May finishes and NewFO

It's that time of the month when I look back and see how I did with my goals and see if I achieved the NewFO challenge. 

I set myself quite a few goals for May and earlier in the month when I commented on one of Barbara's posts at Cat Patches I had a little moan about not getting anywhere with them. I loved Barbara's response which was that I should try not to achieve any of them and she reckoned that would be more difficult than actually managing to do some. Well she was right, by the time I received her reply I had already managed a couple of goals. So here's how I did.

The first goal was to finish the top of my swoon quilt. Here I made no progress at all. I did get the project bag out a couple of times but it got put away again. I can't give any specific reason for this just that I didn't want to work on it. Not bad for the main goal of the month.

Next up was to complete my schnibbles quilt 'Hat Trick'. At the end of last month I hadn't added the the borders. I set the goal of having this fully finished including binding. Success! I was asked if I could sew some flower motifs into the white spaces. I managed this and I'm quite pleased with the result. The quilt is currently in the wash and will be going off to its new home soon.

I wanted to make the quilt sandwich and maybe start the quilting on my 'Holiday' quilt. This I managed and I have started the quilting. I had a silly few minutes and decided I would like to quilt this by hand. I know I should have taken two aspirin and had a lay down in a darkened room until this urge went away but it seemed like a good idea. Anyway that is where I'm at I have quilted two of the 49 blocks. 

I also planned to spend more time on my embroidery projects. This again was a success. I started a kitty cross stitch. Here's the pattern

It is on 14 count Aida so will make up quite quickly. This was the result of one evenings work.

I also set the goals of completing my quilt for the 'for the birds' blog hop and a mini quilt for a swap.  These plus the Schnibbles quilt for this month are my NewFO's.

I used the block lotto bird block for my bird quilt. This is going to be kept in John's car and used when we go bird watching. Why is bird watching such a cold hobby. I got the  top finished for the hop and I'm really pleased  with the result. I will quilt this in June.

I found this lovely owl fabric for the backing.

The theme for the mini quilt swap was 'Dreaming of Spring. The finished quilt is 18 inches square.

I love the fabric I found for the border and backing.

Finally I made another schnibbles quilt. This time the pattern was 'Gentle Art' from Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. I used fabric from my scrap box for this quilt and I quilted it with an all over meander in variegated thread. I love the striped border. I now have only a small selection of scraps but we can soon solve that problem with next month's NewFO's

I am linking this post up with 2013 A lovely year of finishes at Sew Bittersweet Designs. I would like to say a very big thank you to Melissa and Shanna for my prize from the April finishes party. I won a Craftsy class. I chose a Freemotion quilting class with Leah Day. I haven't got very far into the class yet but there have already been some very useful hints and tips. I also signed up for some of their free classes. there is such an exciting range to choose from.

I am also linking up with Barbara's  NewFO party over at Cat Patches. As I've got some finishes in this post I'm linking with Connie at Freemotion by the River and Richard's Link a finish Friday.

Now I need to think about my goals for next month and it will have to include my swoon quilt as I need to get it done! I hope you've managed some of your goals.

Lyndsey