2024 Monthly Recap: April

It's always a rush when a new pattern is released, and I'm pleased to announce that this month I released my newest quilt pattern, Windsuit.  I've talked about it a lot on here, and it's wonderful to finally share it with everyone!  I didn't get a lot of other sewing done this month because I spent a lot of time on the computer, but my new second monitor did help a lot with my productivity!

Quilt Tally
WIP List at beginning of month: 11
WIP List at end of month: 10
Untouched in 2024: 4
Active QAL Projects: 1

Quilts Finished

Solids Challenge Quilt (February 2024) - Blog Post Coming Soon!

Quilts Started
None!

Quilt Progress (4 WIPs touched)

Under the Sea - I started this quilt block almost two months ago and it's finally finished!  I normally change out my thread color when I'm doing paper piecing to match the piece of fabric I'm adding (so many thread changes in the red crab), but since the teal crab was so close in color to the background I didn't bother and it went together much faster!

Test Block Sampler and The Rest of the Quilt Back Row - This month I designed a chevron-inspired triangle block that features the never-ending purple back from the Cool Mittens version of Bernie's Mittens.  I've also decided that I need a little bit of cohesion in this scrappy quilt, so I'm planning on using black in all my rows and as my sashing color.  Using black should be fairly easy because I prefer a darker color on the back of my quilts (or at least I did until I became obsessed with backing all of them with flannel instead).  The horizontal sashing is an off-cut from another quilt back but I can't remember which one!  It's about an inch wider than my quilt rows and I had just enough to cut eight sashing strips so I think it was meant to be!

Blocks made for my memory scrap quilt.  I didn't have any new blue fabrics for my leaders and enders quilt this month!

Miscellaneous Accomplishments

Hanging Sleeves! This isn't something I normally have to do, but I actually ended up making hanging sleeves for three different quilts this month.  Garden Stars and Mother will be hanging in a quilt show this June (more about that later if you want to see them in person) and Chattermax was just too heavy to hang with my normal safety pin system.  Chatterbox's sleeve isn't in this photo because he's already hanging up in my house!

While procrastinating about sewing the hanging sleeves on, I spent some time cleaning my sewing room up.  All the solids from the HST challenge quilt got put away (and then I had to pull the lime green back out to make the sleeve for Chattermax - oops), and I came across this flannel leftover from the back of the Ducky Irish Chain quilt.  A friend of mine is having a baby this summer and planning on cloth diapering so I sewed it up into some cloth diaper wipes as part of her baby shower present.  It's nice to turn it into something useful instead of adding it to my flannel scrap bag!

I also did some craft sewing - my family attended a speed puzzle competition and we were encouraged to "dress like our puzzles".  My husband, oldest son, and sister-in-law made a graphic color block puzzle and myself and my two younger sons made a boathouse puzzle.  Most of the competitors were adults, and my team won!  We beat the second place team by about 15 minutes.  It was a lot of fun.

Looking Ahead

I'm taking a brief break from writing new patterns to learn how to make print patterns ahead of my talk on a pattern-design panel this summer.  I also joined two different cross-stitch stitch-alongs and one new quilting quilt-along this month, all of which start in May.  I guess I was getting tired of the things I'm working on currently!  I also need to make a baby quilt to go along with the baby wipes that I already made for that baby shower.  May is going to be a busy month!