I feel pretty good about my progress this month. I have two finishes I am happy with and a few steps forward in the UFO department. My biggest finish is the Hawaiian quilt. It is quilted and bound and if the weather wasn’t getting ready to storm, I would be bringing it back to its owner. This is the largest quilt I have ever quilted and what a bear it was. It was so big that I had to fold over the edges to fit it on the frame. I started quilting on it 12/10/23, and finished it on 1/29/24. A little procrastination and the holidays and maybe a little more procrastination, made for a lengthy quilting journey. The actual total quilting time was probably closer to 25 hours. I wrote a bit about its history in this post, when I return it I want to find out more about its history. I cut and used 11 strips of binding, 42 x 11 = 462 inches, and yes it was all machine bound.

I started quilting a Big Dream panel with Wasatch quilting’s digital designs. It is coming along nicely, each petal is a different design. I probably should have done my own hand guided designs, but, I had the set in my digital library. I put a remnant 108 backing on the frame, so there is room for three other small quilts once this one is done. I have a baby themed one, and maybe I’ll get my collage Grey Owl piece on there, finish that UFO from my Asilomar retreat last year. Then I want to get the Indigo Way top done, and a few other small throws. I just need a break from giant quilts before I start the Reunion quilt.

My biggest finish is also my smallest in size (compared to the quilt). The first fabulous house is done, Santas House. I started the next one, Castle, and the third chart “Greenhouse” is on its way to me in the mail. I think I want to stitch the outer border of the greenhouse, so that I can cut the extra Aida cloth off the long side. The 12 houses are stitched on a 3 x 4 square grid, my fabric is 36″ wide, because I didn’t want to guesstimate and come up short. I have a large roll of extra on the side of the hoop, which is cumbersome.

The Swordfish top is coming along too. I finished all the spikes and I am on to the next round with the Drunkards path blocks. I try to do a set or two a day, these sets have 36 blocks, so I am doing 18 of them. The laser pointer at the needle of my new-ish 790 pro is very helpful for sewing on the lines of paper foundation pieced blocks. 

On the BOM side of things, I got one block of the Simple Days and one block of the Message in a bottle quilts done this month. The swordfish project is taking up my sewing area, so I have not gotten to the 365 block quilt. I did go through it and figure out where I left off, and have signed back into the website to follow along once I can. 

We are supposed to get a lot of rain today, I’ll be sewing as much as I can today. Hoping we don’t loose power, as it is pretty windy out there today.

Be Kind.