March PHD Update

Hi Quilting Friends,

Happy March! The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, and trees are producing pollen like crazy. The outdoors in Houston is always the best in March.

The best news for me is that my allergy shots seem to be working and my eyelids have NOT started swelling (so far). I’ve even put it to the test by spending time outside working in the garden on a day when the pollen count was extremely high, and it was no problem. What a blessed relief!

We had a nice, relaxing Spring Break! I had lunch dates with a couple of friends that I don’t see often, and spent some time outside in the yard. We worked a jigsaw puzzle that I received as a Christmas gift, and had a couple of family game nights. I read two excellent books (“The Nature of the Beast”, by Louise Penny, & “Something to Hide”, by Elizabeth George) and I thorougly enjoyed having no alarm clock in the morning. I wish that it could be Spring Break more often. I’m thinking maybe every week. . .

I’ve started my “Countdown to Summer” at school; we wrap up the year on May 26, so we have 7 weeks left. “Senior-itis” has started to rear its ugly head, and the struggle is real.

In between everything else in life, I’ve squeezed in some stitching time. Here’s my March update-

PHD in 2022 Project List

Project #2: “A Time to Play” Wall Hanging

Yay! I found “the” brown batik fabric for my tree’s trunk! A return visit to the quilt shop met with success, so now I can resume my progress. The applique is fused and I’ve added the borders. I love how it is turning out! Now it is “A Time to Quilt”, LOL, and I’ll get to it soon. Here’s a recent picture-

Project #6: Star Party Sampler Quilt

I’ve started stitching, and have finished the two 15″ x 15″ and seven 12″ x 12″ blocks! I decided to work my way from largest to smallest block sizes to ensure that I have pieces that are large enough for each block. I love the intense colors of the fat quarter bundle that we chose for this project!

I won’t share a complete photo of the blocks that I’ve made so far, since this is “secret sewing” for our 2023 “Star Party Sampler” sew-along, but I will provide a “sneaky peek” that shows just the star points of some of my blocks-

Project #8: Diamond Star Quilt

I’ve purchased the fabric for the back of the quilt, and it is SO BEAUTIFUL! Nope, the top isn’t finished yet. I still need to choose fabric for the setting triangles, decide what (if anything) to use for borders, and then get it pieced together. I won’t share a picture today, since there really isn’t anything to see here.

Project #9: Scrappy Christmas Quilt

Ta-done! My “One Monthly Goal” for March was to finish this quilt, and here it is.

Project #14: Crayon Box Scrappy Quilt

I’ve finished sewing the blocks together to make the quilt top. As you can see, I went a little wild with the color selection from my 2″ wide scraps. My only rules were that I couldn’t place any color adjacent to itself or use the same fabric twice in a block, and I mostly stuck with them if I was paying attention. I’ve always had difficulty with “random”, but with my rules in place it has worked out just fine.

I’ve finished quilting, straight lines in the sashing and cornerstone squares, and more quilting inside each block. My “One Monthly Goal” for April is to complete the scrappy binding to finish up “Crayon Box”.

New Projects

Here are pictures of the pretty tea cozy that I made for the “Tickled Pink” and “Time in a Bottle” blog hops.

Ongoing Projects

The #RSC 2022 color for March was yellow or gold, so I stitched up more blocks to add to my collection-

Sawtooth Star

Carolina Chain Blocks

Progress Tracking

Here’s my updated task list:

Here’s my UFO list for PHD in 2022:

Happy quilting,

Sharon

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal April Link-up

Quilting Gail’s March PHD Report