Post Comment Love 11 - 13 July

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

It’s going to be another hot one though, the UK’s third heatwave this summer. I think a trip to the coast could be in order at some point to cool down, and no doubt plenty of other people will have the same idea. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep cool (and I hope you can too), it is after all the perfect excuse to enjoy an ice cream or two.

My photo this week is my astrantias which are finally flowering - yay! I bought them last year and they’ve been giving me some worry, as I thought I’d lost them in the heat much earlier in the year, but they’re back.

I first saw these delicate but clearly quite determined flowers back in 2014 when we visited the garden at Bosvigo in Cornwall, a private garden that is absolutely beautiful then and I’m sure it still is today. I’d never seen them before, didn’t know what they were, but knew I would have some at some point, and now I do.

Have a fabulous, but cool, week.

Making my Mystery Block of the Month: May 2025

You’ll have seen that I plan to complete Sherri’s mystery block a month quilt and yesterday I shared the test blocks which I made into my seventh charity quilt, today I’m sharing the centre block I made for my own quilt.

And yes, it’s July and I’m only just sharing my May block - holidays, heatwaves and life have played their part here!

In last month’s post I speculated that the next block wouldn’t be a star, and I was right. It’s a flower, though this one looks decidedly less tulip-like, though I think that’s down to my colour choices.

I remembered to pay attention to my seams and I’m happy with how they turned out. They’re not all perfect, but then again this is a flower and not all flowers are the same, and they all still seem to look pretty good.

Head-scratching? Which border…

Even though I have my handy hand-scribbled plan for the eventual quilt layout, I still found myself scratching my head to work out which of the green borders to use, and which side of the block they should go.

It took way more brainpower than it should have, but I ended up with this visual reminder to save me going over it all, and doubting myself each time. It’s not necessarily conventional, but it worked.

I’m pleased with my completed block, and couldn’t resist seeing what it looked like next to April’s block.

I’m even more pleased with this small preview of how the quilt will turn out, and although the green borders are not the same I’m happy with how they’re working out. It’s back to a star for June’s block so I’ll be back to the navy fabrics again, and hopefully I’ll be sharing it sooner than you know…

Join me hopefully later this month to see how I get on with the next mystery block, and check out my previous posts for my mystery block quilt or the charity quilts made from the test blocks.

Pleated Tulips

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project this time using the block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…

And as I said in my recent Quilty Update I’ve realised that this stretch project is dominating my sewing, so I need to work out how to change that so I stand a chance of achieving more of the quilts and other projects on my list. Small steps and all that, but as you’ll have seen I’ve finally made myself a dress, so there’s some hope!

I’m trying not to beat myself up too much for not finishing another quilt, even though I gave myself a bit longer to do this one since we returned from our trip. I’m looking at the positives, which are that given I started this one less than a week ago, it’s already at this stage with only the final steps to complete. And if you say the final steps of baste, quilt and bind quickly, then it really isn’t very much at all!

My seventh charity quilt

Last month I intended to include much more yellow in my Friendly Bee quilt, but when I pulled the materials from my stash it didn’t work out that way, so this month I was more determined. And more successful!

The materials I’ve used in this quilt are parts of four different fat quarters, along with some plain yellow strips from an old netball skirt for the flowers, and some white/gold material as the background and first border which was left over from the backing of last month’s quilt. The pleated yellow border is also from an old netball skirt, which also explains the name. The aztec patterned material is an old duvet cover, and the grey which I’ll explain later was also from an old duvet cover, which I used to back my first charity quilt with Flying Geese. Nothing goes to waste here!

Once I’d drawn lines and pinned the HSTs (half square triangles) in place, it started to make more sense - well perhaps to me at this stage anyway.

Quite quickly four flowers emerged.

I was mildly irritated with myself as I hadn’t managed to match very many of my seams - but as we know, these are test blocks for my Mystery Block of the Month quilt, so at least I knew where I should focus my attention when it came to making that.

I added borders merrily, enjoying getting back to using my machine. This time I used the same material for all of the borders, mostly because I was that intent on having a cheery yellow quilt I wanted nothing to set me off track.

It was only when I laid the blocks out that I saw the nearly matching of the zig zags, which wasn’t my intention. It was close enough that it would look like I’d tried to pattern match, and failed - and I knew it would be distracting to my eye at least. But I also knew I wasn’t going to unpick them and try to get them to match.

So my plan was to add plain sashing to help distract my eyes - and I think it works. Phew.

So there it is, my seventh finished charity quilt top waiting to be finished off which I’m hoping will be relatively soon. My plan is to use the grey, white and yellow aztec print on the back of the quilt and to use that as the binding too, but there’s a couple of steps before I get to the binding.

Look out for the updated post, as I’ll share it again when it’s finished.

You can see my other quilts which I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.