February Wrap-Up and March Goals

The American Patchwork & Quilting UFO Challenge for February was very good incentive for me. They chose #9 which was one of my two FREE Months. I could do whatever I wanted as long as I made some good progress. I may have done just that!

My February focus was the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt blocks. Look at all I now have done!

#7 Augusta - FPP

#8 Aunt* - Templates

#9 Autumn - FPP

#10 Ava - Templates

 

#11 Bea - FPP

#12 Becky* - Pieced

#13 Belle* - Templates

#14 Betty* - Templates

#15 Blossom - FPP

#16 Bonnie* - Templates

#17 Bride - FPP

#18 Carol - FPP

 *Pieced during the earlier Sew-A-Long

Aren't they coming along nicely? I even have #19 Carolina all cut out and ready to sew PLUS the next several blocks' pages of directions printed out, whether I'm doing freezer-paper-piecing or Marti Michell Templates.

As for the Mosaics quilt, I've made headway there too. I finished up Border 2 and am almost finished with Border 3. Looking forward to having all four borders under my belt! 

Border 2 Lining Up

Stitching Down
Border 2

Border 3 in Progress

Stitching Down
Border 3

On the knitting scene I also made a lot of progress with my Loopy Academy Senior Year, 2nd Semester projects. The baby sweater needs to be blocked & buttons added to be considered completely done.

From this ...

To this and beyond ...

The color in the first picture is the true color of this adorable little sweater.

While not part of Loopy Academy, I started Sarah's Hobo Mitts in February after finishing up the baby sweater. These mitts were a lot of fun to knit and the pattern name is Phalangees while the knit stitch is called Mosaic. How about that? Two Mosaic projects in one month! 

From this ...

To this!

Not only have these mitts been completed, but they've been blocked and mailed off to Virginia! Ta! Da! Very proud of myself.

Obviously I had to start another knit project. After all, my needles were empty! I've decided to try a sweater for me which would also fulfill a Loopy Academy requirement. It's called Rocio and it'll be a light sweater knit with lace-weight yarn. My progress as of last night is shown below. About 2" of the back. Not much to brag about yet ...

On a couple of side notes, I watched "The Imitation Game" movie the other day. It had been up for several Oscar nominations. Not sure if it won anything or not but I thought I'd share how much I enjoyed it. I really empathized with the two main characters. If you don't like unhappy endings, this movie will not be for you. Other than that, I found it very watch-worthy on NetFlix this past week.

Also I read about Kathy Doughty somewhere on one of the many blogs I read. She is a wonderful quilter currently residing in Australia. However she was born in the USA. Anyway, her book called simply enough "Quilting with Kathy Doughty" is a wonderfully inspirational book. I'm not overly fond of many of her fabric choices but her designs are fantastic. I found a copy of this book through my local library system. If you prefer to have a hard copy, I spied one at Calico Moon in Lebanon IL just yesterday! I think it may be clearanced right now as (sadly) Sherry is going out of business.

There won't be much knitting or machine sewing going on today. After my shower and a quick vacuum job of the downstairs, I'm hoping to catch the St. Andrews Quilt Show in Edwardsville this afternoon. Then I need to be home to catch my sister's phone call around 2pm. Bet I'll be ready by that time to work some more on that third border of Mosaics!!

Keep on stitching!