January 2022 #focuscuttingsewalong roundup

Hello everyone!

I am joining in with Naomi Clarke's Focus Cutting Sewalong for the fifth year in a row! And I am trying to keep up with doing it every single week again.  This year we are sewing kite shapes into hexagon blocks. Here's my papers and my homemade template.

I am using one-inch kites. These are one-inch along their short side. I've deliberately chosen smaller sized pieces then I have previously worked with in this sewalong. This is due to the fact that I have struggled a lot with the 'obscure sections' prompts when working with larger sized pieces, and I am hoping by going a bit smaller I will make it easier on myself. The flip side of that is that each block is only a 2-inch hexie, so it will take quite a lot to make a decent sized quilt.

So on to the blocks!

The January theme was the Pantone Colour of the Year 'Very Peri' (peri being short for periwinkle, the flower) but we could interpret this as any sort of purple or blue-purple that we liked. 

I have quite a large purple stash, largely due to my ongoing Halloween La Passacaglia quilt, so this was very easy for me to find fabrics for. Although it does mean I have been doing more Halloween-themed sewing in January. And as you can see from the picture at the top, I may have gone a bit overboard as I made a grand total of 15 blocks this month. This is going to be a long one, folks.

Week 1 was identifiable motifs. I made three blocks for this week.

Firstly this sunshine block.

I like to do something happy and welcoming to start off the sewalong, as we also do introductions on Instagram for the are new people joining us. These suns seemed to fit the bill. The fabric they come from also features llamas, cacti and houses but I don't have very much of it left, so suns was about the only motif I could actually get 6 of out the remaining scrap.

Secondly, I used these purple anchors

I made this one not so much to focus on the anchor motif, but because I knew the dotted lines would create a nice start shape when the pieces were put together. I am happy with the overall effect of this one.

And thirdly these blobs:

These purple blobs are from a small fabric scrap sent for me to use in my Halloween La Passacaglia quilt. They are in one of the large rosettes for that, you can see when I added them in the photo with my hand in it in this post. So I made this block to try and use up some more of this fabric.

Week 2 was obscure motifs.  This is where we take a section of a motif to create a pattern without making it obvious what the original motif was. Again I made three blocks.

First up is this block.

This is the fabric I used to create it.

This is a Tula Pink fabric from here recent Curioser and Curioser range, it's her interpretation of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. It was gifted to me by my brother for my birthday. I had it picked out for this prompt as soon as the theme of purple was announced. Tula Pink fabrics work particularly well for obscure sections prompts, this is the first of two this month.

On the the next block.

I think I did really well in obscuring the original motif on this one, I am really proud of myself. Scroll down to see what the original fabric was...

It's the Hogwarts Express! I have an insanely large collection of licensed Harry Potter fat quarters (thanks Aldi!), it was good to find a use for one of them. I do have an idea in my head for what to do with them, but I really need to clear the decks of some of my other projects before starting anything else new.

And lastly for week 2, another Tula Pink block.

This is what the original fabric looks like, it's the Sugar Skulls from her De La Luna range, and I have isolated a section of the teeth for the block. The flower in the middle is created by the nose cavity.

This was one of the first fabrics I bought when I started making my Halloween La Passacaglia. The skulls teeth are also what I am choosing to highlight in that quilt as you can see in this post. 

I also really liked the way this one looked before I basted the fabric to the paper pieces.

This shows you what pattern you could get if you used pieces that were a quarter inch larger, which I find quite interesting. Here's the same for the Hogwarts Express block:

Week 3 was pattern matching. As this was a new shape, I decided not to try matching across all 6 kites in one go while I got used to it. I made two blocks.

First up is this Halloween scene

This is using another one of the birthday fabrics from my siblings. I have made this in two halves - the top half and the bottom half are two different parts of the same fabric. I got a few enquiries about this fabric on IG, so for anyone who's interested, it's a Lewis and Irene fabric called Castle Spooky.

And secondly, this one, using another Tula Pink De La Luna fabric.

For this one, I have matched three pairs of kites. I really like the triangle effect the leaves make.

And finally Week 4 was freestyle. For this week I went completely crazily blocktastic and made 7 blocks.

First up, this one.

In my opinion, this is the sort of block that freestyle week is made for. The fabric has zig-zag lines on it, rather than motifs, so it doesn't count as either identifiable or obscure motifs. And it is not pattern matching, that is re-creating the original pattern of the fabric, even in part. But it makes such a cool effect, so it needs to be made somewhere. It's place is here, in freestyle.

That being said, I am hoping we get some geometric or lines prompts later on this year, because they are lots of fun.

Next up, is this Under the Sea themed block

This is maid from a licensed Little Mermaid fabric. My focus when cutting this one out was the effect made by the lines of seaweed, which is why I left it for freestyle week. But the little seashells and flowers could technically have counted under identifiable motifs, I guess. Not that it matters, because freestyle is also a chance to do things you didn't notice earlier in the month.

Third is another Little Mermaid one.

This one uses a section of the fabric that shows off the underwater palace of King Triton. I really like the flower effect it makes, and the ombré part in the middle of the flower.

Looking back at some of my old posts, it turns out I used a different section of this fabric for obscure sections back in the 2019 sewalong - take a look at some mermaid tails in diamonds here.

The next block is another Halloween fabric block, although it's a little less obvious.

When I was cutting the fabric for the pattern matched Halloween scene above, I noticed I could get this section of spooky vines out of the same fabric. So here it is!

Next up, these cheeky rodents!

I had decided to stop making blocks for this month, but then one of my friends on IG used this fabric for a pattern matched block, so I had to make my own block with it (and somehow two more blocks also got themselves cut out). I only have a small amount of the fabric left, but it was still enough to squeeze out this block. I used this fabric for pattern matching myself in the 2018 sew-along (you can see the block, and another with a cheeky mouse playing peekaboo in my post here).

Next up, these bugs

I like these bugs, they are lots of fun and the bright colours really appeal to me. I am happy with the keyhole shape I have created.

And block number 15, the final block for this week, is flowers.

This fabric was from a bundle I was given as a gift a few years ago. It isn't what I think of as my usual style, but I do actually like this block. There are lots of patterns created by the repeated motif and  I like the green centre.

So that's it! Well done to anyone who has actually read every word of this. I seriously doubt I will keep up this level of productivity for the rest of year, but I am hoping to manage more than the minimum one a week most weeks. Next month, the theme is Getting to Know You, which I don't have as many obvious ideas for as I did for 'purple' but I am sure once I get into it, the blocks will start flowing again.

Thanks for reading!

Linking up with The Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More