Hello, friends!

You may have noticed that I never wrote in early April about finishing my March UFO project. There’s a really good reason for that- I did not actually finish my March project in March! I was a bit caught up in the Corona fog, supporting my kids and trying to settle in to some of our new routines.

April brought some new structure, the realization that my kids would not be going back to school, and lots of productivity. I was able to catch up on my UFO challenge, develop and present (via Zoom) a new workshop, and like most of you- make lots of fabric masks for my friends, family and community.

Here’s a look back to what I said at the beginning of the year about March’s project:

“7- Riley Blake Alice quilt: Another Alice quilt with only two blocks made. I’m using the 2020 Quilter’s Planner Sampler pattern for this one and a bundle built around the Wonderland fabric collection from Riley Blake.”

So my task was to finish out the remaining 10 blocks and assemble the quilt top. It was fun working with the pastels and rabbit-themed fabrics leading into Easter, but after Easter passed it took me another week to assemble the top.

I’m looking forward to quilting this and having it ready to go in my living room next spring!

I love the Quilter’s Planner Sampler pattern this year- there’s a lot of interesting elements that move your eye around the quilt top.

Catching up on March’s project put me a bit behind starting April’s. Here are the details about April’s project from my UFO post in January:

“1- Sister Sampler Quilt: This is a quilt top waiting to be quilted, bound, and gifted. I want to gift it in September, so if this number doesn’t come up before then, I’ll have to finish it early.”

Because I was feeling behind schedule, I was glad to only have to finish a top instead of piece an entire quilt. Unfortunately, I can’t rent the long arm at my LQS right now so I was going to have to quilt this at home.

I had a few options for quilting thread, but this light orange was the clear winner…. it just popped against that quilt top!

The free motion quilting went a lot quicker than I expected which was good because I really was down to the wire on this one. I finished it at like 5 pm on April 30th!

This challenge has been so good for me. After having a month like March where I barely sewed anything fun, this really helped me to get the motivation to get out of my rut and take pleasure in making beautiful things for my home and the homes of people I love.

May’s project is underway, and I look forward to sharing more about it soon.

In the meantime, Happy Sewing! ~L