April Failures & May Aspirations

I think I can officially consider April an epic fail with respect to progressing projects. I even failed in posting my FNSI follow-up...and I actually made quite a bit of progress that weekend! I finished all of the alternate blocks for Allietare (which also happened to be my APQ UFO for the month).  I still need to go back and finish the other blocks and piece the setting triangles, but I am making progress.

I definitely can't claim nearly as much progress on my orange peel. I was doing so well for the first half of the month but completely dropped the ball the second half.  I can't remember the total now - less than 20 or there would have been another row in the picture - but I clearly did not get to my target of 30.  I will have to count them all again at the end of this month to update my tally.  So far I am behind for May but I am trying very hard to catch up.

And then there is this.  The 365 Challenge. The blocks have gotten more obnoxious difficult, I'm not entirely sure I'm loving the cream/tan and white combination, and I am rapidly losing my motivation. Here are a few blocks I finished a couple of weeks ago, I've only done a couple more since then so I am rapidly falling far behind.  I recognize that this isn't a UFO that I would likely never come back to if I get too far behind, so I will see how it goes the next couple of weeks.  I will give it until June 1 to decide if I am scrapping the whole thing or not.

On a more positive note, I attended a fantastic hand piecing workshop with Mickey Depre last week. She teaches hand piecing the way I originally learned it and it was so much more enjoyable than the method I tried at my last workshop. I am so addicted to hand piecing!  I worked on my class block every spare moment I had and finished it a couple of nights after the workshop. It is killing me not to start another one but I have too many other projects in the works. I love this block!

And here's the project that is consuming all my hand sewing time - my album quilt. I finally finished my first block (except for a little embroider that is still needed - my bird needs an eye!) and started on my second one. We set the target for finishing the second block at the end of June.  It isn't quite as involved as this one was but it will definitely take some time.

My APQ UFO for this month is my Stars & Sprigs. I would so love to get back to that one but may have to pass in favor of continuing to work on something that is a little further along. At the rate I am going I won't have a single finish to show for 2016!