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Focus cutting sewalong 2026 month 10 roundup

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Hello Everybody! A normal 4-week month has come and gone in the Focus Cutting Sewalong. This time our colour has been grey. I'm afraid I have failed to be excited by the colour (grey is not known for it's association with being interesting, after all) but I do at least have a decent sized stash of it thanks to my ongoing Halloween La Passcaglia quilt (of which more soon!). Unfortunately, I haven't been as productive as I would have hoped, as during our dramatic return from Berlin last month  we seem to have brought Covid home with us, which decided to go through the family one at a time and then leave me with a secondary infection of labyrinthitis which has refused to clear up fully. Fun times. Nevertheless, I have made 5 blocks. Week 37 was identifiable motifs. I made one block. As you can see, especially if you zoom in a bit, this one very much comes from the Halloween stash! These motifs are identifiable and identified to the point of having labels. I love novelty fabric...

Focus cutting sewalong 2026 Month 9 roundup

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Hello everybody! Month 9 in the sewalong is already over. It was a deliberately short month, with our host, Naomi, running two short weeks, to make up for the fact that we didn't actually start this on January 1st. So this 'month' was only three weeks long. The colour theme this time was brown, and I made 5 blocks in total. I struggled with this theme, as I don't love the colour brown and don't have a lot of fabrics to choose from. Week 33 was identifiable motifs. I made two blocks. First up, little monster faces! I haven't cut this out of a larger motif - this really is the full motif on the fabric. They look so happy! Secondly, acorns. I picked up this fabric at the Festival of Quilts because I correctly guessed brown was coming up soon as a prompt and I knew I was low on fabrics for it. And these are very brown and autumnal. Week 34 was obscure sections. I made one block. Can you tell what it's from? Here's the full fabric. It's a dinosaur! But wh...

Focus cutting sewalong 2026 roundup month 8

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Hello everybody! With the excitement of the Festival of Quilts over, I have been back to my regularly scheduled focus cutting. This past month, the colour has been green, which has been a pretty easy one for me. I made nine blocks in total. I took this on a patch of grass in my garden that is almost always shaded and has therefore managed to just about stay green over the summer. Week 29 was identifiable motifs. I made 3 blocks. First up, house plants. What could be more emblematic of green, than a leafy plant? I like it when I can create a bit of a shape with the identifiable motifs, I like the fanned X-shape created by the leaves here. Second, she sells sea shells on the sea shore. This is an old Tula Pink fabric. The colour is well on the way to being almost more teal/blue than green but the rules here just aren't that precise. And it wouldn't fit on my overflowing blue shelf anyway. And finally, some frolicking horses. On closer inspection, these might possibly be unicorns?...

The 5th Genevieve Awards: The Festival of Quilts 2026

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Hello everybody! Welcome to the Genevieve Awards! Another year at the Festival of Quilts has been and gone. I was exhibiting again this year with my I Spy a Rainbow quilt in the Contemporary category. Me with my quilt - photo kindly taken by a passing steward As usual, the halls were packed with many stunning quilts of all descriptions, and I took a gazillion photos (actual number - 1717). There was a new category this year - Original Design - which allowed quilts of a multitude of styles as long as the design was original. And also as usual, while the prize winners were absolutely amazing quilts that I could not have made myself, I still disagreed with the judges choices. Which brings us to the Genevieve Awards. These  are awards I give to the quilts on display at the Festival of Quilts. The only prize for them is the knowledge that I like your quilt. I make up the categories, I decide which quilts go in to the categories, I decide who wins. These are the 5th awards (you can also...