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Last month I missed setting an official ALYoF Goal, so this month, I'm making sure to get that post up on the 1st! My mad progress on finishing up some WIPs has been taking a backseat to some swap projects, so this month's ALYoF Goal is just for me! I'm going to catch up on my Patchwork City Metro Area Blocks of the Month. I'm participating in Intrepid Thread's BOM, with two blocks to finish per month. I'm SO behind already. Oops. By the end of April I need to finish 6 blocks to be caught up. Here's where I currently stand.

February Block 14 in progress

 

February Block 1 not so in progress

 

March Block 2 and 15 fabrics

 

April Block 3 and 16 fabrics

So many beautiful fabrics! I look forward to getting these blocks done.

I'm linking up to the ALYoF April Goals party.

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The Bee Hive (Swarm Tisha, #beehiveswarmtisha on IG)

Our block this month was Autumn Chain Block, chosen by Kaitie (@thegingerquilter). She chose navy, bright saturated pink, light grey and light blue in the following arrangement. This block went together quickly. I like the different variations shown in the tutorial.

Here's the 5-inch signature block I made for Kaitie from my scraps.

Stash Bee (Hive 1)

Robin asked us to make 16 teal and white HSTs and sew them together as we liked, a bit of "HST Hysteria." I decided on 8 teals and made two HSTs of each for a scrappy block. (#1 Tip for HSTs: Make sure you trim them up to the appropriate size for a square, accurate block before attaching to others!) Here's my finished block:

do. Good Stitches (Promise Circle)

This month Meghan had us make blue exploding blocks using a tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company. Since we used 6 fabrics, our squares were: two 4-inch center squares followed by 5-inch, 6.25-inch, 8-inch, and 10.5-inch squares. This made a finished block approximately 14 inches square. This was a super fast block. I'm thinking it would make a fun baby quilt to just keep exploding until it was between 36 and 48-inch square.

In summary, I like dots. ;-)

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My son finished and showed his first quilt this month and excitedly started planning his second. Before he was able to start a second project I saw this post by Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl requesting quilt blocks. The kid ;-) knows that sometimes we give a finished quilt as a gift, and I explained that sometimes people work together to make a quilt as a gift. I invited him to listen to the post and read it aloud, with the plan to suggest we make a couple blocks together. But before I could even get to that he stopped me mid-article and asked, "so can you help me make some blocks?" Well, yes kiddo, I can.

We did some brain storming together and he decided to use the octopus fabric that he had used in his quilt for the boat/ocean themed block. We chose grey, teal and blue to go with it in an effort to stick with the color scheme. I also explained fussy cutting to him when I cut out the octopus fabric in an effort to mostly avoid the orange. I cut the fabric and we worked together to piece it on the machine.

For the other block, using blues, blacks and whites, I pulled some fabrics including the music note fabric scraps from Bold Blooms. We discussed the options of doing vertical strips of fabric, or triangles and such and he decided to start with a center piece and work around it like we added the borders on the first block. He chose to begin with the music notes and wanted a true rectangle, nothing wonky. He told me what width strips to cut each of the fabrics I had selected and then he made the decision about which to add where as we just pieced "wherever" until we had a block large enough to trim down to 7" by 10". I confess that I forgot that it was supposed to be vertical, so we were thinking about it horizontally -- at least since it's improv it can easily be used either way.

I used the leftover bits to piece a second improv block. These are kind of addicting. There's always some leftover bits to use to start a new block. ;-)

There's still time to make blocks to submit to Yvonne. Again, here's her original request and she has also put up a couple tutorials for a boat block and a piano keyboard block (which I love! It would make such a great border!).