End of January round up

I started the month with a hiss and a roar, with all sorts of planning and thoughts for the year.
As the end of the month approaches, it's time to do a round up of what I've been doing, and see if all that planning is keeping me accountable?!
First up, I committed to Patty's One Monthly Goal. I had a pile of fabric selected and set myself the goal of making it into a baby quilt for a friend of both our daughters.

I aimed for a flimsy but wondered if I might have time to get it to the finished stage as well.
OK, so the flimsy won out!
And the fabric pull changed quite a bit. The above fabrics were sitting on a white print until I remembered a sweet dotty grey print sitting on the shelves at The Country Yard. That came home with me, and a few different blue/greens. I then culled nearly half of what I'd originally pulled.

A straight forward design, guided by the family's love of the sea. (Apologies for the glarey photo.)

In spite of being out each day this week, I managed to sew the last few stitches joining the last rows well in time for the end of the month! Thank you Patty for the extra push to get this done; you can see who else met their goal this month *here*.


Kris of tagalongteddies did a callout for sign ups for OPAM 2020 and once again I jumped in. It really is a great way to keep track of the year's finishes. (OPAM = One Project A Month)
I had a healthy tally this month; as well as the Joey pouches and bassinet sheets previously shared, I also finished the afghan I've been working on lately.

I bluffed my way around the last round with matching-but-not-the-same yarn and am really pleased with the result. The edging treatment is so lovely - I'm sure I said that last time!

If you are interested, details about the pattern, and to see more made in this design are in a previous blogpost *here*. And my yarn hassles (!) are *here*.

I've spent a lot of this month organising and making lists. 

I put Omigosh on my WOOFA list (Working On Or Finishing a UFO). Omigosh is a box of randomly sewn strips - I'll sew two scraps together then toss them in the box. I've been sorting through them, pressing, trimming, sewing and so on. Visit Cheryll *here* to see how others got on with their WOOFA projects this month.
Inspired by Debra of Tuning My Heart Quilting, I have managed 15-30 minute time slots to work on it on most days of the last couple of weeks. There are a few of these types of challenges around, this one focuses on one project which you work on for 30 minutes a day, then put it away and get on with your other sewing. As a result I have completed 5 more of these 4½" blocks —

At the start of 2019 I signed up with Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts to keep track of the number of blocks I made during the year. I lost track and signed out early on, but I'm trying again this year.
For this month's tally I have the 5 tree blocks I shared last post, the above Omigosh blocks and I'm counting 11 blocks for the baby quilt at the start of this post (six fish and five rows since they're pretty basic blocks). So, officially that's 21 blocks for the month. Woohoo, that sounds good to me :-)

My PHD progress is a little less productive - I've been so focused on my planning that I haven't had a chance to work on any of that (very long) list. I have, however, oiled my Sweet 16 and selected threads for the first one on the list - small bites, right?!

I'm just popping in one more photo which I took while I was out on the deck taking my other pictures yesterday afternoon. The countryside is rapidly drying out and brown is becoming the new green. Grass that we had at the start of the month has desiccated.

Must get moving and get my day started,

'til next time,

happy stitches,