Project Update: 17.01.2021

Hello Friends and Welcome!

Winter has fully settled into my town, bringing shocking cold, frosted windows, and beautiful snow wrapped scenery! I can't say that I enjoy being out and about on the days that it's -30C, or on days like today when the snow is blowing, but winter nights seem to be the best time for hibernating under a warm quilt!

And those coldest of days are also great for sitting inside and working on sewing projects!

Although it's been quite a long time since my last proper update, I haven't actually worked on a particularly large variety of projects. In fact, most of my time recently has been spent catching up on sleep as I settle into the new routine of 2022.

Regardless of the amount of work I may or may not have done, I'm really proud of what I've accomplished and excited to be sharing them with you all today!

MQG Mystery Block of the Month

Since the last update in early December, I've completed not one, but two instalments of the MQG Mystery BoM project!

I'm working on this particular project with my Mother, not collaboratively, but we each work on it only when we are able to get together to sew. In December, that happened later in the month than usual.

December's instructions featured a single block consisting of 4 quarter square triangle units and several background squares. Matching the corners on the triangle units was a little challenging, but nothing we couldn't handle!

Then in January, a new set of blocks was released!

This month's instructions featured four blocks using half square triangles and another unit that I'm not particularly familiar with.

In the instructions, it was called a half hourglass, but I've also seen it called a three patch quarter square triangle. I've taken to calling it the three quarter square triangle, which is a bit of a convoluted name, but makes the most sense to me.

I got together with Mom earlier in the month to make these blocks, and once again, we each completed all four within a single day! Mine are the blocks on the left with the Oakwood background and Mom's are the yellow blocks on the right.

With 9 blocks now complete, I'm beginning to think about how they might come together in the finished quilt. I have my theories, but it truly will remain a mystery until we receive more block instructions!

Generations Quilt

The end of December was a very productive time for the Generations Quilt project. Not only did we have our first official project meeting, but I also managed to complete all eight of my ongoing blocks!

I'm so proud of myself for completing all of these blocks before the end of the year! It's so exciting to be able to start 2022 with the opportunity to experiment with more new block palettes!

Speaking of, I've already begun cutting pieces for two more Dresden Plates!

These were inspired by a fabric print from my scrap stash that I particularly like, you can see in the picture below that I've used it to make a mask. I really love the distribution of blues, greens, greys, and whites, and the incorporation of a variety of different printed patterns!

To reflect this in my Dresden block, I chose a variety of prints from my scrap collection that were roughly the same colours as the original fabric. I tried to match the colour distribution as well; mostly royal blue, with less, but roughly equal amounts relative to each other of forest green, olive green, grey, and white.

I've had a lot of fun working with these fabrics so far and would love to incorporate this colour combination into a larger project in the future!

As a side note, I received the inspiration fabric as scraps from someone else after they finished working with it. I no longer know who I got it from and I don't have any remaining salvage, but I would love to know who designed it and the name of the print. If you have any ideas, please let me know in the comments below!

Simply Woven

Possibly the one project I am most excited to share progress on is Simply Woven!

Last weekend, I was finally able to motivate myself into quilting the last two segments of the broken border motif. I'm really glad to have finished that part of the quilted design, but I'm coming to realize that I've barely begun!

The next part of the design that I'll be working on is the organic, wavy line quilting in the background.

Since this part of the motif runs directly through the centre of the quilt, I'm expecting it will be a little challenging to work through my domestic machine. But the wavy design means that I won't be trying to stick closely to a particular path along the quilt and variations in the linework will look just a little more intentional.

I've also recently decided to add some hand quilting into this organic background motif.

I originally started quilting Simply Woven last spring. At the time, I assumed I would be quilting the whole project by machine, with a walking foot. Since then, I've had many opportunities to try mixing hand and machine quilting, and I'm quite enamoured with the effect this creates!

I've been debating incorporating hand quilting for quite a while now since I do love the effect of mixed methods quilting and it would be a lot easier to hand quilt through the middle of the project than to do all of it by machine. I'm still in the process of planning out how this will affect the quilted design, but I'm excited to see what I come up with!

That's all for this week's update. A little progress on only three projects since the beginning of December might not feel like a lot compared to what I've accomplished in some of my other updates, but I'm quite proud of it nonetheless!

On top of that, the three projects I worked on are all a part of my current winter goals!

If you've already read my year in review post from earlier this month, you'll know I'm planning to work on five projects throughout this winter; Simply Woven, MQG Mystery BoM, and the Generations Quilt project were on that list, as well as finishing the NQM 2021 BoM and a simple garment sewing project. I tend to get easily distracted by new and exciting projects, so I'm very proud of myself for sticking to the projects I had originally planned for this winter!

If you'd like to keep up with what I'm working on between updates, I try my best to post photos on my Instagram account, @vafibrearts. Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping up with it so well recently, but now that the sun is staying up a little longer in the evenings, I should have a few more opportunities to take photos of my work, and to work on projects during sunlit hours!

If you've got any ongoing or recently completed projects of your own, be it sewing, fibre arts, or something totally unrelated, I would love to hear about them! Feel free to share stories in the comments below or to tag me in some of your posts on Instagram! I'm always inspired to see what other creators are working on and love hearing all the stories behind them!

Next week, I'm planning more progress on Simply Woven! I'm hoping to rework the design to incorporate hand quilted elements, as well as make some significant progress on the quilting. I can't wait to see how all of that works out!

Until Next Time Friends, Stay Warm!

VA