March #focuscuttingsewalong roundup

Hello everybody!

So after realising when I was writing my October roundup that I couldn't link to the March one because I hadn't written it yet, I decided to make the one outstanding block and rectify that. So here are the 5 blocks I made for the March theme of Orange, which were obviously not all made on time.

Week 9 was a freestyle week to celebrate International Women's Day. This is the one that for some reason I only just got around to making. Here is my block.

It is intended to represent Mary Anning, the fossil hunter and early paleontologist. I particularly wanted to include the word 'extinct' as her work helped to demonstrate the concept of extinction.

This is the second time I have done a block representing Mary Anning, you can see the previous one here.

Week 10 was orange identifiable motifs. I made 2 blocks.

Like purple, orange is a good excuse to pull out some of the fabrics I am using in my Halloween La Passacaglia quilt. So first up, we have these spooky white cats.

This is a fabric my Mum gave me last year, and she gave me loads of it by my standards, at least a full metre if not a bit more (I rarely buy more than a half metre if it's not for a background, backing or garment) So it's going to be cropping up in my projects a lot.

And next up we have these mummies.

This is the block you got a sneak preview of in my October roundup post. You can also see how I used this fabric in last year's sewalong here.

This is a Spoonflower fabric, and one of the few of theirs where I have been happy with the saturation levels of the colour. I tend to find their colours come out a bit washed out, which is why the designs in my own Spoonflower store mostly have white backgrounds (and those that don't, I am assured of the quality of the colours that come through). I like Spoonflower a lot, but I do make my colour choices very carefully.

Week 11 was obscure sections. I made 1 block for this prompt.

This is actually another one of my Halloween themed fabrics! Here's the original fabric with the section indicated.

Cat's bums! They do make a great swirly pattern, though.

And finally, week 12 was pattern matching. I made one block for this prompt.

This is a Harry Potter licensed platform, for those unfamiliar with the story, Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station is where you go to catch the Hogwarts Express. This was a slightly trickier matching job than I thought it would be, but overall I am pleased with the result.

So those were the blocks for March, but they were very much made scattered throughout the year. I am making such good progress on this year's sewalong as a whole, even if it is a lot out of order. Here are all the blocks I have made so far (including several I have yet to round up on this blog) in the layout I have planned.

It's going to be a rainbow! As you can see, I have started sewing some of the strips together with filler squares. As long as I don't make any more green ones, there are 21 more blocks needed than what you can see here, and I have made two since I took the picture. Hopefully I might have an actual quilt top together for this quilt relatively early in 2024!

Those two blocks were both for Animals month in August, so I think I am all caught up for that month as well, so hopefully there will be another roundup from me soon! (Don't hold out too much hope for November's roundup coming in the next week though. I'm still missing two blocks there).

Thanks for reading!