It's time for another report on my Quilty 365 progress. Here are February's blocks, laid out to mimic the calendar page. I'm still hand-appliqueing each of my blocks, but it might be time to try some machine applique. Although hand-stitching is soothing, time constraints and wrist strain can be negative influences on the process.
Mardi Gras influenced a lot of my fabric choices this month. Purple, green and gold are the traditional colors of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, so I had fun playing with some favorites from the stash! I don't really care for most commercial Mardi Gras fabrics (you can only toss beads, masks and confetti on a black background a certain number of ways before it gets boring), but I had at least one bit of scrap that became a Quilty 365 block. The other fabrics are all things I've collected over the years just because they feature purple, green and gold. On Fat Tuesday itself, I practiced appliqueing tiny circles to represent Mardi Gras beads.
Another color that featured prominently in February was brown, as that was the color choice for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I realized that after blue, brown may be the next most populous color in my stash. Some of the fabrics are fairly new, others are more vintage, and the brown paisley on the bottom is from a man's shirt I found at an estate sale.
February also had several birthdays. My oldest son, who loves hiking and camping, got the bears and canoe. The Tula Pink raindrops are in honor of the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas (one of her signature songs is "It's Raining"). I have a friend who's nickname is "Grotto"; how often do you find fabric mentioning a friend's name? And the seashells are for my friend Karen, who celebrated her birthday on February 29th - only her 16th birthday - imagine that!
Last but not least, I got to play with some Valentine's Day fabrics. The tiny red hearts on the bottom right might be one of the oldest fabrics in my stash; I still have bits of this print that dates from the late 1980s. The Victorian collage fabric on the bottom left is another oldie. I've had it for years, but never used it because it was too pretty to cut!
That's my circular tale of fabric love for February - 117 blocks to date. I haven't attempted any block assembly yet. I think I'd like to set the blocks on point. If I at least start stitching them up in groups of four, it will speed up the top assembly a little. I don't want to end the year with a daunting pile of 366 individual blocks to assemble!
Quilty 365 instigator Audrey is hosting a monthly link-up for other circle-loving quilters. If you think stitching circles sounds boring, check out the link-up to see all the different ways quilters are interpreting the challenge!
