It's now the last day of February so it's time for a Recap (well, Part 1 anyway....)

There was so much going on in February: work on some WIPs, some prep for RSC and even a new hobby!  So much that it kept me on my toes but off the blog! 

From WIP to Flimsie

One of the priorities for the month was to once and for all get my "Box Trot" project updated and the top finished.

From this....

I decided on a plan to remove that pieced sashing strip at the bottom right and trim the others even with the bottom block.  The next part of the plan was to extend the width of the trimmed top.  For that, I added clamshells to act as an "inner  border" and a second outer border underneath them using one of the new-to-me fabrics from the line that I had been able to purchase.  All that took some doing and resulted in this:  

...to this!

After this gets quilted, the plan is to also scallop the outer border edge using a new-to-me tool.  Nothing like having an old project introduce you to new stuff!  I already have a quilting plan for it, have pieced a backing and already had batting in house.  So this has now been added to the "To Be Quilted" list!

Backing In Progress

I also had hopes to keep up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month.  The color announced for February was Aqua/Teal.  My problem was that I didn't have any Aqua or Teal scraps in my scrap bins or in the boxes of scraps I got from my MIL.  However, I did know where I had a ready supply of Aqua/Teal scraps --- in my "On Ringo Lake" project box!

When I finished the top for this 2017-2018 Bonnie Hunter mystery, I had lots of scraps and so planned to piece a backing with them.  If you've never done that before, check out this post by former Quilters Newsletter magazine editor Lori Baker or one of Karen Brown's Just Get It Done "After Quilt" videos on You Tube.  Back when I was making the top, I had also found the perfect panel to go with the project and purchased that to use to start off the center of the backing: 

The plan was to use the scraps to piece around the panel.  When the RSC call came, I figured if I got the backing made up, there might still be scraps leftover that I could mine to use for the RSC piecing.  It is turning out to be a fun exercise in Improv piecing which is something I've wanted to do for a while.  I guess this is a good way to start!  

I'm not quite finished yet and now it's too late to do any RSC piecing this month.  So I'll just add it to whatever I work on for the March color pull.  

Set Up For FMQ Practice QAYG

At the beginning of this month, I talked about doing a project in order to do the Craftsy 28 Day FMQ Challenge to practice free-motion quilting on my vintage Singer 401.  I had found a project and pulled fabrics from my "Mod" stash to fund it:

Then I needed to get sashing and backing fabrics.  I picked those up early in the month along with lucking up on a sale at Fabric.com that provided the batting for it (nothing I already had worked for this one).  I waited for the batting to come in and once everything was in house, I began cutting the focus, sashing and backing fabrics in prep for piecing and layering the blocks.  

I plan to layer the blocks individually and stitch them in "Quilt-As-You-Go" style for the practice challenge.  This way I will only have a small (approximately 14 inch square) piece under the small harp space of the machine to work on at a time.  However, even though February was perfect for a daily 28 day challenge, I didn't get all the moving parts in place until mid month -- not to mention having a lot of other irons in the fire by then.  So I decided to hold up starting the stitch practice until March and do it daily then.

What was also supposed to happen once I completed the challenge, was to work on finishing the quilting for my APQ UFO pick for February which was my "Modern Twist" project.  

The last time I worked on this was in 2017 when I  "stabilize stitched" around all the horizontal and vertical seams and started with a little stitching in one of the sashings.  The overall look of the design reminds me of pipes so I wanted to try to evoke different looks of "running water" in the sashings.  

However, much like what happened with my "Hometown USA" log cabin quilt completed last month, I could envision what I wanted but got nervous/stumped on how to execute it.  I'm hoping some of the designs from the Craftsy challenge will jumpstart some ideas while burnishing my stitching skills.  With any luck, the same way that doing the Feather quilting challenge on "Serendipity"  aided me in finishing up "Hometown", I'll get this one finished even if it's a little late!  So it looks like this one will get bumped to March as well.

In With the (Really) New!

Oh, and I mentioned there was a new hobby started:

Yes, I've caved and gotten into Cross stitch!  So far I have one finish (although not yet an FFO) and one in progress with three others planned and supplied.  The more I look around or listen to Flosstube videos (my new Pinterest!), the more projects may wind up being added to the "Future To Do" list!  I'll detail how I got here and where I think this is going in a later post.  

A Few Things Left Behind....

With all of the new squirrels running around my feet, I am sorry to say that what I didn't get to was completing the "Hexie Snowflake" top.  

However, I'm hoping to still try to do some work on that in the latter half of March if possible.  Otherwise, I might not get back to it until Winter rolls around again which might not be so bad either, Lol!  

There were also some additional developing starts that occurred this month but I'll detail those in the next post.  No rest for a busy quilter!