this stage, and while the lack of rain is starting to cause serious problems for many communities, thankfully we are still fine at this stage. The pool is a balmy 30degC (without any form of heating), so we are really enjoying ourselves at the moment. Our oldest DS has settled into the Finnish weather and his uni routine, and the two younger ones have returned to high school, so things are getting back into some resemblance of normal.

I hadn't quite gotten to the point of setting monthly goals in my Happy New Year post. I can see from January that I will need to include small, achievable goals, especially as work gets busier. These are my February goals:

Metrorings: Finish quilting the feathers between the melon shapes (14 to go)
Patchworkcity: Prepare the sashing strips
Rainbow at Sea: Finish piecing the six 'orange' blocks
Linedried: Piece the three larger blocks for Section 2; make a decision on the smallest blocks (follow pattern or substitute?)
Summer Sampler 2017: Decide on fabrics / colours
Venus: Keep on working away on this, 1 block per 'sewing session'
Sparkler: Cut enough white 2 1/2" strips to piece another 3 blocks (which will bring total to 10)
Celebration / Perseverance: SID around all centre blocks

The Scraptherapy top and the Footstool keep on getting put off, but I will keep them on my list so they are on my radar.

Some of my progress to date:
Linedried

Section 1 is pieced but not sewn together as I want to be able to swap blocks across the top.

The larger blocks for Section 2 are prepared.
Missing are two of the smallest size blocks:
At 3" finished I'm not sure yet if I am up for the challenge or if I will substitute them

I feel I am starting to get better at piecing the hourglass blocks: I had struggled getting them to fit and sit flat when I realised that my 1/4" seams were too generous. I have since corrected my needle position, have started starching the fabric before cutting and changed my method. Rather than cutting triangles, I make two HSTs by putting two squares on top of each other, I mark a diagonal with my Hera marker and then stitch to either side. Cut along the diagonal to end with two HSTs, press seams to the darker side, put both squares back together, right sides facing but one square rotated by 90º and  voila! you get beautiful hourglass blocks:) Thanks as usual goes to Suz who always has a solution to my sewing conundrums :)

Sparkler

Seven blocks so far

It's almost too easy to put this together; I'll stick with light blue, dark blue and aqua for this quilt and work on distributing the colours when all 20 blocks are pieced. There are many beautiful examples of this online, but the limited colour way works with my goal of reducing stash and scraps. One of the few patterns I could well imagine repeating...

Celebration / Perseverance:

So far just some SID

I have to keep on reminding myself that I don't need to love every project: At this stage I don't love this one. I'm not in love with the feel of the material or with the colours, and this is the second quilt I'm using the new to me cotton-poly batting which, after years of 100% cotton or cotton-bamboo mixes, I struggle with. Just looking at it now I could imagine leaving it as a simple SID, but I will try to get push through that and make this my ruler quilting practice.

Hope you have your monthly goals sorted? Happy Sewing!