One Monthly Goal - October

I think I have lofty goals for October....but why not try???

I will have two goals for October. The first one is to finish hand-quilting my Shimmer quilt. 

I was poking along quite nicely on this quilt pre-Covid, as I had hoped to have it done in time for the Norfolk County Fair....but when that got cancelled this quilt was quietly forgotten.

I've picked it up again this past month and have made some good progress...and now I just want to make it a One Monthly Goal so it can be done.

 I've been quilting with my favourite thread, YLI, in Coral. I think I was always one to use white or cream thread back in the day. About 15 years ago I attended a lovely quilt display at a local historical house, Cottonwood Mansion. I was surprised to see some of the vintage quilts quilted in bold-coloured thread....dark brown and red are what I specifically remember. Those quilts really made an impact on me, and I think I've used colourful threads ever since.

I've also been using an air-erasable marker to mark the quilting design....love it! The only problem is that the more humidity is in the air, the quicker the mark disappears! At this time of year the mark disappears almost before I can get the motif quilted. When I use the same marker in the dry air of Winter, the mark may last the whole day.

So that's my first goal....to have this quilted and bound by the end of October.

I'm not sure about accomplishing my second goal, as I do seem to have more time to spend on hand-work than piecing by machine. 

I'm just starting a Snowflake quilt, using the fabrics I won during last month's One Monthly Goal.

I didn't make a photo-copy of the first page of the pattern, but this picture may give you an idea of the quilt...

Mine will be a scrappy version, not the 4-colour version. I did take a bit of a sew-therapy afternoon to get a start on this quilt.

Here is the first row of blocks laid out on the design wall...

....and I couldn't resist sewing a few blocks together. They went together surprisingly quickly...

I am linking up with Elm Street Quilts for One Monthly Goal. Hopefully I can reach my lofty goals for October. It would be great to have the Snowflake quilt ready for use in December!