Focus cutting sewalong 2025 Month 5 Roundup

Hello everybody!

It's the end of a very hot and sunny month here in Oxfordshire, and it is once again time to round up the blocks I have been making for the #focuscuttingsewalong. This month our theme has been red. I made 9 blocks in total.

Week 17 started up, as always, with identifiable motifs. I made three blocks.

First up, deliberately timed for Star Wars day on May 4th, Rey.

Getting this one out on Instagram on time is the reason I didn't finish all three identifiable motif blocks together for an outside photo. I have quite a bit of this Force Awakening fabric, so it has featured a lot in my #focuscuttingsewalong blocks. You can see Rey in 2023,  2022, 2021, 2019, 2018 and also in the I-Spy Rainbow quilt I am currently finishing off. I did consider arranging these blocks so I had four Reys standind to attention, before settling on this spinning windmill effect.

And secondly, with all this lovely weather, strawberry season is nearly upon us.

This fabric has several different sized strawberries on it, but this one just fit so nicely into the shape. Here's a pic of the block with the strawberries just starting to come through in my garden.

And lastly, the bonus block for this week, toucans.

This fabric is so bright and fun, I love working with them. Here they are in 2022, 

Week 18 was obscure sections. I have been struggling a bit with obscure sections this year. One of the problems is that it is in the nature of the shape that playing with rotational symmetry can result in accidental swastikas. And this goes even more so with this month's colour palette. I only managed one usable block.

I think I did pretty well on the obscurity front this time though! Here's the original fabric I used.

It's Bo-Peep's skirt! This is obviously some licensed Toy Story fabric. You can see a pattern-matched Woody and Buzz from this fabric here.

Week 19 was pattern matching. I made one block for this prompt.

(Music that is stuck in my head and therefore must now be stuck in yours).

This is my first attempt at a full-block pattern match with this shape. I'm happy with the way it's turned out. I am finding it difficult to get variation in the effects with pattern matching with this shape. The only options seem to be one pair matched (effect is a line with two dots), two pairs matched (effect is two parallel lines) or all four matched (effect is one large motif). Only having four pieces to work with, rather than the six we've had in the hexagon-shaped blocks can be rather limiting.

However, it does also mean I can make lots of blocks quickly, which is how I ended up making 4 blocks for the freestyle prompt in week 20.

First up, here be dragons.

This was one I wished I had time for in identifiable motifs week. These little dragons are so cute.

Secondly, one of my Libs Elliot fabrics.

Is this a motif? Probably. Can I identify it? Not really. So freestyle week is the place for this. I did consider arranging these to make a sort of circle shape.

However, after canvassing for opinions both at home and on Instagram, the consensus was firmly in favour of the X effect.

Next up, this curved pattern.

This is definitely the sort of fabric that freestyle week is made for - one that is more of a pattern than a motif. They do make such beautiful effects when focus cut. I was in a particularly playful mood with the freestyle ones, so this also had another possible arrangement.

There wasn't really that much to choose between the two possibilities for this one.

And finally, some cross stitch hearts.

Our sewalong host, Naomi, used a different cross stitch heart fabric in her example block for this week, which is what inspired me to go for this one. Again, I played around with the arrangement of the blocks here.

I was quite tempted by this possibility, as I liked the concentric squares effect in it.

So that is everything for May! Our colour for the next four weeks is going to be purple, which of course means pulling things out from my Halloween stash again. I'm likely to get a bit behind this month, as I try to get my Rainbow I-Spy quilt ready for the Festival of Quilts (the sign-up deadline is next week) and I prepare for a trip to Kyoto, Japan (!!) at the end of June. Busy days ahead!

Thanks for reading!