Project Update: 27.01.2026

Hello Friends and Welcome!

This past weekend did not go at all as planned. We were meant to cross the lake to the cottage for some ice fishing, and meet some friends for skiing and snowboarding, but the absolutely frigid temperatures postponed those plans. We'll be rescheduling to a nicer weekend!

Fortunately, our house showings were not rescheduled, and we got some favourable feedback from one group in particular! Still no offers yet this year, but we'll wait and see what comes!

And since I wasn't nearly as busy as I'd expected to be, I took that cold weather as an excuse to stay home and work on some stitching!

It's been quite a while since my last update, so I wanted to let you all know what I've been up to and show off the progress I've made! Let's take a look!

Midnight Circus Sample Quilt

Back at the beginning of December, I added a new row to my Midnight Circus quilt for quilting!

Since then, I've been working through the uneven matchstick quilting in the background areas of the quilt's sashing. I got most of the way along the sashing before my bobbin ran out and I decided to take a break from the machine to bury some threads!

After dealing with those, I started adding in some accent hand stitching to the background areas with a thicker thread.

This accent quilting doesn't really serve much of a design purpose, I just really enjoy hand stitching!

At this point, I'm ready to get back to machine quilting! I've prepared a few bobbins with my quilting thread and am excited to get back to it soon!

Midnight Circus is my own original design, by Valerie Anne of the Fibre Arts blog.

Old Town Quilt

Since the last update, I've made a lot of progress on Old Town!

I started by piecing together the final two blocks needed to complete the quilt top! These were made with fabric from my Grandma, who has a much larger collection of pale pink fabrics than I do!

Once the blocks were complete, I shifted back to working on sashing strips!

Using each of the different block prints, I made two to three sashing strips from each fabric!

After piecing through all of those, I was finally able to lay out my units and get my first real look at the final design of the quilt!

As excited as I was, I ended up being really disappointed with the first block layout I tried.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that I had placed a few highly saturated blocks right beside some low saturation blocks. Rather than creating a smooth transition across the whole quilt top, the contrast in those areas made the gradient feel clunky.

I also had nearly all my pink quilt blocks in the bottom half and every other colour in the top, creating a very distinct horizontal line through the middle of the quilt.

I stepped away for a few days, then returned to my block layout to try again!

This time, I focused on pushing the highly saturated blocks off to the edges of the quilt so there would be less opportunity for them to conflict with the lighter blocks!

I also shifted the placement of my green blocks from a horizontal shape to a vertical one, which changed the edge of the pink area from that distinct horizontal division to a more dynamic swooped shape!

After making those changes, I'm so much happier with the effect of the quilt top and was excited to start putting it together!

At this point, I've assembled the bottom row of blocks, with all surrounding sashing strips, and am ready to attach the second row of blocks soon!

My Old Town quilt is based on a design by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

The Generations Quilt Project

After so much machine piecing, I was ready to do some hand stitching!

It's been a few months since the last time I worked on my Generations Quilt blocks, and though my blocks are as finished as they need to be, I wanted to make a few more Six Pointed Stars in my Grandma's style!

I already have quite a few Star shapes pieced, so I went right to appliqueing them onto backing squares!

I'm not really sure these extra blocks are entirely necessary, but after meeting up with Mom and Grandma to check in with our progress, I noticed the overall number of Six Pointed Star blocks was much lower than the Dresden Plates.

Even if we don't end up using them, I don't think it's a bad idea to make a few extra Stars!

I finished three more Star blocks in Grandma's style to add to the rest!

I also helped Mom cut out some more pieces for one final Dresden Plate block in her style! I can't wait to see it finished soon!

The Generations Quilt project is based on the traditional Dresden Plate and Six Pointed Star blocks, using templates drafted from extant blocks by Valerie Anne.

Friends, I've had so much fun looking back on my last month and a half of stitching progress today!

I made a lot more progress of Old Town than I remembered, and it's been so much fun to get back into hand stitching!

And I would love to hear how you're progressing on your own projects! Stitched or not, please tell me about what you've been working on in the comments below, by sending me an email, or by visiting me on Instagram!

I always find the work of other creators super inspiring and can't wait to see what you've been up to!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA