I am joining the weekly To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky Party hosted by my friend, Roseanne, at Home Sewn By Us.

To-Do for the week of June 16th-22nd:

1. Work on Months 5 & 6 of the Solstice BOM. √ Done
2. Do the stitching on another Sashiko coaster.  √ Done
3. Make a black and white block. √ Done

To-Do #1

I ran into a snag making the Solstice BOM Month 5 and 6 units. The pieces I cut for these units were too small, and I had just enough fabric left to re-cut the pieces for the Month 5 units. I’ve ordered more fabric and will try Month 6 again soon. Though I’ve felt some frustration in wasting time and fabric, it’s a good lesson for me to make sure that the written pattern instructions fit my style of paper piecing. Rebecca Bryan, who is the pattern designer of Solstice, prefers freezer paper piecing which may be more forgiving with narrow angles. I do the more traditional foundation paper piecing, and I prefer more generous cuts of fabric when I paper piece. I’ll let this project sit for a week or two, and in the meantime, I’ve been able to turn my focus back to my Blithe quilt. See my To Do list for next week at the end of this post.

To-Do #2

Below is the third Sashiko coaster I’ve stitched. I’ve made progress with a more consistent stitch length. Hopefully I will also make progress with circles in the future! Mine below looks a little like an elementary school kid’s drawing of a sun, LOL!

To-Do #3

I am partnering with Sarah Harris @acorncornerquilts to request black and white blocks made from the current or past Summer Samplers to honor the Black Lives Matter movement and to directly benefit the Social Justice Sewing Academy. SJSA enables youth activists to be seen and heard through the medium of fabric. Sarah and I have been inspired by the quilt that the Summer Samplers designers are making this year to proclaim that Black Lives Matter (Check out the #summersamplerblm tag on Instagram). Our quilt, which is an alumni quilt from any of the summer samplers, will be auctioned in October, and all of the proceeds will go to SJSA. We’ll be using the hashtag #summersampleralumniquilt.

The hosts of these Summer Samplers are Lee Heinrich, Katie Blakesley, and Faith Jones, and there are some awesome blocks included as part of these sampler quilts. The theme for the Summer Sampler 2020 is the Summer of Easy Piecing, and I love the innovative sashing that ties all the blocks together. The block below is from the Summer Sampler 2019: Piecing Boot Camp. I made Katie Blakesley’s Summer Kites block that has 12 Half Rectangle Triangles (HRTs) units. I have to confess to making paper-pieced HRT templates for this block because I tend to think any challenging block works better paper pieced! If you haven’t already purchased a Summer Sampler, take a look at all the choices offered, and you can become an immediate alumnus and make a block to donate to this worthy program.

We will be collecting blocks for this project until the end of August, but blocks can be sent to me as soon as they are ready. We need a total of 16 Summer Sampler blocks, so people will need to let me know which block they plan to make. There are only two blocks that aren’t an option to choose: the Summer Kites block and the Fierce block by Kitty Wilkin that Sarah has made. I will be sewing the blocks into a quilt top, and Sarah will do the quilting. If you’re interested in making one of the Summer Sampler blocks to donate to this project, please comment below, and I will contact you by email.

To-Do for the week of June 23rd-June 29th:

1. Finishing binding my Blithe quilt that arrived back from Amy’s Creative Side on Friday. I got the binding machine stitched to the front of the quilt on Sunday and am about half-way done hand-stitching it to the back of the quilt.
2. Work on a 4th Sashiko coaster.

Linking up to Home Sewn By Us: To-Do Tuesday Weekly Progress Update Linky #46.