Good Morning friends. I thought I'd stop in here today to share some progress of what I've been working on lately. My 2025 slow-sew project is the Glitter Quilt. The Glitter Quilt is a pattern by Jen Kingwell from her book Quilt Lovely (available here from amazon *).

Let me go back to how we decided to go ahead with this project...

... the current (and some retired) staff of the store where I work, catch up fortnightly after the store closes to sit and sew together. It started as meeting up after the store closed, but found that wasn't enough time, so we catch up mid afternoon and the poor staff who are on shift can only pop into the classroom to chat, but are still technically on the floor when customers need assistance. 

Our 2024 project was the Ice Cream Soda quilt and as many have now finished or almost finished it, we needed to plan our 2025 project. There were a lot of ideas thrown around but not a lot of commitment to a decision. Linda of Flourishing Palms had finished her beautiful Glitter Quilt and posted on Instagram, so i shared it with the group asking if they liked this idea... and the rest is history. 

I luckily already had the pattern because I bought the book back in 2015. A few others also had the book, some ordered the book, others ordered just the templates from Jen Kingwell's store, Amitie. Suffice it to say, we are all beginning our Glitter journey.

* Glitter Quilt Template Set available on amazon *

To me, after having the templates cut and ready in my hand, the block looked quite small. I decided to enlarge the pattern by 30% and make a new set of templates with template plastic. I figure a bigger starting block, equals less overall blocks required.

* Glitter Quilt Template Set available on amazon *

I have now made 6 blocks with number 7 on the way. They're all hand sewn and I find them to be quite slow to put together. I will be working completely with fabric from my scrap tubs. I've started with pinks, blues, teals plus some low volume prints and will see how they go. I figure that I may need to incorporate more colours further along the journey, but hope to keep the palette quite limited.

I'm also working on a scrappy hexie piece. I had a lot of leftover fabric from a table runner store sample I had made last year, so decided to make hexies. The fabric is Liberty Cotton which isn't as fine as the tana lawn, but great for quilts and projects. 

When I had a whole bunch of hexies prepared, I started to put them together and am thinking of turning them into a cushion or the front of a bag. Watch this space.

A few little hexagon pincushions were also made this past fortnight - pattern is available here from the Strawberry Thief blog.

I have a big birthday coming up this weekend and to celebrate, we're heading on a cruise next week with lots of friends and family joining us. It should be lots of fun, but a quilter always has that pressing need to include some projects. I bought a sashiko panel a few weeks back, and plan on starting on that during the cruise. I won't need a lot of supplies which means that it's very portable and can fold up and fit in my shoulder bag.