Project Update: 26.05.2026

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

As the renovations continue and the warm weather settles in, I've been getting comfortable in the new house, and begun making connections in my local quilting community!

I've reached out to a few groups, which I'll share more about later, and I'm excited to make some new friends and learn more about the opportunities that are available in my area!

And while all of that has been keeping me busy, I've still found a few moments for progress on some of my ongoing projects!

It's been nearly a month since my last update, and I can't wait to share what I've been up to!

Cherish Quilt

My progress on Cherish has been pretty slow so far; I've continued cutting and basting new pieces for my blocks, but haven't started assembly just yet.

I want to make sure the actual Wizard of Oz prints get spread throughout the quilt and don't all end up in the same handful of blocks, so I'm planning to do a lot of the cutting and basting before beginning to assemble blocks.

However, I have put a little bit of thought into how I want some of them laid out!

Specifically, I like the idea of a landscape block, with a sky print as the block centre, and some of the Wizard of Oz prints as the border pieces!

I think a lot of the blocks with Wizard of Oz centres may turn out feeling a little busy, so this might be a quieter, more restful block to break up some of that busyness!

My Cherish quilt is based on a pattern by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth.

Crochet Experiments

My crochet squares are where I've made the most progress this past month!

I've found that, when I need a break from renovations, it's easy to stitch a round or two on one of my squares while I rest. Or in the evenings after we've finished working for the day, I can sit down and make a whole square!

I've found these blocks to be so fun and easy to put together, and am excited to say that I've actually managed to stitch my way through all 50 patterns!

From left to right, the top row is Dahlia, Sharing, Cirque, and Florence; the second row is Framed, D'Urville, and Killarney; and the bottom row is Ollie, Iron Lace, Solomon, and Kruis.

In the next set, the top row is Quion, Louloudia, and Narrawong; the second row is Spike, Melbourne, Zahar, and Lazarev; and the bottom row is Radius, Bismarck, Posy, and Bellinghausen.

Finally, the last set has Valentina, Bobbled, Sibuyan, and Amaryllis in the top row; Vanes, Chicane, Pinkie, and Mozambique in the middle row; and Cogs, Banda, Traverse, and Sol in the bottom row.

As the squares continued to pile up, I thought a little about what I'd like to do with them, and have decided to stitch them together into an afghan!

It will be a really nice way to preserve one of my first adventures into crochet, but also give these squares a function!

With that in mind, some of these squares are flat and will work really well for that purpose, but others are more three dimensional, which isn't something I'd prefer in a blanket.

I've decided to take those chunkier squares apart so I can reuse the yarn elsewhere in the afghan! Here are a few I've already unravelled:

On the left is Anemone, then Bulaklak, and Bloem on the right. There was also a block called Granny Flower, which I thought I had a picture of, but it turns out I forgot to take one.

Even if the squares themselves no longer exist, I learned a lot from the experience of making them and they will still get to be used in other ways!

Now that I've reached the end of the book, I've gone back to the beginning of Granny Square Flair to double up on the flatter squares so I'll have enough for a nice, big afghan!

So far, I've made a two squares each of the Deco, Salish, and Happy Hexie patterns, and it's been a lot of fun to play with colour placement and see how the square changes!

While making these duplicate blocks, I realized my stitching has changed after all the practice I've had, and many of my early blocks finished smaller than those made more recently. As a result, I've had to restitch some of those earlier blocks to make sure all of the squares turn out roughly the same size, which is why the top Happy Hexie block in the photo is missing it's outer two rows.

There's still lots of crochet left before my afghan is finished, and I can't wait to keep going!

My squares are based on a variety of patterns from Granny Square Flair by Shelley Husband.

Meara's Mending

In addition to the projects I've already got underway, I've decided to revisit some mending!

Meara's blanket has a lot of holes in it from when she was a puppy and used to chew on it. Now that she's more grown up, I trust her not to eat quilts anymore!

I'm actually just finishing a patch I had started a number of years ago. Here is the front, which I've finished piecing, but I never covered the back or quilted the layers to secure them.

So now, I'm piecing a backing design inspired by the original pink, white, and yellow plaid fabric!

I decided to use the Mistletoe block from the Hexie Harvest quilt I made a few years ago! It's fast and easy to make, and creates an interesting woven effect when multiple blocks are tiled together, sort of like the original plaid!

So far, I've made one block using various scraps, but I'm looking forward to making a few more soon!

Mistletoe is a pattern from the Hexie Handbook by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth.

Quilting Groups

Some of the progress I've made recently has been stitched while meeting with local quilting and fibre arts groups!

The closest one I've found is a group that meets weekly at my local library! I've gone to visit them a few times, though I did get sick and miss a few weeks, and have discovered some of the regular attendees live very close to me!

As for larger, more formal quilting guilds, there aren't any quite as close as I'd hoped, but there are two within an hours drive!

One is a smaller, rural guild—the East Lake Simcoe Quilt Guild, which I've visited a few times as a guest before we moved—and the other is in a larger urban area—the Orillia Quilters Guild, who hosted a quilt show earlier in the month that I was able to visit!

Membership in guilds of different sizes has different benefits, so it will be nice to try both guilds and see if there's one in particular that I prefer. At this point, I've joined the OQG, which runs on the calendar year, but I'm going to wait and join the ELSQG in the Autumn, since they run on the school calendar.

After I've had some time to settle in and experience the unique opportunities that both guilds have to offer, I'll be able to decide if I want to continue with just one or both of them!

Of course, I'm still a member of the Mississauga Quilters Guild since it gives me a good excuse to go visit my Grandma for a few days each month!

Now that I'm getting settled in and learning more about the area, I'm hoping to have some new inspiration, connections, and opportunities to fuel my stitching in the future!

Friends, if any of you are members of the groups I mentioned, please let me know so I can come say hello!

And as you continue to work on projects of your own, please keep sharing your progress with me in the comments below, by email, or by tagging me on Instagram so I can see what you're posting about!

I can't wait to see what we'll make together next!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA