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Tomorrow is May Day already! I spent more time at the longarm in April than I did at the sewing machine. If not for the days we had such ferocious storms that I couldn’t plug in the longarm, I might not have gotten any blocks made. Sometimes when it’s storming, I will still dare to plug in the little sewing machine, but I don’t take any chances with the longarm!

So I got more blocks done than I thought I would, and then I left home yesterday to meet up with my bestie, Victoria, so we can ...

Hello, there! Can you tell I haven’t felt like blogging lately? No posts in March, which is really unusual for me. I’ve just been all discombobulated, and I’ve been super scattered. I really haven’t felt like doing much of anything, and it’s starting to show! I think my mojo just upped and walked away sometime towards the end of February. It’s a miracle I got any blocks done this past month at all.

But I did end up with a March total of 38 blocks, so I met the goal in spite of myself ...

Happy Leap Day! Did you know that this is the day “for all girls to grab their husbands”? Haha!

And it gave us an extra day to make more blocks! And I know it wasn’t because of the extra day, but this month seemed long — maybe because winter. I’m so tired of being cold.

I put a little space heater in my sewing room, and aimed it at my sewing station; that kept me parked at the machine just to stay warmer, so I made more blocks than I felt like was making.

I ended up with 70 ...

January was not kind to us here on the ol’ ranch. We had some severely brutal weather, and our furnace could not keep up. I don’t think I’ve ever had to spend so much time and effort merely to survive. And I hope we never have to go through that again. If this old house doesn’t kill us before we can get out of it, we’ll truly be blessed. Add to that, a frozen toilet drain, my truck not starting, and a couple of sick animals, and I’m certainly glad to see temps back in ...

Ready to kick this off? I’ve already started keeping a January block tally — have you?

I’m on a personal mission to beat my last year’s total, so I gotta get off to a good start, right?

Again this year, I’m keeping things simple — the rules will remain the same.

Anyone is welcome to join (at any time), and here is how it works:

• • The blocks you count are your blocks, from projects of your own choosing, and they belong to you. You don’t have to send anything in. All you have to do is report ...

Well, we made it to the end of our 12th year of the 350 Blocks Project!

The Project Page is updated with our final totals. It’ll be up for a few more days, so you can check it out if you want to.

And now we’ve arrived at my favorite part . . . the year-end statistics!

2023 statistics:

• • We had 94 participants sign up.
• • Of those 94, we had 85 reporting participants.
• • Of those 85 reporting participants, 63 were considered active participants, by reporting in at least 6 times during the year.
• • Of those 63 active participants, 53 made it ...

It’s the last day of 2023! Did you get as many blocks made as you wanted to this year?

I ended up with a total of 976 for the year, only adding 10 during December. I’m not sure what I was doing, but it wasn’t sitting at my sewing machine, evidently!

I got so close to 1000 — maybe I can beat that number in 2024.

Here’s the most notable block I made:

This block is the label for my Millennium quilt, Do You Remember?, which you can see HERE. I’m only 23 years late getting ...

Wow! Only one more month left to go in this entire year — that went fast! But I think I always say that.

I barely met the block goal this month. I ended up with 37 more blocks to add to my total. There were days I never even got to touch my sewing machine, which is really unusual.

I finished all the blocks for this quilt, but haven’t yet started to set them together, but that’s high on my list of to-dos for real soon:

I made a few more Maple Leaves. Someday I might actually get this ...

Happy Halloween! It’s our coldest day yet; just in time, as always — and windy, to boot. I’m happy to stay inside and quilt. We don’t get trick-or-treaters here. The first year we were here for Halloween, I asked My Cowboy: “Do you think we’ll get any trick-or-treaters, or will they think this house is haunted and be too scared to stop by?” His reply: “Well, that, or they’ve seen you out in the yard!” Joker!

For the first time in many, many years, I took the entire month to sew for myself. I quilted a ...

We sure had a lovely month of September around here. We could use some rain, but the weather has been lovely. I hope it continues for several more months! It was a busy month, and my time was so chopped up that there were days when it didn’t even make any sense to try to fire up the longarm for no more time than I had, so it seemed like I got a bit more time at the small machine for piecing.

In spite of myself, I surprisingly managed to get another 94 blocks made this month.

I made ...

Well! I apologize for being mostly absent for the entire month of August. I didn’t even get all of my messages responded to, and didn’t post any Studio Organizing Challenges, either — it was an insanely busy month. Something had to fall by the wayside, and evidently, that was my blog!

Hopefully, I’ll do better this coming month. We are heading into my two favorite months of the year, and there’s that feeling in the air that I love so much. I hope we have a really long and lovely fall here in north central Missouri. I ...

Well, that’s a wrap!

I managed to get 87 blocks made this month. My Sticky Buns Challenge really helped, but I will say that I mostly used the challenge to do things like set blocks together and to do things I would normally procrastinate on, so any blocks that came from it are bonus!

I made two more blocks for my Pineapple quilt, with a third one so close to finished:

I counted each row of my Hexie quilt as a block, and had 9 of those left to put together this month. I’m also counting each row ...

It felt like I wasn’t getting much done this past month, but my total was 61 blocks this time, so apparently, I really did get a bit more sewing time in than I imagined!

Some days, it was storming, so I couldn’t plug in the longarm, or I only had a few minutes to fill, and I took that time to just sit at my sewing machine feeding pieces through mindlessly. Some days, that was all I could handle.

Here’s a bit of what I worked on . . .

I got two more blocks done for my Improv Herringbone ...

For once, time wise, my month seemed fairly normal. It didn’t just whiz past in a blur, altho we’ve had plenty going on. We’ve had gorgeous weather, too.

I’ve had a lot of family things going on, so I haven’t had many complete days at home, which has cut into my quilting time. But still I managed to get 53 blocks done!

I made this little table mat for my friend, Kathy, out of leftovers from the quilt I made her a couple years ago. I used THIS tutorial, that was brought to my attention ...

Well, how did your April go? Mine went fast!

I worked my tail off, but don’t feel like I got near enough done! I ended up with 34 blocks this month, just over the goal. I was working more toward finishing things I have started, which does not necessarily lend itself to more block making. At some point, I always say, we have to stop making blocks and turn the ones we’ve made into actual quilts!

Most of the blocks I made I can’t show you until later on. But I did make one more block for ...

The whole first quarter of the year is gone already. How did that happen so fast?

March was kind of a blur for me — I had lots of deadlines, and was busy at the longarm more than at the sewing machine, so my block count barely made the monthly goal. I ended up with 33 blocks this month.

I did manage to finish one more of my Pineapple blocks. If I go any slower with these, I’ll be un-sewing! I was almost out of cut pieces, so I had to cut some more, which also slowed me down on ...

So . . . Did you get a lot of sewing done in the short month?

I managed more than I thought I did. I didn’t bother to total anything up until just today, and was pleasantly surprised by my total of 124 blocks!

It didn’t feel like I was getting that much done. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the longarm. And have plans for that to continue through March as well.

I made three more blocks for my Blast from the Past quilt. Here’s Block 10. I didn’t take photos of Blocks 11 and ...

I did better than I thought I would! I was on a serious finishing mission, so I didn’t think I was actually getting that many blocks made, but if you leader/ender blocks while you’re setting others together, they really do add up!

I ended up with 74 blocks to start off the year. Not as good as some of you, but pretty good for me!

Here’s a real-life example of how I use my tally sheet. I keep it taped to the door of my sewing room each month. You can find the link to download ...

Kicking off the 12th Annual 350 Blocks Project! Hard to believe we’ve been doing this for so long (or that my blog will be 14 years old this summer).

I went back and totaled up the last 11 years of my blocks, and from 2013, when I first started keeping track, until now, I’ve made 7326 blocks! As a group, we’ve made 406,348 blocks. YOU helped with that — I know some of you have kept track over the years, too. I’d love to hear what your personal total over time is — leave a comment and ...

The end of our 11th year of the 350 Blocks Project!

A bunch more quilt blocks made!

The Project Page is updated with our final totals. I’ll leave it up for a few more days, so you can check it out.

But how about seeing those year-end statistics? This is always my favorite part . . .

2022 statistics:

• • We had 116 participants sign up.
• • Of those 116, we had 103 reporting participants.
• • Of those 103 reporting participants, 83 were considered active participants, by reporting in at least 6 times during the year.
• • Of those 83 active participants, 59 made it past ...