Advance - My Word For May

 April seemed to just vanish; I know I did some sewing and organising, but not as much as I would have hoped. My trip away took up one third of the month, so I wasn't very productive. I've chosen a word for May, one that I need to consider every time I sit down to sew, or wonder what to do next. Advance; what can I do to advance my projects closer to a finish. I don't expect to have a huge amount of tops done by the end of the month but I do want to see that I have worked on my stalled projects and brought them closer to a finish.

I have several tops that are at the border stage, and I've moved on to something else rather than finish them. My sewing set up is a bit cramped and that puts me off wrestling with a whole top, but I do have an ideal space at the shop. I need to spend more time there and get the tops finished.They include This And That, Fox And Geese and the black and autumn grannies made from leftovers.

I went through so many fabrics trying to find 'The One.' Eventually Mereth made me try a wideback we've been hoarding, and it does look nice. 

This print annoyed me because the pattern slopes down across the width of the fabric, and it's very noticeable. I cut 4 strips lengthwise, because I have many metres of it, so hopefully it will go together nicely.

This has been in time out because I couldn't match the black fabric. It's a very blue black. When I was going through a scrap bag I found a half metre of black with a midnight blue swirl, and decided it would do, because this top really needed to be finished.

I've also started a lot of block collections to use as leader-enders. It always works best when I just have one leader-ender, but I get side-tracked so easily. I'm sewing the Spinning Rectangles, 

but also the little cross blocks. When I run out of pieces I swap to the other one instead of cutting more pieces. I'm surprised I don't have a third one in the works.

I want to work on my blue and green scrappy project this month. I only want 12 blocks, and they are very easy to sew. 

I need to make some more Fancy 4-Patches, because I've not been keeping up with those. I have no deadline for them, but if I never touch them then I never make any progress.

This collection of blocks also deserves some attention.  I have 37 made, and I imagine that's enough for whatever I want to do. I would also like to make more Triple Treat blocks, and more Four Patch Fun blocks. I have so many kits prepared for them, I need to pull out a few of them every week and get them further along.

I'm not aiming to get everything finished, but I do want to be able to say that I didn't waste my time this month. It's so easy to get distracted these days. I'm going to have to limit my computer time, so that I don't get ideas and start so many new projects. And stop buying so much fabric that tempts me even more.

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