2026 Focus Cutting Sew Along

This year Naomi's Focuscutting Sewalong focus is the square. I wasn't sure if I would do it or not..... but I love hand stitching so.......

I keep tossing up between making curtains or something else. I guess when a I have a number of blocks I will decide.

Week one above is motif. The theme for the first 4 weeks is the colour white or cream. The can be background or focus. At present I'm using one and a half inch blocks, but may change that depending on the fabric. 4 blocks make a 4-patch. Week 2 was obscure sections. I 'cheated' and used a striped pattern to make the block - my block my rules, right 😆!

Week 3 was matching. I usually don't like the matching as I think it wastes too much fabric and it's REALLY hard.

 

 I still missed one section.

  

Week 4 was freestyle so I made another motif block. 

   

Link Up Parties for Inspiration: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery

Wednesday Wait Loss - The Inquiring Quilter

Sew and Tell - Melva Loves Scraps

Focus Cutting Sew Along - EPP

Haven't done a lot of sewing this week. Still slowly unpacking the caravan so we can sell it and de-cluttering the house. I have made a few more EPP hexie blocks. Above is O for owls. Below is O for octopus - matching.

Next is P for platypus

 and P for pattern.

 The last one is R for red.

That's it for this week. 

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery 

Wednesday Wait Loss - The Inquiring Quilter - Sadly this blog will not let me link in. I had the same issue a few months back. 😞

Beauties Pageants - From Bolt to Beauty

Some More Hand Stitiching

This week I was making some special bunting, that I will post in a few weeks - after the event. I also managed some more hand stitching on mini epp to go in between the fussy cutting blocks from a few years ago black and black and white stripes.

I had a few shapes cut out from previous years so decided to sew them. This one is 6 triangle shapes sewn together to make a 2" hexi. The picture was on sails on wind surfers. 

Another triangle one, I'm guessing the theme for these two was sea side. 

Wow, this one was about 4-5 years ago. It is a half hexie with a half inch triangle to make the 2" hexie. The fabric was Mexican hats. I really like the pattern. 

This last one if for this years focus cutting sew along - N is for needles.

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery 

Wednesday Wait Loss - The Inquiring Quilter

Beauties Pageants - From Bolt to Beauty

Focus Cutting EPP Sew Along

It's been a week of EPP this week. I've been working on the quilt from a few week back, 

and as it's been so cold in my sewing room I have only made a few blocks on the machine - will post them next week. Above is block 23 and it is L for Lizard. Below is block 25 - M for mug.

Other than sewing, I did re-pot some phalaenopsis orchids, and helped get the vege garden ready for planting. Here are two phals with the buds just opening.

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery 

Wednesday Wait Loss - The Inquiring Quilter

What I've Been Working On

We took a short trip away in the caravan and I had some time to work on a fussy cutting EPP project from a few years back. I still had a few pre-cut pieces to sew, but mostly it was sewing the already made blocks into the quilt.

I am way behind in this years focus cutting blocks. This is block 23 - L is for lizard. It is an Australian Frilled Neck Lizard.

Happy to be able to link with Wednesday Wait Loss again after months of not being able to link.

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery 

Wednesday Wait Loss - The Inquiring Quilter

Focus/Fussy Cutting Sew Along

 

I thought doing my blog once a fortnight (every two weeks) would save me time. Turns out it doesn't 😊. So I'm back to weekly. This week my blog focus is the Focus Cutting Sew Along hosted by Naomi Clarke. I have this hand stitching little box that I travel with and sometimes I sew, sometimes I'm enjoying the travel. Above is block 5, c is for cherries. 

Here is block 6, c is for cockatoo, matching. Matching is my least favourite block, and this year I may just miss a few. This one was van easy one.

Block 7 was D for dresses. 

Three more blocks, to add to the box, to add to the quilt. Maybe I'll work on that next week at the beach.

This week was also a week for foundation piecing. I finished the April triangle blocks, and started on the second last row of Between the Lines sew along - a week for sew alongs!

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

So Scappy

Put Your Foot  Down - Quiltery

 

Focus Cutting Sew Along 2025

Sorry for not posting the last two weeks, we booked a last minute 2 week cruise and had a wonderful time. I did take some hand sewing but didn't have time to do any. So this post is an update for this years fussy cutting (focus-cutting) blocks, hosted by Naomi. I'm so happy that Naomi decided to do the alphabet again this year. It is so much easier to find fabric ahead of time. The shape for this year is hexagon thirds, so I had to make my own templates. I made them the same size as previous years so they will all fit on one quilt. Of course, I am behind already, these are January blocks.

Block 1 -above - is A for Australia, motif.

Block 2 - A for Australia, matching (sort of 🤣).

Block 3 - B is for bugs, motif.

Block 4 - B is for bugs, sections.

I can't promise that I will do all the matching blocks, or even all the 52 blocks but I do enjoy the process.

Link Up Parties: 

Finished(or Not) Friday – Alycia Quilt

Off the Wall Fridays - Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever

So Scappy

Put Your Foot Down - Quiltery

 

Focus Cutting Sew Along

I'm not sure what year, or how many years I have been doing the Instagram Focus / Fussy Cutting Sew Along hosted by Naomialicec and I really enjoy it. However, I always start late. I find the start slow as I can't decide what fabric to use. The shape this year is honeycomb. I tried two different sizes and think I will stay with the larger 1.5" shape. The theme for January was RED.

February was all about me. Week 5 -where I live

Week 6 was - What I like. I love cruising.

Week 7 - favourite fabric. Well this week it was this.

Week 8 - most recent fabric purchase. The start of last year I decided to work my way through me stash - yes funny I know. I didn't purchase very much last year, some greys and black plain fabric for a 3D quilt, and this fabric. I was making a quilt for our granddaughter who lives in England and visited last December. I ran out of this fabric and substituted another, then found it after completing the top. I was so happy that I unpicked the substituted blocks and replaced them with this bike fussy cutting. 

Moving onto March, the theme for the first week was International Women's Day. In past years I have used Tula Pink fabric, but I ran out this year, maybe I should buy some more. 😊

The rest of March is orange. I'm working on that.

Link Up Parties: 

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

Peacock Party 

Beauty Pagents 

June Progress and Fussy/Focus Cutting

Sorry I missed last week, and I'm a day late this week, but I have a really good reason. 

We went on a last minute cruise for my birthday YAY. 

So glad cruising is finally back in Australia - but you can read about our cruise on our travel blog, and Peter is already editing his videos for YouTube.

June Focus Cutting Sewalong theme was sounds. Block 22 was motif and I chose farmyard chickens and they can be very noisy. We had two chickens a while back and they gave us lovely eggs and also use to wake us each morning.

Block 23 was sections. I used the same cat fabric that I used last month for animals. This time I used only the tail section. Cats make a noise.

Week 24 block was matching - my least favourite technique, but I had the perfect fabric that I had purchased in Graceland shops. Hubby loves this sound.

Week 25 block was freestyle and I chose what my hubby calls noisy fabric. I like it and use it a lot. It is amazing how far a fat quarter will go when fussy cutting. Fabric is part of the Tula Pink range.

We had a lovely 5 days sailing and look forward to many more sailings to come. 

Link Up Parties: 

Wednesday-Wait-Loss

Off the Wall Friday

Finished (or Not) Friday

A Pageant of Finishes

Peacock Party