Apologies if you’re now humming the Sound of Music song! I’ve been making steady progress over the month with my Splendid Sampler quilt, I’ve made five blocks and tonight I finally got them all quilted.

This BOM is organised by Pat Sloan and Jane Davison, there are over 80 designers around the world who have each contributed one block. There’s 100 blocks altogether but I’m just planning to do maybe 49, for a 7 by 7 quilt. I bought the book so I can pick and choose which ones I wanted to stitch.

Pat suggested stitching ones which mean something to you, I thought that was a lovely idea so that’s what I’m doing.

Adventure Abounds is a block by Kitty Wilkin, as soon as I saw it this block was on my list of ones to stitch. With mountains and a tree it was perfect to represent my love of walking in the countryside. It was pretty straightforward to make, it’s foundation paper pieced, which I like doing now. I got a bit carried away with the quilting, sort of echoing the mountains so the tree sits on a hill, I quilted a free motion tree over the top of the pieced tree, likewise a heart over the pieced heart. I’m pretty pleased with this one.

Get to the Point is a block by Rhonda Pierce, as she says, a sewing machine needle is neither sexy nor glamorous, but it’s a sewing essential. This block was also foundation paper pieced. I kept the quilting fairly simple with mainly stitch in the ditch.

I rarely say no to a cup of tea, especially if it’s a cup of Yorkshire Tea! This bloc is by Pat Sloan, it’s appliqued with bondaweb and embroidered around. I did a bit of free motion quilting on this one, trying to echo the embroidered steam lines. I added the pretty checked ric-rac round the cup instead of an extra bit of applique. It looked really good until the iron singed it a little! I still like it though!

Summer Reading is designed by Heather Givens. I love books, even after a pretty major cull I still have about fifteen shelves of books, I’ve got three shelves overflowing just with sewing books! This was made with traditional piecing and I just quilted in the ditch, nice and simple.

This design made me smile, it’s called Piece in Chaos by Betsy Chutchian. She describes how her love of quilting centres around her love of fabric. She loves the excitement of starting a new project by sorting through her stash for the perfect colour and prints. The title to me describes my sewing room! The piecing isn’t perfect on this one with a few points and juctions a little off, I quilted this one along the diagonals and across the middle, basically extending out the centre pinwheel.

So I’ve made twenty five blocks now, I put them up on my design wall in no particular order, I’m really pleased with them, it’s coming together nicely. I’m just over half way if I’m aiming for a seven block square quilt, my collection of fabrics for this quilt is going down somewhat, I’m hoping not to have to buy any, so we’ll just have to see how it lasts out, there may be some strange colour choices towards the end!