Summer Recap: May

I hope you had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend!  Now that we've finished celebrating the end of Summer, it's time for me to start looking back on what I did during those very hot months!

May was definitely packed full with many plans, much quilty eye candy around the web and many competing quilty aspirations.  The heat also caused a lot of garden guilt.  I only went out to our community garden on the two days my DH and I worked the opening shift and one other day that month.  It was so hot, I preferred to stay in the cooling A/C whenever possible.    

Thank goodness there were bright spots though:  it was my birthday month and on the Memorial Day weekend DH and I went up to the town where we camped last year to see the opening of their  Transportation History Center.

I also finally took the cover off my terrace table and finally got my terrace planters set up.  

Never did get around to hosing down the deck though.  It was just too hot to sit out there!  

With all that staying inside, there were a few quilty things accomplished:

Back in April, I had talked about the Harry potter quilt I was making for my son.  I did manage to finish the last two paper-pieced blocks I wanted to add to the quilt center.   

PP Block Designs from Fandom In Stitches 

While I liked the stone print I used for the castle block,  the scale of it was too large for the five inch size of the block.  I had used some gradient fabrics for the Sorting Hat block but the effect didn't really translate --- again due to the scale of the block.  

However, I'm still happy with the overall look of both so was prepared to just move on.  I had hoped to complete the layout of the center of the quilt before taking it down from the design wall but eventually realized that it sitting there wasn't encouraging me to work on it or anything else for that matter!  

That month, I also managed to finally get started on the "Realigned" blocks that I want to set up for quilt-as-you-go free-motion quilting practice.  The idea was to do this as a daily practice but making and then layering the blocks was a lot slower going than expected....

Figuring I could "kill two birds with one stone" when I pieced the blocks, I leader/ender-ed them with my RSC Rainbow Log Cabin blocks that I also wanted to get done:

Needless to say that neither set was completed that month.  So I switched tasks again and got the "Quick Strippie" backing for my "String Beans" top made up.  I am still trying to finish up my version of this Pat Sloan "March Block A Day" QAL project.

Backing Plan: Free Pattern from MaryQuilts.com

I had to widen the back design....

....to fit the top finished in April.

This keeps up with the trend this year for pieced backs.  I had hoped I'd then get right to quilting this but I couldn't decide whether I cared if the quilting complemented the front more or the back.  So that debate stopped all progress on that project. Okay, that's the danger of pieced backs!

The biggest disappointment that month was that I had really hoped to layer and quilt "On Ringo Lake".  I didn't get to it and of course now I'll have to edit the label I pre-printed whenever I do get it done.  

Won't be the first time I did that! 

I had a feeling that pre-printing the finish date would bite me in the butt and I wasn't wrong!  Once again, this comes back to needing to focus.  I can't do it all even if I really, really want to!

I had also hoped to restart work on my 2020 Scrappy Figs BOM as well as start on two new ones I signed up for:  Quiltfolk's "Patchwork & Prose: A Bookish BOM", and Minick and Simpson's "Blue Pear" (the link is for when they announced it on their blog at the beginning of the year).  Of course none of that happened either, sigh!  I will say though, if you are on Facebook or Instagram, check out the blocks made up so far for "Bookish".  People have really been doing some wonderful work on their improv book cover quilt blocks!

Turns out I'm actually glad I didn't get started on the "Blue Pear" because since then, I've decided to change it up a bit and add touches of red --- using M&S fabrics of course!  I got that idea as I watched Pat Sloan's daily videos.  Until recently, she had her "Hometown Charm" quilt hung up on one side of her studio so I often saw it behind her onscreen.  There was something about it I liked but not enough to want to make it.  Then I realized that what I am attracted to is the color combination she used:  Red, White, Blue and Lime!  Well, why not add red to the "Pear" and make that happen!    

Can I give this one a little of the "flavor" of that one?

That hasn't happened yet and I'll have to see if any thing comes of that bit of inspiration in the coming months.

I saw that the RSC color for the month was Blue and since I did that last year, I didn't need it for any of my continuing projects --- well maybe I could have made more of the scrappy hexagons.  

However, I didn't really stress about not keeping up on that.  Yes, the Summer started off with a bang!  Believe it or not, there is more to come in the next Summer Recap which I'll post next week!