Making my Mystery Block of the Month: August 2025

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

My challenge for this one was choosing which of the navy fabrics to use, and one that I gave more thought to than normal. This block is quite similar to the patchwork star back in April, but the centre square is made from four smaller squares rather than a single piece of fabric.

My dilemma was whether or not to use the three navy fabrics I had, or to add in some of the other colours from the range, or to stick with one. In the end I went with the latter as there’s plenty of colours in this print, which I hoped would give me the patchwork feel I was after.

I purposely cut different parts of the design and tried to make a bit of a plan.

And after a bit of jiggling about, it worked out ok - well more than ok actually.

Then it was on with the borders, after double checking with my hand drawn plan and another sneak peek of the blocks so far laid out (which I shared in my recent Quilty Update if you wanted to take a look), and before I knew it the August block was complete.

After a quick press it too was hung with the other blocks I’ve made so far. I’ve even caught myself up with my ‘relaxed’ timetable sharing August’s block by the end of September.

Now for the next one!

Join me next 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.

Blues and greens

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project 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 now I don’t want to not achieve this goal I’ve set and so on I go.

This month I’m sharing my tenth charity quilt but it’s now a pile of one as the other nine have now been donated to the Mansfield Coordinator of Project Linus UK.

My tenth charity quilt

After last month’s attempt to use all the scraps remaining from the quilts I’d made so far (and failing spectacularly if I’m honest!) I decided to take a similar approach this month, but also I wanted to some non-pink sewing for a change. Or mostly non-pink as it turned out.

These were the fabrics I pulled from my stash scraps - most have already featured in previous charity quilts, but not all. The plain blue was from a Hobbycraft fat quarter bundle - isn’t it a stunning colour? - and definitely not pink!

I’d found some other older pieces of material together in a bag recently and so some of those offcuts, and larger pieces also made their way into this bundle. And there’s a lot less pink than I’ve sewn with recently, I just think my eyes needed a change.

This month’s block is a patchwork star, which is similar to April’s block - the difference is the centre square comprises four squares rather than a single larger square. I realised that I needed a plain for the background, and that’s where the blue came in.

The patchwork stars came together pretty quickly, and were a favourite to sew despite the many options for misplaced seams, thankfully most of mine were pretty well behaved. There’s a lot of small triangles that go to waste with this block though, and I can’t help but think there must be a use for them…

Adding the borders

As I was using scraps from previous quilts I didn’t have enough of each for all the borders to be the same, so I took a different approach to random this time. I split my border fabrics into two piles, and laid out the strips to see how they might work, but keeping them in their respective ‘half’ of the border.

I’m much happier with this more controlled random approach - and I used up a fair bit of the already cut fabrics too. And yes, that green really is quite vivid - it was an old summer top of mine, and I loved to wear that vibrant colour.

Deciding on a layout

This month was trickier than I expected it to be. I had the white and grey zig zags in the middle at one point, I tried a stepped approach across the quilt with the dark paisley print, but in the end I kept coming back to this layout.

Which meant I could add the blue as a border, which helps bring this one together I think.

I’ve returned to straight line quilting for this one, but in a shocking turn of events have done this freehand (completely) for the first time. No sticky tape to help with the lines this time round, and no ill effects either. In fact I think this was one of the most enjoyable quilting sessions I’ve had, and quickest too as I managed to complete this in just two one hour sesions.

It looks ok doesn’t it?

I’ve still a little bit to finish on this one before I can say it’s complete. The binding is attached on the front and just needs handsewing to the back, which I plan to finish this weekend. But that small detail isn’t going to stop me sharing it here (and I’ll most likely add a final completed photo once I’m done).

And it’s done

So that’s the tenth quilt done, and I’m back on track with my relaxed timetable for the block of the months - I’m actually a little ahead as I’ve already started the centre blocks for the September quilt, but that is most definitely for next month’s post!

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.

Post Comment Love 26 - 28 September

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.

We had an impromptu long weekend away last weekend and spent some time discovering the area around Malton in North Yorkshire - it’s a great place, and I’d highly recommend it - and I’d highly recommend getting away for a fancy weekend at short notice too!

We hunkered down in the hotel when the weather was at its worst on Saturday but spent the following two days exploring local independent gardens, which was great. One of my favourite memories from our visit to Castle Howard was of the peacock finding warmth by the vent, not quite what I expected to see.

Have a great week.

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