#focuscuttingsewalong 2021 Unfinished months roundup

Hello everyone,

It's got to the end of the year, and there are still four months for which I haven't finished all my #focuscuttingsewalong blocks. Those were August/September, September, October and December. I am clearly not going to get them finished by the end of the year. So I thought I would show you the blocks I have done for those months so I have got them all recorded.

August and September were divided up so there were actually three themes between the two months. I covered the main August theme of Human in my post here.

The August/September theme was Memories. I managed blocks for two out of the three prompts included in this 'month'.

First up, identifiable motifs. I made this chess block.

The central hexie is pieced from two plain fabrics to feel like a chess board. My Dad is a very enthusiastic chess player, so this block is all about the memories I have playing chess with him growing up. I am afraid that despite practice, I don't seem to have a lot of skill at the game myself.

It was only after I cut the fabric out that I noticed it contains this misprint.

Oops! It's consistent throughout the fabric. 

Chess was also something I had in common with my husband when we first met, and before we were married, I made him this blackwork chessboard (I think I finished it in about 2003). The colours and sizing are chosen to match a lovely set of Reynard the Fox chess pieces that he owns. Our initials are embroidered in the centre (obviously, this is an old pic, I will have to take some better ones and write a proper post about this at one point in the future).

The next Memories block was for the obscure sections prompt.

I am really pleased with how this one turned out, I think I did a great job in making the sections pretty obscure, and creating an unexpected pattern. For reference, these are the fabrics I used (there are two different colourways of the same design, one above the other):

And this is how I cut the sections.

So the Memories aspect of this one is VW Camper vans! When I was growing up, we had VW camper vans as the family car. Which was useful, as I was one of four kids and Mum also childminded so we frequently had lots of kids to pile into the back of a car. We never had any as decorated as the ones in these fabrics, although we did have a bright red one, which acquired the nickname of 'the Fire Engine'. This is represented by the bright red central hexie.

The main September theme was 'My perfect day would include...' I must admit I hated this theme, it feels a little too uncomfortably personal, especially coming hot on the heels of the 'Memory' theme. I managed 2 out of 4 blocks for it, and may yet include one under October's theme.

First up, identifiable motifs.

This represents a nice, long relaxing bath and cups of tea, which would both definitely feature in my perfect day. And currently feature in worryingly few of my days (or at least I don't get to enjoy them undisturbed while they are at the right temperature when they do feature). Such is the glamourous life of parenthood.

And my other block is for the obscure sections prompt.

These sleepy clouds represent sleep, lots of which would be included in my perfect day. Because while my beautiful darlings do all sleep through the night, they wake up at 6am, every day, with shocking regularity. 

This block is a half-hexies remake of the first sections block I made in the 2018 sewalong. I sent the original version of this block to the sewalong host, Naomi Clarke, who then included it in a group quilt. I then remade the block for my Fussy Cutting Forest quilt. Here's the flower and a pic of me (and my daughter) pointing out the block in the group quilt on display at the Festival of Quilts 2018.

Moving on to October next! October's theme was Cosy. I made 2 out of 4 blocks for this theme. The first one I made was for the pattern matching prompt.

The cosy Christmas village fabric is from a scrap my Mum gave me. I am pretty happy with the matching job I did on this one. The blue fabric is a blender from my stash, I think it's another Aldi fabric. I got the idea for the layout of this block when I was looking back at my Fussy Cutting Forest quilt for an Instagram photo challenge. These blocks are quite similar to the hexie flowers we made then so some of the same layout ideas work well. Here's a couple of blocks from that quilt for the sake of comparison.

The final prompt of the month was freestyle. Here's my block.

Something about these toadstools said cosy to me, though I couldn't really explain what. So I turned them into a cosy fairy ring for Tinkerbell. Both Aldi fabrics, although from different bundles.

And lastly, December, where the theme was Winter/Christmas. I managed one out of the four blocks for this month. Here is my identifiable motifs block.

I think these wintry trees fit the bill very nicely. I was running very low on this fabric, so one half hexie ended up being snowflakes instead of a tree. The central hexie is a recently acquired Aldi fabric.

So that's it! I still need to make 6 blocks to have at least one for each weekly prompt of the year. I am not sure when I'll get around to them.  Part the problem with these themes is that I haven't been overly inspired by them, but I have very much been inspired for my Halloween La Passacaglia quilt, so when my precious sewing time hasn't been interrupted by illness or injury (including, but not limited to, all 3 kids being off school at separate times with cold bugs, me also getting those bugs, me spraining my ankle, me falling down the stairs and bruising my coccyx and my husband getting Covid), that's what I have been picking up rather than this sewalong. So unless I am struck by any sudden inspiration in the next month, I would expect to be waiting really quite some time (i.e. years) before you see those last six blocks. After all, I still have outstanding blocks from both the 2019 and 2020 sewalongs to finish off. And I haven't planned how I am going to put these blocks together into a quilt anyway yet, so maybe when I hit on the idea for that it will give me the push to finish the final blocks.

With all the blocks for this sewalong in 2021 now rounded up, on to 2022 and the Year of the Kite!

Thanks for reading!