March 2024 PHD Report

First quarter is over and we are already a few days into the 2nd quarter of 2024.  Since March is over, it's time to look my progress towards a PHD and link up with P Designs USA for the March PHD report. This month the report shows a finish for the first time this year. 

 

Still a long way to go to reach PHD status. But it's nice having the first finish in March versus waiting till September. 

A Flutter was sent for quilting in February.  This quilt was started in 2013, it was my second Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt.  It took almost 11 years to finish it, but I'm very happy with how it turned out. It was worth the wait. There is no pattern for this quilt. The butterfly blocks were paper pieced using a block found in Electric Quilt and the setting is a modified Irish Chain worked out in EQ.  I've loved these blocks since I started them, so this quilt is staying with me.  

Just one finish, no starts, but lots of progress on other projects in March. 

Purple was the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for March. I need a lot more purple blocks for my version of Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter). The RSC color for April is yellow. I have all the yellow blocks I need for my version of the quilt, so I'm going to keep making purple blocks in April.  

Rhododendron (Bonnie Hunter) is back on the active list, barely.  I was able to get the next to last border strips cut and assembled, but only two actually sewn to the quilt. Still that counts as good progress.  This one is close to being a finished quilt top.  Fingers crossed I can make that happen before my knee surgery later this month. 

Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) is now a finished quilt top.  It's the last of my "deadline" sewing till the next mystery starts up in July.  It was a fun mystery and one of my favorites in terms of the final design. Now to find a backing fabric for it, prep it and send it out for quilting. Hopefully that will happen before the end of the year.  

Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter) is my current leaders and enders project. All the A blocks are finished. All that's left is to make the one B block and the 4 setting triangles.  I've had to go back and make the subunits for those blocks.  It's going to be slow going for the next bit. Even so, I'm happy with how much progress I've made on Indigo.  Usually it takes me quite a bit longer to be this close to quilt assembly.

The Just Two Charm Pack Quilts quilt along (Meadow Mist Designs) ended in early March.  My version of Betty became a quilt top just before the quilt parade ended (I was the last one to link up).  This was such a fun project. My blue and purple 2.5" strip bin isn't quite as full as it was. A few odds and ends from the stash got used up too.  There are a couple of other quilts I'd like to make from this book.  I need to finish a few more UFOs before I start anymore scrappy quilts.  

 

The 2024 Stay at Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail) ended this month too.  I finished border 6 in barely enough time to link up with the quilt parade.  I was the last one to link up for the parade. (See a theme emerging here?)  I'm so thrilled with how this year's SAHRR worked out.  Now to figure out the backing and get it send out for quilting.  Fingers crossed it gets finished before Halloween this year.  

The April block for this year's guild BOM needs to be finished, but I was caught up as of the end of March.  I'm wishing now that I'd gone with a lighter gray, the one I picked is way too dark.  Fingers crossed it works out OK.  There's not much of it in the quilt, so hopefully it won't look too bad.  

One finished quilt and three finished quilt tops isn't bad for the end of third month of 2024.  My progress tracker shows longer bars in a few places. 

What I manage to get done in the next couple of weeks will determine what the  report looks like at the end of April.  I'll have surgery on my knee later this month. That's probably going to curtail my progress for a few weeks. Fingers crossed that I'm back in shape and ready to go for May.