Started: January 2023

This is the Block of the Month I’m working on for 2023. It’s hosted by one of our LQS’ Quilty Pleasures in Simi Valley, CA.

I was not able to attend the Saturday Sampler and the sew day in March. So I missed out on all the hints and tricks that they provide. I cut slightly bigger when the pattern used insane measurements like 2 and 5/8 etc etc and simply trimmed down. There was one where the instructions had us cut 8 – 2 and 1/4 squares and 12 – 2 and 5/8 squares and another 8 – 2 and 5/8 squares. I cut 20 – 2.75” squares and trimmed. I found out later I should have also cut the 8-2 and 1/4 at 2.75” as that one was too exact and caused some issues for me when I trimmed down.

This month we had to make 8 of these blocks. It was a lot and took me one evening to cut everything and one Sunday to sew everything. I ended up also prepping my leaders and enders to help me move along. I’m working on piecing 1” squares and I hope to one day have a postage stamp quilt.

Slowly making progress on this one!

Hugs

Melanie

Previous blocks completed:

Happy 18th birthday to my son!

He’s a bit of a shy bird or maybe just a teen boy who doesn’t like me posting picture of him on Facebook and Instagram. Actually he doesn’t mind the posts. He doesn’t like to be tagged. So as long as I don’t tag him I can post to my hearts content. And he will stay friends with me on those platforms. This is opposite to my daughter who loves it when I post things and tag her.

On this day, the boy is 18 and weighing heavy decisions on which college to select. He’s been lucky enough to get accepted to a number of colleges local and out of state. The major issues are financial and while his heart would love to go to an out of state school the finances don’t make sense. So far he’s leaning on staying close to home to our local state university. While I wish we could send him away (as he wants) I am proud of the young man he’s becoming to make the smart financial decisions he’s able to make.

Happy birthday to my baby boy.

M

Here is my March list to keep me focused.

#1 – Good Fortune – My goal is to quilt and finish finish finish this flimsy.

Update: This is quilted, bound, and really almost finished. But I still have to attach the label and take a picture. It’s almost there though and I hope to post it in the next few days.

#2 Plum Fusion – This month I plan to tackle the kit for November 2022.

#3 – The Quilty Pleasure Saturday Sampler – the March block

Update- I just got the March kit so I will be playing with it shortly.

#4 – Grassy Creek – I believe there is a border left to do but I’m not sure so I’ll need to pull it out and figure out what’s next. – FINISHED!

#5 – Mountain Mist – do a bit every day. My plan is to work on this project daily for 15 minutes.

Update – no progress! 😢

#6 – Go through my cabinet full of UFOs and I want to get those jotted down on my UFO/wip list too. Some of them are already but a lot are not. In addition that cabinet needs to be organized and cleaned out. It has become my stuffing spot – you know what I mean – I stuff things in there I am not ready to deal with…. And it’s jammed full.

– Finished

#7 – Sashiko… I feel that this should be added to my daily craft to do list. But I already have 3 things on that list that if I add anymore I won’t get anything done. So instead my plan is to do this one day a week.

Update – no progress! 😢

#8 – Raining Cats and Dogs- this is an old hand quilting project that I set aside. I am adding this on this list to remember it and figure out how to get this done. Ideally It’s one of those projects I spend a little time on each day but I have a lot of those now and so need to think about my game plan.

Update – no progress! 😢

Happy quilting!

Melanie

Reminder- This is the 2022 Saturday Sampler from Cotton and Chocolate in Thousand Oaks, CA.

My March goal for this WIP was to do the November Packet.

I discovered with this packet I was making that the above picture were the “borders” of the inner 9 blocks that were supposed to have been pieced previously. It was from a page of the pattern that was given before all the blocks were done so I hadn’t done it. To be fair, towards the end of the program I stopped attending due to time conflicts and I stopped watching the YouTube tutorials. So they could have mentioned at some point to do it but I didn’t know. I am now scrambling to get it done.

I finished the inner 9 blocks and sashing and before I could get to adding the parts of the November packet, I went to work on getting the first border / sashing first. I had to do all of that before I can consider November complete.

I managed to get the first border on! The next border is the sides made per the November packet. It’s not really a border but it goes around the current set of 9 blocks so it’s border-like. I don’t know if it will get done this month BUT I smell a finish close by and I may forego all the other items on my to do list to get it ready for the next steps detailed in the December packet! We’ll see…I’m so close to finishing this step.

Happy quilting!

Melanie

#6 on my March to do list is to go through my cabinet where I stuff the things I don’t know what to do with. It also contains a few WIPs, knitting WIPs, cross stitch WIPs and patterns and kits.

There were a few hand projects that hadn’t been started. A lot of my hand and quilting projects were already on my WIP spreadsheet list. But a few were not.

So that task is done. Everything in that cabinet that is quilt related has been added to my main WIP list.

I would really like this cabinet to just have supplies and no WIPs. So I will work on the WIPs and one day I hope to have this cabinet clear. I’ll need to find a new place for the non-quilting WIPs because cross stitch and knitting are crafts that take a long time and I’ve achieved STABLE* multiple lives over. I’m currently working on 2 xstitch projects and 1 knitting project for now. I’m not sure how long that will last but it’s been the case for several months now. And my xstitch projects are big projects so they last a long time.

For now, that’s how it is. I’m sure that will change one day but I will keep on how things are for now.

*STABLE – STash Above and Beyond Life Expectancy. Note – I’ve seen people use both STABLE and SABLE. I personally like STABLE best so that’s what I use.

Thanks!

Melanie

When I took this out to finish, I knew I had completed the inner part of the quilt when I last played with this project but I had no idea what I needed to do before I could say this flimsy was finished. I knew there were borders but I couldn’t remember what that entailed. Well, I did two borders around the part I finished. It’s hard to tell unless you know the pattern but the border on the end finished the gray diamonds and the blue churn dash like blocks. and then the border before that included the 9 patches. What I’m trying to say is that they do not look like borders and just finish the blocks from the inner top. The pattern calls for a skinny border and then a final border made up of string piecing. I hate string piecing and I decided that this is the last quilt I will make with string piecing (if I could help it). So I decided that I didn’t need to add it. If I really thought there should be a border I would do a single fabric or something else. I decided it didn’t need a border and I am happy with this as finished. It joins my quilt queue as #10 on that list.

Hugs

Melanie