Project Update: 14.11.2023

Hello Friends and Welcome!

As I shared in last week's November block release for the Stars of the City BoM, October took me away from the blog due to a variety of surgeries among family and pets.

A little update on that; my partner is still doing great and is looking forward to returning to work on schedule, Bruno is now free of his cone, and Poppy has gotten through her follow ups without any additional concerns, so she won't be in need of her cone much longer.

Everything is going well, so I can finally get back to working on my projects!

Hexie Harvest BoM

Now that November has arrived, the quilt along for the Hexie Harvest BoM has officially ended. I've seen so many gorgeous interpretations of this pattern and had such a great time putting my quilt together along with everyone else!

And though the quilt along may have ended, I haven't yet to finish my quilt top, but I have been making progress!

So far, I've completely assembled the first three rows and have started working on rows four and five, but I've made a little mistake in row five that I only caught while taking pictures.

All odd numbered rows have ten blocks while even numbered rows have nine. I should have started row five with a block to the outer left of row four, but I sewed the first block on the inner right side instead. I've put a lot of work into my mistakenly placed fifth row, so I won't be ripping it out, I'll just embrace the accident by moving the last block of that row to the front, a very simple fix!

Though I was really hoping to have my Hexie Harvest quilt top finished by the end of October, keeping up with the schedule of the BoM, I know that life sometimes gets in the way of our plans. I'm proud of the time and effort I've put into this quilt regardless and am excited to continue piecing it together, one stitch at a time!

Hexie Harvest was designed by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth. Though this quilt along has just ended, she will be hosting another one for the Ice Cream Soda pattern next year, with sign ups opening 24 November 2023.

Stars of the City BoM Sample

As new blocks are released for the Stars of the City BoM pattern, I've continued to hand quilt the original sample quilt!

I haven't made any extensive progress, just stitching a few background stars here and there when I'm in the mood for some simple hand work. But I've really been enjoying the process and am looking forward to continuing!

Stars of the City is an original block of the month pattern of my own design. I'm running it as a free quilt along here on the blog, so feel free to check out the most recent block release or start from the beginning with fabric requirements!

Stars of the Lily Pond BoM

I've also been working on my second Stars of the City quilt, which has a water lily theme!

Though I'm supposed to be a little ahead of the block releases, I'm still working on my Drunkard's Path units for this quilt.

So far, I've made ten of Drunkard's Path unit A, none of which have been pressed, and have a few additional units cut. I'm making this quilt in a custom size, not one of the default sizes included in the pattern, so I will need to make 42 units total, so I'm only about a quarter of the way through piecing them and looking forward to making more!

As already stated, this quilt is based on my original pattern, Stars of the City (see links above for more details). Feel free to follow along with the instructions as this BoM project continues or make alterations to the size, block placement, or other elements of the pattern to make the quilt your own!

Meadow Mystery Quilt

The final project I've been working on since my last update is one I haven't touched in many months, Meadow Mystery.

The last time I worked on this was back in July, then I set it aside to focus on my Stars of the City sample. But sometime last week, I found myself wanting to do a little machine quilting, so I brought the blocks back out and quilted another row!

The first block was a green and brown, half square triangle block. It was hand quilted sometime previously, so was really quick to finish!

Then there were two matching blocks, mostly brown background, that offered lots of space for machine quilting, exactly what I wanted!

There's not a lot of hand quilting on these, so that should go fairly quickly once I get around to it.

The final block was the most colourful, with very little machine quilting and quite a bit of hand work.

I finished the machine quilting quickly and decided to do a little of the hand quilting, but sometime while working on it, I lost my thread. I think the couch ate it, so I'll need to do a little searching before I can get these blocks finished and sewn together.

It's been so nice to revisit this project after so long, and doing so has made me excited to get it finished and started me thinking about stencils again! It would be so exciting to have a label ready to put on the quilt when it's finished!

This quilt was based on the Meadow Mystery pattern by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs, which she ran as a free mystery quilt along in 2016-2017. She runs a different mystery quilt along every year and has an archive of those patterns on her website.

Friends, it is so nice to get back to sewing, back to sharing my projects, and back on the blog!

I have missed every aspect of the creative process while the less pleasant parts of life took over. Sometimes things happen, we have to take a step back, change our path, and push forward, and now that I have, I can return to my comfortable, happy, creative place!

And friends, whether you're in your creative place or progressing down a challenging path, I would love to hear what you've been up to! You can share stories in the comments below, reach out to me privately via email, or visit me on Instagram!

I hope that wherever you find yourself today, you are able to make it back to your happy place soon!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA