Blockheads 5 – a mystery sampler sew-along – started way back in May 2025. Burton and I jumped on with much gusto, and made the first few blocks. And then we just kind of fell off. I was busy with the garden and other projects. And to be honest, I wasn’t loving the blocks*. And the project just languished. All the blocks had now been released, we’d only done five of the 24.

I was sooo tempted to ignore it some more and start something new. But part of me wants to start with a REALLY fresh slate.

So, after cleaning the studio, I pulled everything out and sat down to confer with Burton.

We had five blocks done. And somewhat of a plan to fussy cut centres, and add one solid colour, while alternating backgorund colours between black and white (like we did with our Mod Cat Quilt). And it was a great plan on its own. But it wasn’t going to work with even HALF of the blocks in the sewalong. (That’s the danger of working on a mystery QAL and trying to bend it to your whims.)

We needed a new plan.

After much discussion, Burton and I realized we could do one more block, which would give us six blocks. We could then repeat those blocks, and we’d have 12 – enough for a lap quilt! Brilliant!

I got to work making the sixth block,

It didn’t take long – which was good because cleaning the studio took up much of the sewing time for the day.

You will note, that while we have six blocks, we only have four accent colours. So that means, before I go and duplicate all these blocks – I need to decide which accent colour each will get. To ensure a proper distribution across the quilt, I’m going to have to sit down and actually plan it out.

Planning is not my strong suit. I’m much more a of a chaos goblin whole flies by the seat of her pants. But planning this one requires, so planning I shall do.

Burton is down with all this, so I guess I better get out my graph paper!

*We’ve decided no mystery sew alongs this year, not even our beloved Stay-at-home-round-robin. We’ve got too many quilt plans in our queue already and we need to clear them out!

I’d mentioned that as part of my “plan to get things done”, I’d decided to dedicated one day on the weekend to sewing.

Saturday didn’t go so well with this one keeping my in chair for far too long.

By the time we got the motivation to get up and do anything, it was already afternoon. So I decided to water my plants (that takes almost an hour) and then paint instead (of which you’ve seen the results). So Sunday was looking to be the studio day.

But then it took all I had to not just sprawl out on the bed and hang out with this one.

After some good belly rubs, I finally put the boots to myself, got up, and opened the studio door…

Oh… right. I have a REALLY bad habit of not cleaning up after I finish a quilt top. It’s usually close to dinner-making time, so I usually just make sure the iron and machine are unplugged, turn off the lights and close the door.

And I’m afraid that’s what I’d done after finishing Mr. Dragon.

Before I was going to do anything, I was going to have to clean up.

Putting things away didn’t take too long (maybe half an hour). But Scrap Mountain, the basket that hold all the scraps created by my projects was definitely in need of some attention. So I got to cutting, and putting all those scraps in their proper boxes. That was a couple hours.

When I was done the studio was clean

Or… as clean as it gets as it’s also terribly cluttered. I really need to make these quilts and clear some of this fabric out!

Happily, there was still a little time left to do some sewing, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow so see what I got up to.

Sir Furbs was firmly in place over the weekend..

… stitches were stitched…

… and progress was made! A whole lot more progress than I expected. I’m almost 2/3s of the way through that sky. I decided to take it just 100 stitches at a time (ie a 10×10 stitch area on the chart). And as you can see, it worked out really well. This is the most stitch heavy part, so once its done, things should move pretty rapidly. I probably still have a month of work left – it’s a big sampler – but I think the end is somewhat in sight!

I did some more work on the hummingbird paint by number (PBN). But before I get to that, a few people were curious about the skull on the table in the last post on the subject. That is a skull planter that I bought at a thrift store ages ago. But I never put a plant in it (believe it or not, I have more planters than plants). But at some point, I stashed the PBN paint pots and brushes in there – and there they stayed.

And to be honest, it’s been a great way to keep everything together. I have another PBN to do (moths and butterflies) and I’ll probably use it for that. But after that, I think it may just end up as the permanent home for all my paintbrushes. It works well for it… and I have a lot of brushes to fill it. They are currently held in a mason jar. But they’d look much cooler in a skull, don’t you think?

Anyway.. here’s a where it started, where it is now of the PBM after this weekend’s session.

As you can see. It’s not finished. I did fill in all the rather… poopy… colours in the flower. They look a little out of place right now, but once I get the rest filled in they will look like they belong a lot more.

All that’s left are the colours that I need to mix up (because they were dried up in the kit). I could have started on it – but Dave was bugging me to go out. I didn’t want to mix up a bunch of paint, then have to store it. Or even worse, have to try and mix it up again and match what I’d already done.

So I’m saving it for a weekend when I have more time to take with it. Hopefully this weekend… I’m just going to have to find something to keep that husband of mine occupied…

This is just a little bit of silliness I had to share.

The Thursday before last, was grocery night. We were headed out at 8 pm, after Dave finished teaching for the night. (I prefer to grocery shop later in the evening to avoid crowds). The day before, I’d worked a 12 hour day. And that day I put in about 11 hours. To say my brain was zapped would be an understatement.

So … I shouldn’t have been surprised as I was when I got out of the Jeep at the grocery store and noticed this…

Yep.. I was wearing TWO different shoes. Now… they are both Skechers, so the footbeds feel pretty similar. They are also the same fabric and colour. When we got ready to leave, I didn’t bother turning on the light above the shoe bench… I just slipped them on and away I went. And I’m sure the state of my brain had something to do with it too.

Dave had a pretty good laugh about it. And I admit, I did too. But I will be a little more careful when slipping on my shoes from now on.

Working on the dragon quilt meant I put a good dent in basket of four patches.

There’s still lots to go, but it’s no longer overflowing. And we have a nice little stack of eight patches.

Eventually, they will be paired up as well, making 16 patches that measure out to 6 inches finished. And well… that’s not very big. Burton and I are going to need a lot of them! I think this project may stretch out for another year.

“Are you done working yet??? I need pets”

Progress is being made on the shrug, though not quite as much as I’d hoped.

I’ve been working the day job into the evening quite a bit, so it just hasn’t seen a lot of love since you last saw it. I did join the fourth ball of yarn, and it’s about 12 inches from the armpit now. It needs to be about 20 before you join back in the round and start decreasing for the second sleeve.

And I’m afraid Furby isn’t much help with knitting like he is with cross-stitching.

He might look sweet and docile there… but bring out the yarn and he turns into an absolute mad man!

I mentioned the other week that I had taken on a quilt commission. A former coworker reached out to me and asked if I would be able to make a quilt for her first grandchild (who is due in March). She had only three requirements – that it be mainly green and yellow… and incorporate dragons!

DRAGONS???? My favourite! And I had just the perfect fabric.

See that centre fabric? Could she have made a better request? I’ve had that dragon fabric for ages, just waiting for the perfect project. Since I had dragons on the fabric, I could have gone with simple stars or something. But what’s the fun in that? So I went searching for dragon patterns. It didn’t take long to find this one.

So just after the new year, I got to work. I’m trying to devote one day each weekend to sewing. So two Saturdays ago, I got to cutting. And it took FOREVER!!!!!! OMG, there are like a million pieces in this pattern. By the time it was done, there was barely any time left for sewing.

But I just had to get something done, so I decided to just do the first part, which was completing the head. The pattern puts a sleepy eye on by appliqué, but I’m going to embroider it.

This past Saturday, I was determined to finish the rest of it. So we made a foot…

Lemmy was quite impressed.

And then we made another foot.

And this foot looked suspiciously like Rupert’s back foot. (could he be a dragon in disguise???

And then it was time to make the wings.

The first one went just fine. But I ran into a little hiccup when I started on the second. The pattern does the wings, legs and spikes all in different colours. But I decided I wanted them to all be the same colour -yellow. That is… until I realized the second wing overlaps the back leg… so same colour wasn’t going to cut it.

To say I was annoyed at myself was a bit of an understatement. It was already late in the afternoon, so I decided to put it into a time out for the rest of the night, and I started again fresh the next morning.

A little cutting, a little sewing…

And we had a new wing in dark blue!

And then soon after, we had another. And our dragon was starting to look like a dragon. And you can see the dragon inspectors were doing a very thorough job.

After that, there was just a tail to make…

Then it was just a matter of sewing it all together.

The boys were pleased with the final result… I think.

When Dave and I were thrifting in Chatham the other weekend, we stopped at Lens to see if I could find something for the back. And boy did I!

How cute is that? And flannel too, so just perfect for a cozy baby quilt. The binding is a diagonal stripe I’d bought ages ago with the plan to use it to bind something. (I have several striped fabrics I’ve bought specifically to use as binding.)

Now… I have three tops ready for quilting! I guess I better make a date with Mom!

It was another successful stitching weekend.

That’s probably because this guy gives me the stink eye if I move, so when he’s on duty, I tend to stay in one spot longer.

So the owl got his wings, and the second witch got all her whirly, swirly branches. I just have to do a little bit of orange in the owl’s eyes and beak, then I can move the hoop up again.

And then I can tackle this part…

I am not looking forward to doing all that sky. I’m going to need Sir Furbs firmly in place to keep me on task.