More happened in April than I realised

As 2025 is a year of travel for me, I knew that from mid-April on, I wouldn't achieve much sewing for about six months.  That's fine as I felt that the first three months of the year were fairly productive.  This post is long, to make up for no posts in May and June.  

I did make a simple top for travelling.  I drafted the pattern from one of my favourite tops - an op shop buy - and I'm pretty happy with it.  A very simple pattern really, although I did forget to allow extra fabric outside the seam allowance at the side seams for the bust darts.  Plan B worked well however!  The purple cotton batik fabric doesn't have quite the same drape as the original top.  

Amelie's quilt received a bit more attention and I finished the plus blocks section of the top, as well as the name letters placed on the background fabric.  The letters are still to be appliqued before the quilt is sandwiched.  (No photo of the letters yet, sorry.)  These two photos show my measuring mistake prior to sewing up the blocks.  The picture on the left shows the quilt at 17 sections across while the right-hand picture shows the quilt with 13 sections across and 17 down.  As some of the fabrics are directional, I had to change the sizing of the quilt.  

  

I also mended a few pieces of clothing - a house dress, a pair of khaki linen trousers, and a pair of blue trousers.  (Or are they pants?  Are trousers a particular kind of lower body garment?  Mmmm, something to research another day.  Maybe I'm showing my age? or something?)

In my sewing room are a few quilts that I've made but not given away or used in the house.  Two of these quilts are now going to new homes.  The first is for a little girl born last year.  I gave her older sister a quilt seven years ago when she was born so I was reminded that the new(ish) baby should have one also.  In 2020, I fell in love with the Swoon quilt block on Pinterest or somewhere, and thought it was worth doing.  I used scraps of fabrics in four colours and used a background fabric that just keeps on giving (I have had it for at least 15 years and I still have some pieces to use up.)  This quilt was the subject of my first blog post.    The other quilt was made back in 2014 as a trial for a larger quilt.  I wanted to use the Little Twister ruler I'd picked up somewhere so tried it out using a charm square pack.  This quilt went together well so I made a larger quilt for a newly born grand-niece.  Again with this quilt, the background fabric is one that has turned up in many of my quilts.  The quilt will go to my daughter's brother-and-sister-in-law for their new baby, due in June while I'm away.  I intend to make a bigger quilt for the baby (with the baby's name on it) once I'm back in Australia for a while.  

Swoon quilt:  37" square

Twister quilt: 30" square

The larger quilt made for Raelene in 2014.  

I spent time in Sri Lanka in April and succumbed to temptation and bought cotton fabric from a weaving workshop near Galle, where the fabrics are woven by hand.  Most of their dyes are commercial but one natural dye they used is from the wood of the jackfruit tree.  I bought three 3m lengths of fabric.  Hopefully each piece will be enough to make something memorable.  

April 2025 fabric tally

Finishes in the month:   batik top = 2.5m; Swoon quilt =  1.75m; Twister quilt = 1.25m  (the quilts are leaving the house so the fabric use is being counted this month.  My fabric tally, my rules!)

Purchases in the month:  9m of handwoven fabric in Sri Lanka  

Fabric used:  - 5.5 m         Fabric acquired:  + 9 m

Running tally for 2025:  - 19.75 m