May 2022 #focuscuttingsewalong

 Hello everybody!

Another month has gone by in the sewalong. May's theme was animals. This is always one of my favourite themes. I made 9 blocks this month.

Looking at them all together, I seem to have leant towards red/orange/purple colours this month. That wasn't planned, it's just how it seems to have turned out. Although the focus on purple in January is making me look more at that part of my stash. Anyway, on to the blocks.

Week 17 was identifiable motifs. I made 3 blocks for this week, although I could have made many, many more.

First up, bats.

Animals is another good excuse to use the many Halloween fabrics I have hanging around for my Halloween La Passacaglia quilt. This uses a Tula Pink De la Luna fabric that you can also see here.

Next, cats.

This fabric is a fairly recent gift from my mother, so I have yet to add it the the La Passacaglia, but rest assured it will feature in that quilt somewhere.

And finally, toucans.

Not even remotely Halloween related, but these guys are just lots of fun. And I like that they make a Catherine Wheel effect in this shape.

Week 18 was sections from the top half of animals (there's a reason it's this specific as you'll see for week 19). I made two blocks for this week.

Firstly, this one.

We weren't actually required to make the sections obscure as that is sometimes not really doable with animals, but I think I did quite a good job of obscurity with this one. These are rabbit heads. Here's what the fabric looked like before I cut it.

And here's the section I used.

Incidentally, I made a similar block during the 2019 sewalong, using the tops of the owl heads from the same fabric. You can see it here.

And secondly, this block.

I think it's a bit clearer that these come from owls, but in case the psychedelia of the colours had you fooled, here's the original fabric and the sections to prove it.

Week 19 was the extra fun week. For this week, the prompt was sections from the bottom half of animals, colloquially known as 'butt week' (not a phrase you want to Google unless you are very brave or have properly thought through the connotations). I had loads of ideas for this week, and ended up making 3 blocks.

Firstly, some different rabbits for these bunny butts.

Here's the original fabric. I alternated which way the bunnies were facing so that the head parts would come together at the sides of the pieces.

I really liked the way this one looked before I pasted the pieces, it created a star effect in the centre.

Next up, the lower wings of a butterfly.

I am happy with this block, I like both the pinwheel effect of the centre, and the framing effect of the partial wings around the outside. Here's the fabric before I cut into it.

This one also looked pretty cool before I basted the pieces, with a completely different effect in the middle.

And lastly for this week, this orange block.

This uses the same cat fabric that I used above under identifiable motifs. I used the curly tail of one of the black cats for the section. I liked that this section really was obscure, as the rest of the pieces were taken up with cross signs and lightning bolts, rather than other cats. Here's the cat whose tail I used.

I could have made many more blocks for this week, I find the fun of this idea very inspiring. Here are a few other fabrics that were given serious consideration, but I ultimately didn't have time for. Maybe they will get made if I decide I need more blocks when I work out how I am going to turn this into a quilt.

For week 20, on the other hand, the prompt was pattern matching, and my inspiration utterly deserted me. Here is my one block.

It is grey, uninspired and uninspiring. It fits the brief, and that's it. My husband described this block as 'dutiful'. Following my rant about pattern matching and this shape last month, I am feeling so down about the whole idea, I just couldn't see anything that would work in my stash. Maybe that will improve as the months go on, but honestly I don't really see it getting much better. I expect my future pattern matched blocks to be dutiful (although probably less grey, because I just don't have that much grey in my stash).

So that's been May! For June, we have a one-week freestyle special celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, and then the theme for the rest of the month is Sound. I am happy with that theme, it's concrete enough for me to work with and I already have a mental fabric pull of musical fabrics and some animal sound fabrics that are likely to feature dependent on the specifics of the prompts. It should be fun.

Thanks for reading!