December #focuscuttingsewalong roundup

 Hello everybody!

The new year has started, as has the new shape for Naomi's sewalong (which I am doing again), but I am still trying hard to catch up everything from 2023. I have a quilt top that is starting to shape up, and I would really like to get it all stitched together, so I need to finish off the missing pieces. I have finished all the December prompts now, on the theme of Christmas/Winter, so here are my 6 blocks for that month. Even if they are now out of season.

Because I am actively trying to fill in certain colour gaps in my plan, and not make the quilt tops any bigger, I was quite limited in which colours I could use for these blocks. In particular, I couldn't make any more green blocks, and ruling out green in a Christmas theme is tricky! And they don't make Christmas fabrics in orange or yellow, which are the colours I do still need more of.

Week 49 was identifiable motifs. I made two blocks for this week,

First up, these llamas.

I made these mainly to put a smile on my eldest son's face, as they are his favourite animal. It's an Aldi fabric. I did actually use it for the same theme last year.

And secondly, this is what you get when need to find a pink Christmas fabric.

It's another Aldi fabric, and I think it's quite fun, having the Christmas trees zooming off in all directions.

Week 50 was obscure motifs. I made one block for this week.

I think I did pretty well for the obscurity of this one! Here's the full fabric and the section, it's from a scrap my Mum gave me.

Week 51 was pattern matching. This was the one I had outstanding that made me late posting this roundup. Again, I just made one block.

Finding a suitable fabric for this was really difficult, especially with the colour restrictions, but I did manage to find this purple Spoonflower fabric that worked. I only just managed to spot baby Jesus in this fabric. I had thought he was missed out of his own birth scene, but you can spot him in Mary's arms if you zoom in. It's not my best matching job though, so don't look too closely. 

And finally week 52 was a fully freestyle week to end the year with. I used the opportunity to up my count of orange blocks with these two.

Firstly, this paisley pattern.

Another Aldi fabric that I have had in my stash for about 5 years now. I think the shape of the pattern fits really nicely on the pieces here.

And lastly these trombones.

I thought it would be nice to see out the old year with a fanfare. And I like the circle effect in the middle created by the trombones and stars.  This is a lovely soft fabric as well. I used it at the start of 2019 as well, when Living Coral was the Pantone colour of the year.

So that was December! I still have 3 months from last year to finish up, and a couple of bonus blocks to make. But I am really enjoying how this quilt is coming together. This is what it looks like at the moment. It's getting quite awkward to photograph.

Hopefully there will be more from me on this soon!

Thanks for reading!