Down the Rabbit Hole (or how many projects can I work on in two days)

Welcome back, once again! I have been sewing, but neglecting to post - I must do better. Heads up, this is an extra-long post.

Thanks to an extra-long weekend, I was able to sew for two full days. I needed to finish the girls Easter dresses, so of course, I pulled out on old project to see where I was at! Talk about being a major procrastinator.

The project I pulled out was the 365 Challenge by Kathryn Kerr in Australia (https://www.365challenge.com.au/). This is what it will look like when it is finished - I'm doing mine in black/grey, red, and white/cream.

She started this challenge in 2016, and I did start it then, but intended it to be a long term project. Here's where I'm at so far - 35 3.5" blocks, and the centre medallion.

Each year she offers the same blocks, but sometimes in a different order. I decided to finish the centre medallion, so I started making the chevron/flying geese blocks when I realized I had some other fabric that would work perfectly with this project. .So far I have made two of the side strips. The fabric from the other project is the words on the right-hand side of the flying geese.

This is when I fell down the rabbit hole - that other project kept nagging at me - all of the fabrics would work so well in this quilt, so I pulled it out.

It was a kit I bought on sale for $25 at my local quilt shop, Hamels Fabrics, about 5-6 years ago. It was a panel and the two fabrics that make up the border. I had also bought some coordinating fat quarters and eventually a great piece of lime green from a different manufacturer/designer also called Wordplay - perfect to brighten up the black/white design.

First, I cut the panel into the individual blocks, then choose specific words from the lime green and raw-edge appliqued them on the blocks.

(my personal favourite...)

Once that was done, I placed strips varying in size from 1.5" to 2.5", log cabin style to bring the blocks up to approximately 13.5". 

Once I had the blocks done, I used my design wall (bed), added a few strips where a couple of blocks were short, and webbed the quilt. By that night, I had the top completed! (still need to press it and take a picture). Now all those fabrics are free to be used in my 365 project!

In between, I also worked on some leaders and enders - Step 4 of On Ringo Lake by Bonnie Hunter:

and 1.5" nine-patches:

 By now, it was Saturday night, and I still had to sew the facings down on the girls' dresses. I put the buttons on and set up their goodies for the morning visit.

We had an Easter egg hunt at the neighbours, and then it was warm enough to even pull out the small pool!

So how many projects did I end up working on? Five in all! If I could only do this every weekend, I'd make progress on my many UFOS!