Patches of Destruxion

 Hi everyone! First off, an apology for saying I was going to blog more regularly and then going silent for months. But in my defence, I haven't been procrastinating for stupid reasons, I have taken on a real-world job which is taking up all my time. But I have still been sewing! And I have not only finished this quilt, but entered it into the Festival of Quilts, so everyone can see over the next few days. Here is my finished quilt using my blocks from the 2023 #focuscuttingsewalong. I have called it 'Focussed Rainbow'. Here's what's been going on with the finishing process! After finishing off the final blocks I needed, I added a border to square off the edges. My initial plan had been a plain border with white or black, but when I put the fabrics against the quilt they didn't look right. Instead, I decided to emphasize the rainbow effect and continue the colours of each row of blocks into the borders. Thanks to the lovely people of Instagram who almost unanimo

 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

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 spo

Hello everybody! Focussing on the Hats Off To You quilt for the Festival of Quilts meant I wasn't keeping up with the Focus Cutting Sewalong. I am starting to catch it back now, and I have finished all my June blocks, so here they are! The theme for June was Lines, which is always one of my favourite themes. I did 7 blocks in total. Week 22 was Vertical Lines. For this shape, that meant the lines along the length of the shape. I did two blocks. First up, this classic interpretation of the prompt. These pink and red stripes form a clear X shape with the paler stripe down the middle. And secondly, these blue lines. I went extra line-y on this one, choosing this fabric with extra chevron lines, in addition to the overall stripe effect. Week 23 was horizontal lines. These run across the width of the shape, making a square effect towards the centre of the block. Again, I made two blocks. First up, this blue block. This was the first fabric I pulled to use for this theme. You can see my

 Hello everybody! January is over and with the new year, we have been doing a new shape in the Focus Cutting Sewalong on Instagram. This year's shape is the honeycomb. A honeycomb is a type of hexagon where all the sides are the same length but the two small angles are 90°. We are joining four of them together to make a cross shape. This has an effect quite similar to the house shapes we worked with in 2020 (yes, I do remember I haven't finished all my blocks for that year yet). I am trying to continue to join in with one block every week like I did last year. I have chosen to work with 1.5inch honeycombs - mostly because when I investigated my collection of papers, this was the size I already had the most of. And there is no sense in buying something different when I already have something perfectly adequate to get going with. I clearly got these off the front of a magazine several years ago. It's a little bigger than is ideal for my fabric selection but I am going to make