November 2022 #focuscuttingsewalong roundup

 Hello everybody!

Another month down in the Focus Cutting Sewalong. For November, we had a one-week freestyle week for Remembrance Sunday, and the theme for the remaining three weeks of the month was Lines. It's not been my most productive month, but I am still keeping up with the sewalong. I made 1 block for Remembrance Day (not in the first picture, because I have mislaid the block), and 6 blocks on the Lines theme.

As I said, Week 45, the first week of November, was a freestyle special for Remembrance Day. Here is my block.

I struggled to work out what to do for this week, as I don't have any poppy fabrics, and I thought my gravestones fabric would be way too morbid. I also don't like patriotic-type fabrics for remembrance, as I feel we should be remembering all the war dead, whatever flag they fought under.

This block is meant to represent a sunset. It's inspired by the following lines from the poem 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

This is actually a remake of the block I made on this theme in the 2018 sewalong. Here you can see the two different-shaped versions of the block next to each other.

Moving on to the much happier Lines theme. Week 46 was vertical lines. The orientation of the lines is with respect to a kite piece positioned so it is pointing down. I made just the one block for this week.

This uses a licensed Mickey Mouse Christmas fabric. This was clearly the best orientation for these lines, so that the mouse head silhouettes would be the right way around.

Week 47 was horizontal lines. Orienting the lines like this creates hexagon shapes when you join the six pieces together. I made 3 blocks.

First up, this simple yellow and white block.

This is an Aldi fabric. This block makes me think of honeycombs.

Next up, yellow and blue triangles

This one feels a lot jazzier, but at the end of the day, it is a stripy fabric, so you still get a hexagon effect when you orient the lines like this.

And finally, a rainbow stripe block.

This block is using scraps left over from the fabric I used in the border of this cushion.

And finally, Week 48 was diagonal lines. Lining the stripes up with the diagonal gives a windmill effect with this shape. I made 2 blocks.

First up, this purple block.

This is actually the second time I have used this fabric in this sewalong. The previous time was in the purple theme in January when I made a horizontal lines block. I also used a green version of the fabric to make a star/snowflake effect in July. Stripes and zigzags are really versatile when it comes to focus cutting!

And lastly, this blue-green block:

I am really happy with this block. In addition to the windmill effect, the white triangles make a secondary pattern of a hexagon shape within the block.

So that's November! The December theme is Christmas (or Holidays, or Winter, as we prefer). I have certainly got plenty of fabrics that fit the theme. I am really hoping to keep up with the sewalong until the very end - if I do it will be the first time that I have managed to do every block on time! But obviously, December is a very month for me. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!