July 2022 #focuscuttingsewalong roundup

 Hello everybody!

Another month is over in the sewalong. Our theme for July was Water, and I really liked this theme. I could easily have made more blocks if I had the time. Here are this month's blocks.

We started the month with a completely freestyle week to celebrate being halfway through the year. I made 3 blocks for this prompt.

I used the total freedom as a chance to play with patterns. First up, this green block 

The original fabric has zigzag lines. I like that by arranging them like this it creates a snowflake/star effect. This is a different colour way of a fabric I used for a block in January. The fabrics are from Aldi.

Next up, these blue stripes.

Stripy fabrics are great for focus cutting, bit I do find it hard to fit them into the themes, so freestyle is a great chance to play with these.

And finally, this black and white block.

I am really happy with this one, it creates such a great design, and I think I did a really neat job with the sewing. I am particularly happy with the circle shapes. Here's the fabric I used for it, it has this lovely Art Deco style fan pattern.

I used it before for 2 blocks when we did diamonds in 2019 and those are two of my favourite blocks as well.

I have also realised that I forgot to share June's freestyle special for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee on here. I made 2 blocks for that theme.

Firstly, this one.

This block is designed to evoke the Union Flag with its colours and layout, while also having strawberries, a favourite food of June celebrations here in the UK.

And secondly, these crowns 

Crowns are a pretty obvious royal symbol, and this fabric also has the purple and gold colours of royalty on it.

Moving on to the Water theme. For week 27 we did identifiable motifs. I had a particularly productive week, and made 4 blocks.

Firstly, these sea shells

I also have this fabric in pink, but the blue feels a lot more watery, so I went with that.

Next, these ship helms

I had this fabric picked out as soon as the theme was announced. This block wanted to be made, for some reason.

Some sea turtles

This is made from scraps of a fabric I used to make masks and scrunchies for my little Etsy shop.

And finally, some cute crabs.

I had hoped this would make a nice hexagon in the centre with the grey lines, but that doesn't quite work out at this scale.

Week 28 was obscure sections. I only made 1 block for this.

These are Little Mermaid tails. Here's the original fabric and section.

This is the second time I have used this fabric this year. I also made a block with it in January, for the purple theme. Here's the two blocks next to each other.

And finally, week 29 was pattern matching. I made 2 blocks.

Firstly, Moana.

Two watery Disney Princesses for this month, seeing as the previous block is Ariel's tail. And making this block has meant I have this song stuck in my head.

And secondly, these lighthouses.

I had hoped this would make a triangle effect, and while it does, it's not as clear as I would like.

So that was July! I hoped there would also be a freestyle week on the them me of water, as I have some fabrics I wanted to use that don't really fit into either identifiable motifs, or obscure sections. Especially this one. But that's not how the prompts work this month.

For August, the theme is Movement. I will probably do mostly transport related fabrics for that, unless anything else from my stash suggests itself. August is normally where I start to fall behind on this sewalong, largely due to my kids being off school for the summer. I will have to see how it goes this year.

Thanks for reading!