Project Update: 04.04.2023 & 17.04.2023

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

This weeks post is a little different than my usual project updates.

A few weeks ago, I had to cancel a post due to a lack of storage on the blog platform. I already had the post completely drafted and was just unable to add photos, so I've decided to share it today along with an update on my progress since then!

04.04.2023

Since updating my seasonal goals a few weeks ago, it feels like Spring is well and truly here! We've had a few snowfalls since the Equinox, but that's pretty normal for an Ontario Spring, and overall I can feel the world warming and see the plants and animals awakening!

As for myself, I've had a bit of a slow start to the Spring season.

With my broken foot on the mend, I'm now out of the air cast and back to wearing matching boots! But healing a broken bone takes a lot of energy, so over the last few weeks, I've been feeling a little sluggish and sleepy. I try to keep reminding myself that, although I may not be checking off every item from my to do list, there's a lot of really important internal progress happening by taking it slow and giving myself rest.

And despite not getting everything done, I have been making progress on many of my projects a little at a time!

Summer Garden BoM

For this BoM project, I've been working to complete my Jack's Delight blocks for March!

After experimenting with some colour placement variations in my first block, I decided I'd like to keep to the original colour placement and use a white centre with red points all around. It feels a little more organized, and with so may different blocks and colours in the finished quilt, that might be needed to keep order and cohesion.

I made two blocks with this colour placement, leaving me with two more yet to make. But even though March is over, I still have another week to finish those before the next instructions are out, so I'm technically not behind yet!

Summer Garden is an original pattern of my own design. It is currently running as a block of the month style quilt along that will end in May 2023. Check out the most recent block instructions, Jack's Delight, or start from the beginning with fabric selection.

The $3.31 Quilt

My last update left us with only three complete leaf blocks of the total nine that this pattern called for, and I have since completed those remaining blocks!

I'm so glad I decided to make each of these blocks in different colours! I love the variety and that each block references fabric found elsewhere in the quilt!

Once those blocks were all complete, I took a look at the quilt assembly instructions (which did end up being released on the third Wednesday in March).

The original pattern has a little more negative space than I prefer. I really love the busy, heavily pieced style of traditional quilts and this one definitely leans more in the clean, modern direction, so I'll be making some changes to personalize my quilt!

I shared a planning post for that last week where you can see both the original design and some of the changes I'm hoping to include in my own quilt!

The $3.31 Quilt was designed by John MacPhail of Art East Quilting Co. and was run by CQA as their 2023 members' mystery project.

Hexie Harvest BoM

Despite having fallen behind on this project, I'm actually really excited about my Hexie Harvest progress!

I've finished all seven of my Cedar blocks, which I really love the pieced motif for! I think Cedar is my favourite block so far!

Nutmeg is the block I've fallen behind on.

I've made all three of my all black blocks and am half way through my second of the rainbow variation. I love how they're coming together, it's just happening a little slowly, which is totally fine!

But now that April has arrived, I have two more sets of blocks to make; Aster and Kindling!

You may remember that I'm actually ahead on my Kindling blocks. They're unpieced, so I cut and basted them back in February to ensure I still had big enough pieces to cut the full hexagon shapes from.

Since doing that, I had planned to piece one of the August blocks, of which there are three, as my second April block, but I think I'll finish Nutmeg and Aster, then see where we are in the month. If I'm able to get caught up really quickly, I may still work on an additional block!

Hexie Harvest was deisgned by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth. The pattern is currently being run as a block of the month style quilt along set to end in Autumn 2023.

Meadow Mystery Quilt

I'm slowly continuing my progress with the quilting of Meadow Mystery!

I now have seven blocks completely quilted and four with just the hand quilting finished! I really love how they're turning out, the all over grid helps to flatten the background and emphasize the accent piecing in a really beautiful way!

I don't recall if I've mentioned that I picked up all the backing fabric that will be needed for this quilt, but I did that about a month ago so now I'm going to be a little more intentional about the order I quilt my blocks so that I can quilt and assemble simultaneously and see the quilt actually growing before my eyes!

I'm planning to start from the centre and work out in a Log Cabin style. It should be fun!

Meadow Mystery was designed by Cheryl Brickley of Meadow Mist Designs. It was originally released as her 2016-2017 quilt along project and was later used by my guild for their 2021-2022 block of the month pattern.

Generations Quilt

For this last project, I've made just a little bit of progress.

Last week, I basted one of my rainbow Dresdens onto a dark background to applique! I had hoped to finish it in March, but didn't quite make that deadline and ended up finishing on 01 April instead. Close enough for me though!

And I'm really happy with this block too! The dark background emphasizes the bold colours in the rainbow piecing, making them stand out quite vibrantly!

This puts me up to 24 completed Dresden Plate blocks for my Generations Quilt contribution!

The Generations Quilt is a collaborative family project featuring two traditional quilt blocks, Dresden Plate and Six Pointed Star.

17.04.2023

With all of my earlier progress shared above, I can finally get you up to date on the progress I've made since then!

As mentioned, things are going a little slow for me this Spring, so I've only really had the time to work on a few projects. But the progress I've made on those few projects has gotten me caught up with some of my goals, and for that, I'm very proud of myself!

Summer Garden BoM

Last week, the final block for this BoM quilt along was released! It was the Rail Fence block, one of my personal favourites and one that I was very excited to put together!

Since I was using yardage for this iteration of the Summer Garden pattern, I was able to use the strip piecing method, which made construction super fast and easy!

I made two sample blocks ahead of releasing the instructions and finished my remaining blocks shortly after, completing the full set!

Since the Rail Fence is such a simple block to make, and because I love it so much, I actually finished these before finishing my Jack's Delight blocks from March. This wasn't a terribly big problem for me though as completing Rail Fence inspired me to carry on with Jack's Delight!

And now I've finished the last of those blocks as well!

With all those blocks complete, I'm ready for final assembly in May!

Summer Garden is my own original pattern. It was designed as a block of the month style quilt along which will be wrapping up next month. Block instructions are available for Rail Fence, Jack's Delight, and all other blocks here on the blog.

Hexie Harvest BoM

I continued piecing my rainbow Nutmeg blocks throughout the first week of April, and towards the end of that week, completed the last of them!

I really love how they turned out! I think using just a small amount of the coloured fabric creates some interesting negative space that the overall quilt will benefit from!

With those blocks finished, I was able to get started on my Aster blocks!

Aster is the most challenging block in this pattern, I think in part due to the small size of the pieces and the larger number of them. The tiny 1" triangles certainly intimidated my Grandma when I showed her, but I love a good challenge!

I really flew through the piecing of these blocks and I finished the last of them over the past weekend!

And I really love how they turned out! I think emphasizing the hexagons rather than the star shape in the centre will be an interesting contrast to some of the upcoming blocks that feature a similar star motif!

I've also decided to just leave the August blocks in August and Wait for May to arrive before continuing with this project. I can't wait!

Hexie Harvest was designed by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth. The quilt along began in February 2023 and will run until Autumn 2023.

That's everything I've been working on for about the last month. Friends, I am so happy with the progress I've made and can't wait to see how each of these projects continue to come together!

And I'd love to hear about your own recent accomplishments too! Let me know how your Spring is going, what projects you're working on, or one small thing you were able to finish recently! You can share in the comments below, by email, or by reaching out on Instagram!

One final reminder before we part ways; I've recently reached my storage limit for the blog and am working on archiving my posts. You may notice images disappearing from older posts, this is just my way of managing storage for the time being. I'll share further updates when they become available!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA