February 2024 PHD Report

February always feels like such a shock after January. The first month of the year always seems to be so long and then you blink and February is over.  As the month is over it's time to review my progress (or lack thereof) on my PHD in 2024 and link up with P Designs USA for the February report.  The report is about where I expected it to be at this point, so no surprise on my part.

No finishes as yet and one new start.  Looks like I'm going in the wrong direction.  Maybe, maybe not.  There has been good progress on a lot of fronts, but not enough to get me to a finish. But I'm close. 

Scrappy Butterflies (self designed) was sent out for quilting early in February. 

  

The quilting is finished, I'm just waiting on it to arrive back from Trudy.  That should mean there is a finish in March.  That will beat last year when my first finish wasn't until September.  

I had hoped 2024 would be much better on the health front than 2023 when my back hindered my stitching time.  This year it's my leg.  Rather than not sew, I pulled out my long term embroidery project and took a few stitches. 

It's hard to see the progress, just a few stitches to finish off one clump of grape leaves and a few stitches to start the next clump.  

There was really good progress on making red blocks for Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) this month. 

Almost half the red blocks are finished now.  Angela at SoScrappy hasn't posted what the color is for March as yet. I'll keep making red blocks until the scrappy color for March is revealed. 

Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter) had been my leader and enders project for most of last year.  The last block was finished about mid month.  

The sashing for this quilt is pieced, so I wanted to wait till the design wall was free so I could lay out the pieces as I sew.  There aren't so many errors if the pieces are taken from the design wall to the sewing machine.  For now, the blocks have been put up in the project box.  Not sure when I'll get back to this quilt.  There are several others closer to finished that will probably come back into rotation before I pull this one out again.   

Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) is almost back on track. 

This may be my favorite Meadow Mist mystery to date.  I'm happy with my fabric choices and love the medallion setting she used this year.  I just need to add another round of blue and white sashing and I'll be caught up with the February clue.  

Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter) has become my new leaders and enders project. 

Back in January, I wasn't thrilled with how this one was coming together. Now that most of the blocks are finished, it's growing on me.  Fingers crossed all the blocks get finished this month.

My time out of the sewing room last week really hit my current quilt along projects hard.  But at least there was good progress on Betty (Meadow Mist Designs) previously in the month.

The first three rows are sewn together, assembly continues on the last two rows. I'm hoping I can get that done today and the borders on it before the deadline ends for the quilt parade. The deadline is tonight, so I'm going to have to hustle to make that.   

Progress on the 2024 Stay at Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail) has been pretty good up till this last week. But I'm not all that far behind. 

Half the blocks for border #5 are finished.  If I work really hard, hopefully I can catch up over the weekend.  

The new project this month is the block of the month for the local guild.  I went back and forth over doing this one, but I liked the setting, so I pulled some fabrics and got started. 

I just caught the error in the corner of the February block. So I'll need to fix that when I get started on the March block.  Both the background and the green on blue have been in the stash for awhile, so I'm glad to finally find a home for them.  

That's 8 projects with progress for this month.  Not shabby at all.  Betty and the SAHRR have been my priorities, but it's good to see that most everything else moved along pretty well too.  Not a lot of new blocks colored in on my progress map, but a few. 

Fingers crossed that the top line is all the way across by the end of the month.  Since the quilt alongs for Betty and the SAHRR end this week, I'll need to decide what's next.  Do I loop back and start in on the quilts that just need backing and prep before they can go out for quilting, or do I keep the focus on the current projects and move those to finished first?  Maybe a little of each?