Chookshed Challenge report - May 2025

  

(Here's my challenge list at the end of April:
  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt (March)
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt (January)
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. start on Amelie's quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason's quilt (February)
May's number was #8 - and my rulebreaking planning is working out as I worked on Amelie's quilt in early March.  I reported on the quilt in https://patchmaggie.blogspot.com/2025/04/more-happened-in-april-than-i-realised.html

So far - so good.  

For June, Deana has pulled the number #5.   
My number #5 is to quilt and bind R’s quilt. 

So this is how my challenge list looks so far. 
  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt (March)
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt (January)
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. Start on Amelie’s quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason’s quilt
No photos in this post as I’m travelling and find it hard to update posts on my phone or iPad. 

Chookshed Challege 2025 - Deana from Dreamworthy Quilts is one member of the Chookshed Quilters.  Each month in 2025, Deana will select a number from one to ten and quilters work on the project with the corresponding number from their own list.  The main rule for this challenge is that there are no rules, which should work for me as I am away for large chunks of 2025.  For example, if the number six is chosen, and that particular month is a bit tricky to work on that numbered project from my list, I can change the project!  And a goal could be just making minimal progress on a particular quilt.  I like those sorts of rules.  

Here are the links to other participants:




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Chookshed Challenge 2025 - April update

 

Here is my challenge list for 2025 (at the end of March):

  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt (March)
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt (January)
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. start on Amelie's quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason's quilt (February)
April's number was #4 - and my rulebreaking planning is working out as S's quilt is bound and finished!
I reported on the quilt in this blog post




Here's my challenge list at the end of April:
  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt (March)
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt (January)
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. start on Amelie's quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason's quilt (February)
So far - so good.  

For May, Deana has pulled the number #8.  
My number #8 is to start on Amelie's quilt and I have done that!  Yay.  So no need to shuffle numbers for May, I will just report on what I worked on a few weeks ago.  See you at the end of the month.  



Chookshed Challege 2025 - Deana from Dreamworthy Quilts is one member of the Chookshed Quilters.  Each month in 2025, Deana will select a number from one to ten and quilters work on the project with the corresponding number from their own list.  The main rule for this challenge is that there are no rules, which should work for me as I am away for large chunks of 2025.  For example, if the number six is chosen, and that particular month is a bit tricky to work on that numbered project from my list, I can change the project!  And a goal could be just making minimal progress on a particular quilt.  I like those sorts of rules.  

Here are the links to other participants:




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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    




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Chookshed Challenge 2025 - March update

 

Well, my #2 challenge for February is completed (actually finished late last year but I included it on the list as I still hadn't handed it over to the parents.)  That was A's quilt.  Here he is, looking cute with his quilt.



Here is my challenge list for 2025:

  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. start on Amelie's quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason's quilt

What is April's number?  Deana's random number generator chose #4!  So that's easy for this month, as I've already completed S's quilt.  Which is handy as I'm heading away on holiday and won't have time this month to do much sewing.  

Chookshed Challege 2025 - Deana from Dreamworthy Quilts is one member of the Chookshed Quilters.  Each month in 2025, Deana will select a number from one to ten and quilters work on the project with the corresponding number from their own list.  The main rule for this challenge is that there are no rules, which should work for me as I am away for large chunks of 2025.  For example, if the number six is chosen, and that particular month is a bit tricky to work on that numbered project from my list, I can change the project!  And a goal could be just masking minimal progress on a particular quilt.  I like those sorts of rules.  

Here are the links to other participants:


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March is complete

This month, I attended an Unfinished Project Weekend, which went off very well.  So nice to work beside like minded people, bounce ideas off each other, chat, eat some delicious food, and focus on just one thing.  We had three days in a big room where we could leave our machines set up, we were given morning and afternoon teas, and lunch each day, and could stay until 9pm if we wanted to!  I really enjoyed the three days - catching up with people that I hadn't seen in a while, uninterrupted sewing time, and the air-con in the venue kept the 37+ temps at bay.  (Very warm for mid-March.)  

It was hard to decide what projects to take to work on but my final choice was three projects: Roshaan's quilt, Amelie's quilt, and the blue strip twist quilt.  

R's quilt needed quilting and I completed several hours on it but the space didn't allow me to spread it out properly, so I just did the straight line quilting in-the-ditch and diagonal lines across the blocks. I finished the quilting at home.

The blocks for the pink-ish plus quilt for Amelie had been all cut out and laid out on my portable design board (a flannel backed tablecloth) so I worked on piecing the blocks into rows and then into a (partial) top.  However, I must have measured incorrectly last year when I did the layout on the design tablecloth.  I had 16 x 4" squares across the quilt instead of the thirteen I wanted.  So I ended up unpicking three squares from the end of each row and tidying it up.  I have to lengthen the top with another three or four rows and that required more brain power than I had on the weekend.  I will get back to it eventually.  









The 8 1/2" strip blocks were all ready pieced and cut out for the blue strip twist quilt.  See what I did with them here  More photos and explanations as it was my contribution to Scrap Happy Day for March.

Roshaan's quilt:  finished size (after quilting and washing) = 51" x 75" (129.5 x 190.5 cm.)  Pattern is one I have used regularly with I Spy blocks.  All fabrics from my stash.  I quilted the border in a different way - with the walking foot but just meandering slowly down each side three times, crossing over the lines occasionally.  Another quilter at the Unfinished Projects Weekend showed me this and I quite liked it for it ease of quilting and simplicity.  I'm happy I've now finished quilts for the four cousins in that family - now to start on other quilts.  

There was a trading table at the Unfinished Projects Weekend!  Temptation.  I tried really hard to resist but if I bought something it was helping the Days for Girls group (which I'm part of) so I did buy a few bits and pieces.  I couldn't resist a nice piece of batik and a pretty print with birds on it.  There was a 2m piece of a Japanese fabric which would go nicely into my box of Japanese fabrics.   (One day I will make a lovely quilt out of those fabrics!)  I also purchased a stitchery kit of a rooster, with a friend in mind for it.  











March 2025 fabric tally

Finishes in the month:   Roshaan's quilt = 5 m

Purchases in the month:    6m

Fabric used:  - 5 m         Fabric acquired:  + 6 m

Running tally for 2025:  - 23.25 m    (I'm still ahead for 2025!)


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Scrap Happy Day March 2025 - better late than never!

Each month, on the 15th, a group of people post on their blogs about their use of scraps over the previous four weeks.  Generally it is fabric but not always, and there are some innovative uses of scraps displayed.  Kate sends a reminder email so we don't forget to post on the 15th of the month.  See below for details of how you can join in.  It is a great incentive to get things done.

I wasn't at home on the 15th so am hoping that posting this on the 17th will be okay.  

In the last month, I've worked on a few scrap quilts.


Two baby quilt tops from scraps of fabrics used for Days for Girls menstrual health kits.  I had to work with the strip widths I had and the colours.  Bright and cheerful.  I will wait until I have a few quilt tops for DfG before the next steps in turning them into quilts.  


A couple of months ago, I grabbed all the blue-ish 2.5" strips from the strip box and sewed them into dark/light pairs and then into strips of four.  I then cross cut the strips into 8.5" blocks.

The blocks are then cut on the diagonal and sewn together with different pairs of triangles, so the darks and lights alternate.  Trim the blocks to 8" square and lay them out.  


Sew the blocks together and voila!  A quilt top with movement and a secondary pattern in it, and I've used up a bunch of 2.5" strips.  Because I wasn't planning very well, some of the fabrics are lights in some pairs, and darks in others.  However, it still works.  The pattern is one of Bonnie Hunter's scrap patterns, the strip twist   I plan to add a border to this quilt which should make it around 55" x 75", a nice lap quilt size.  When that will happen though, who knows!

Do check out Bonnie's website.  There are heaps of free patterns, perfect for using up all those fabric scraps we can't bear to throw out.  





The bloggers below are all ScrapHappy Day participants, maybe not every month, but their blogs are worth looking at.  If you want to join in too, contact Kate below and have some fun with scraps.  Kate sends a reminder email each month, a few days before the 15th, so you can post about your work with scraps.      



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February 2025 Chookshed Challenge report


February's number was 10 and I've completed Mason's quilt!  Happy that I've done that.  




My challenge number 6 from January is still continuing, with February spent planning the flowers in the next round and then joining them (with their cross) into pairs and then the pairs into fours, then the fours into eights. I'm hoping that my evenings in front of the TV in March will be spent adding the four sections onto the rest of the quilt.  Fingers crossed.  

Deana from Dreamworthy Quilts has chosen the new number for the March challenge.  It is #2 so, as I know I've actually finished that one (in January), I will work on another number.  I will be away from home for about four months this year so will keep the embroidery kit numbers for those months and the quilts I've completed.  (Not sure that I should have started this challenge this year, however it is done now.  We will see how we go.)

My list is as follows:

  1. complete strip sets for blue strip twist quilt
  2. quilt and bind A's quilt
  3. second backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  4. quilt and bind S's quilt
  5. quilt and bind R's quilt
  6. continue flower blocks for J's quatro quilt
  7. complete bunny Fat Quarter Mixer quilt top
  8. start on Amelie's quilt
  9. backstitch embroidery kit (for while I'm travelling)
  10. quilt and bind Mason's quilt


Chookshed Challege 2025 - Deana from Dreamworthy Quilts is one member of the Chookshed Quilters.  Each month in 2025, Deana will select a number from one to ten and quilters work on the project with the corresponding number from their own list.  The main rule for this challenge is that there are no rules, which should work for me as I am away for large chunks of 2025.  For example, if the number six is chosen, and that particular month is a bit tricky to work on that numbered project from my list, I can change the project!  And a goal could be just masking minimal progress on a particular quilt.  I like those sorts of rules.  









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