Stitching Goals Achieved for February and Zooming Along

It's time to check in with my stitching progress during February.

My One Monthly Goal was to complete another three of my Swoon Blocks.  I an linking up with Patty over at Elm Tree Quilts.  It is such fun to see what everyone gets up to.

Job done!  That's five down, four to go.  Hopefully, they will be done fairly soon, but there is no deadline for this quilt, so it will happen when it happens.

The fabrics are all Bonnie and Camille from a fat quarter swap I participated in years ago, so it has been a bit of fun working out pairing up of colours, as they come from several different ranges.  In the end they will look good together, as most of their fabrics share similar tones.

I made my few little Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks early in the month.

I have one tiny One Project a Month finish.  This was making the bunting Lou gave me suit the windows in my sewing room.

I had another play with Monique,  but was having some trouble with tension.  I was waiting for some machine quilting thread,  which has now arrived, so time to have another play with the correct thread and get the tension set to suit it.  However, that will have to wait for a little while, as we have a few things on in the next little while.

Saturday saw another Zoom day, hosted by Chookyblue.  It was so nice to have the day stitching, chatting, solving the problems of the world, and more importantly, hopefully solving my comments problem.  Fingers crossed. Thanks Jo.

The first thing I worked on was the Ruby cushion.  This probably doesn't look any different from the last zoom get together, but the wreath is now fully appliqued.  I'm not going to do the broderie perse in the centre, so now it is time to get out the pattern and turn it into a cushion before going to Scrub Stitchin' in April.

So, what to work on next?  It's always a challenge to find something to work on while joining in with the other girls.

This is a really old project.  Way back when, I cut two piles of black and white five inch charm squares.  One lot was sent to Lou, while she still lived on the Isle of Man, so I think it would be in either 2012, or 2011.  Lou used hers in a quilt for her son and mine sat in the drawer.

At the end of 2019 I decided to use them for a leader and ender project.  I even recorded the start here.  At the time, I stitched all the squares and they have sat there in the box ever since.  On Saturday I finally pulled them out, cut them in half pressed them open and trimmed them down to four and  a half inches, ready to use.  I have had a thought of how to use them, incorporating some coloured HST, which could be part of Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Whichever way I go, I think I will have to make some more black and white HST.

OK, now what?  Another Swoon block could always be started.

Surprisingly, it ended up being another finished Swoon block.  That wasn't expected.

Six down, three to go.  This is coming together much quicker than expected.

A little chat was happening about enabling and the conversation turned to a shopping day Chooky and I had a little while ago at Spotlight.  We bought a huge pile of pretty fabric for next to nothing and planned to make sort of matching twister quilts.  I never blogged about it, but Chooky went back through her blog archive and found the post she wrote at the time - November 2013!!! You can't rush things.  Mind you, she couldn't find her fabric, then I couldn't find mine.......  Well, we both know where our fabric is at the moment and have decided to make them at Scrub Stitchin'.  Hanne from Norway, was also listening to the conversation and she will be at a retreat on the same weekend, so she is going to join in as well.  How good is that.  We welcome as many to join in as would like.

So what now?  I thought it was time to finally pull out my blue quilt, that I have been wanting to get started for the last couple of months.

I have been quarantining my suitable blues and creams in a tub for ages. Now it is time to finally get started. This quilt is to be made entirely from stash, except possibly the backing.  My plan is to do lots of prep at the start and basically make a kit.  I have selected the fabrics for the various borders, which are in the pile at the rear right.  I do all my applique by machine blanket stitch, so the next step was to trace all the components onto fusible web.  I am currently halfway through that process.  Oh, and I have tweaked the applique design slightly, so that had to be done first.

This will be a very long term project, with no deadline.  Once  I have prepped, there will be quite a bit of hand stitching with lots of EPP and stitchery on the applique blocks.  They will be ideal for Zoom days and when travelling.

I finally signed off the Zoom get together at about 7.30 in the evening.  I had been on line for over twelve hours.  Such a lovely and productive day.

Now it is time to tidy my sewing room, after all that.  I really want to try to keep it in some sort of order.