Hello friends, I've just been over here living life, and then this morning I realised that I'd completely fogotten about blogging. So according to this little page here, January didn't happen for me. Of course I've been a busy bee - I don't remember exactly what I've been doing, but things are moving around in the sewing room, and that's a good thing!
Let me update you with a few things:
I got my 2026 doll quilt exchange in the mail, and it's currently winging it's way across the globe to it's new owner. I cannot wait until it arrives!
This was a really fun quilt to make - I hit the scrap drawers really hard. You can see the Jane Austen background fabric there again, and you'll be seeing it again and again as I still have a lot of it! If you're interested, you can see the lovely quilts that people are making over on Instagram with the hashtag #dollquiltswap2026
And another challenge I'll dip in and out of is being hosted by Larissa from mmmCrafts. You can do either the 12 Days of Christmas, or the Merry Humbug challenge, and maybe some people are doing both? I'm working through the 12 Days already for the grandies and some friends, so I elected to do last month's Merry Humbug project, Mr Scrooge:
Ohhh this was fun! Really lovely handwork while watching the Australian Open tennis. One of the hardest things for me with these projects is deciding what colour palette to use. I wonder if Mr Scrooge himself would have chosen to wear a lovely pink robe ...
This month the challenge is to make Santa, so I'll get busy on that at some point. Ohhh, and don't forget if you're working on these challenges and are anxious about painting the sweet faces, I have them available in my Etsy store for purchase.
And another challenge I accepted ... Repro Quilt Lover Taryn is hosting the Fancy Four Patch challenge. I'm up to date so far with two weeks having been released, I know I won't be able to keep that up though with upcoming travels etc. But here is week two: (I have to hunt further to find what I did with the week one image lol)
Last week I made another block for the Sarah Morrell quilt. This a project I've been on go-slow mode with. Maybe I've found a little of my mojo with it though?
The centre section was hand pieced and the outer section was foundation pieced. A few of the points are less than perfect, but I'm happy enough to let them just slide on by.
I've started another block, and hopefully I'll get it finished during the next week.
My sourdough starter is still kicking along and doing well. I don't remember what I talked about last time, but since I've reactivated the starter, I've learned that I have better success with baking in a loaf tin rather than a dutch oven. This is a recent loaf:
I've been baking about twice a week, and the rest of the time my starter lives in the fridge. I use about 50g of rye flour in each loaf and the balance is regular bread flour. Camo and I love it, Marty not so much - he's a white bread from the supermarket guy.
Last of all for today, here is the puzzle that Amy and I completed during the holiday break:
It was REALLY fun! It's a Jane Austen World puzzle, and it was so much fun looking at all the characters and buildings while we were putting it together. It had to get put away eventually as the small people wanted to play with it all the time, but I think I'm going to put it together again sometime this year. I enjoyed it that much!
Anyway, that's a little of what I've been up to recently, thank you for being patient while I mindlessly bobbled around here - hopefully I can remember to check in with you all a little more often. Ohhh, and Happy New Year!
