2023 Wrap Up

Wrapping up 2023 with a revisit to some favorite adventures, quilts, and people!

It's nice to take a look back and revisit these moments from the year. Reliving the fun, the hugs, the music, and the thrills from memory is a bight spot at the close of the year and a good way to remember how much was packed into 2023!

Also looking at the quilts made this year. Lots of minis this year, for several swaps which challenge my creativity. This year included some amazing experiences with exhibiting my quilts around town! First in a fiber art show and then in a solo show at the National Quilt Museum (which is ongoing through Feb. 20, 2024). What a thrill!

Travels and hugs and music and bears and mountains and silliness and FUN filled 2023. Here's to closing this chapter and to turning the page.

My Quilting Medley

My Quilting Medley - my solo exhibition is now open at the National Quilt Museum and runs through Feb. 20, 2024!!

I am beyond honored to have an exhibit here and to share my quilts! I'm inspired by colors, music, pop culture, travel, & family, and hope to reflect those in my work along with a love for free motion quilting. 

Quilting is my creative passion and I enjoy trying a variety of techniques, methods and styles. Of course they each have my signature bee hiding in the stitching, and it'll be fun to see visitors discovering them!

Summer Star Flower

Somehow forgot to share this stellar quilt I finished over the summer. This is Star Flower - made especially for baby V, my newest God daughter. Her older siblings also have star themed quilts, though none of them are the same design. I love knowing they each have their own special quilts, but that they also coordinate.

I had a pattern for this ring of stars just waiting to be made into a quilt, so the real fun was pulling prints and colors from my stash. I decided to jazz it up with the extra corner stars and had just enough of the blue for the background!

The swirls set off the ring of stars, and it was a joy to meet baby V and gift this quilt. I know it'll be loved! Here's a peek at the bumblebee too.

(Becky's Version) ...are you ready for it?

A look at my latest quilt which is called (Becky's Version). It's inspired by the Eras Tour and a love of Taylor Swift's music. I knew there had to be a way to mix these two favorite things. Of course I took it with me to snap some pix before watching the concert film!

The fabric colors coordinate to each of her albums, and the number of strips in each color represent the number of songs on that album! To go one layer deeper, in one of the rows, I placed the strips in album release order. Taking notes on how to add easter eggs Taylor-style.

It's quilted with organic lines in the coordinating colors, and I've also quilted the album titles into their respective colors. Spot that bee! ;)

I'm in love with it and am loving jamming out to the vault tracks from 1989 (Taylor's Version) alongside all the other songs!

It's going to be away for a little bit as I have a mini solo exhibit coming up at the National Quilt Museum!! Super thrilling, and this quilt will be in that!

Your Story Begins for A

Catching up on sharing some finished quilts and logging them here. This is a quilt I made & gifted for a dear friends' first baby. It's called "Your Story Begins" and I hope it'll be well loved for many years to come!

S is a book lover, so I wanted to incorporate that into my design. I combined some #talltalesblock with some little library blocks by @kitschempire, along with some bunting for a book lovers dream! It was fun choosing the fabrics for each of the books, especially using the text print for the inside book pages.

As a fun surprise for S, I used some Anne of Green Gables fabrics I've been hoarding for a while. We're both fans so it was begging to be used in this quilt for baby A. It was a delight to stitch and create as a special gift.

Exhibit at Hotel 1857

I am thrilled to say that I'll have some of my quilts in a show at a local hotel! It's 2 months, and my works are featured alongside quilts from several quilty friends fiber art works, and all of them are for sale. 

Once I was asked to contribute some pieces, I started making lists and digging through my wall pieces for things to submit. I pulled some older small quilts, and made a couple new pieces as well, trying to include as many as I could have ready.

Of course, I made sure that each of the pieces had my signature bee quilted into them, which turned out to be a good plan, as some friends told me they stopped by and went looking for the bees! I love that by making this my signature and adding it into my quilts, it's also something interactive for viewers to try and find in my quilts. Really makes me try to be sneaky with blending bees into the fabric colors, tiny bees hiding out, and adding multiple bees occasionally in the free motion quilting.

Once the show was up I went by to see them all on the walls, and grab some pictures. We'll see if any sell, but honestly it's a thrill to even have them on exhibit somewhere in public! How awesome!

Make a Garland

Back in December I won a kit for the Garland quilt by SuzyQuilts and in January she hosted a Sew Along for the pattern. So of course I joined in on that! 

The kit fabrics were solids, in a Christmasy color way, and I added some grunge metallic stars in red and green to the mix. I can't resist adding prints to all solids, and was glad to have just the right shades of the stars to include. 

Making the scrappy strips took some time, but it was fun to mix and match pieces without a plan in mind. Once those strips were finished the rest of the top came together quickly. So far, it's still a top, but it'll be fun to quilt and have ready for winter.

Camp Memories

This piece brings back memories of camp trips out at Rocky Gap State Park. We went most summers as a family; swimming in the lake, canoeing, hiking, campfires, and all that goes with camping & being outdoors! The best weekends!

Sometime back my Momm was giving me some of my mementos from childhood, and this napkin/bandana we colored after a girls only camp trip surfaced. I knew I wanted to keep it, but wasn't sure what to do with it while keeping it....until I realized I could turn it into a quilt!

I had this jungle themed fabric in the stash, and while our camp trips weren't in the jungle - it had the right style to it! I had fun matching thread colors and free emotion quilting the design. It needed a little extra, so I went all in by adding seed stitches throughout the background and really love how it looks. A perfect way to cherish good memories in a mixed style. Even the back has style!

Hello 2023!

Happy New Year friends!

Hope yours has started out well. Mine has been busy getting back into the normal routine, grocery runs, laundry, and work. After 2 weeks off and crossing time zones, waking up for work has been rough this week!

I thought I'd take stock (like many other makers) of my WIPs at the start of the year. This is not a promise or guarantee that I'll finish each of these pieces this year, but it certainly helps me to revisit the WIP pile and see what's there.

Finished Tops:

Improv City - from the 2021 Improv QAL

Bee Bears

GS Quilt

*have to get a photo of this one!*

Star Cluster - 2 tops- from the NQM 2020 QAL

Improv Tree mini

Mini Moda Love

Loose Geese

Mardi Gras round robin

*Not sure I have a current photo - will get on that!*

Currently my oldest WIP so far as I can tell.

Not Yet Tops:

NQM BOTM Round 4 Quilt - need final blocks completed

New Projects:

MQG mini swap due in Feb

A Temperature Quilt project! Starting in spring, Momm & I are working on our own quilts, using the same color palette and design

This month I'm joining in with @SuzyQuilts for the Garland Quilt Sew Along since I won the pattern and fabric bundle to make this one in a giveaway!

I'm sure there will be lots of quilting this year and I'm looking forward to it all!

Goodbye 2022

This year has been full of fun, friends, adventures, family, smiles, and quilting! It was a year of laughs and big moments, as well as quiet moments found in nature and in prayer. Quilts for gifts, for swaps, for me, for fun; alongside movies, music, bakes, biking, walks, and creating joy. I enjoyed traveling to see friends & family coast to coast and getting to hug some of my favorite people this year. 

Here's a few of my fav snapshots from the year. Looking forward to discovering what 2023 has to hold - Happy New Year!

People & Places

Quilts

Star Gazing - the 100days project

Remember my star blocks from 2020? Well, let me introduce you to 'Star Gazing,' the finished quilt!

A quick recap: in 2020 I did a 100 days project, making a star block every day. I tried to keep them under 12", but otherwise didn't put any limits on size or shape for the blocks since I knew I wanted to put them together in a non-grid layout. The fabrics in the individual blocks all came from my stash - a fun way to really dig in and see what I had!

Some blocks have ties to specific days, or events, while others were chosen to showcase the star theme. It was fun to search for so many variations of  a star block, and I used a variety of techniques: hand applique, machine applique, reverse applique, fusible applique, raw edge applique, english paper piecing, foundation paper piecing, machine piecing. 

Assembly of the top required a lot of partial seams and quilt math. The filler/background fabric is a low volume star print; and of course the backing fabric and binding fabrics also are star prints to continue the theme. :)

The top sat for a little while as I decided how to quilt it, and so I could get this beast basted. To counter all the star points and angles, I quilted an all over, curved fan design with a variegated yellow thread. This type of design needed to be pre-marked, so I gathered some specific tools: EZ Circle Cut Ruler, Dritz purple marking pen & lots of patience!

From the bottom of the quilt, I marked about 8-10 rows of the largest fan curve. Then I free motion quilted across those markings. Once the initial marked rows were quilted, I continued to mark a couple rows at a time and quilt them. This created a foundation of quilting across the whole quilt. From here I was able to then mark the smaller, inner fan curves a row or two at a time before quilting. Rinse and repeat until the entire quilt was quilted. Whew!

While labor intensive and exacting, I'm really happy with how the quilting turned out, and how it looks on the quilt itself. It really shows up well on the backing too!

Binding is hand stitched to the back, and this quilt measures up at 86" x 86"! It's ready for snuggles which is good timing since it's getting chilly outside again. I enjoyed the process of this quilt a lot and would like to do another 100 days project in the future.

You can see all of the individual stars here or on Instagram with #bumblybs100days.

Syncopated

I find myself admiring quilts made with all solid fabrics, and wanting to emulate that in my own quilts. However, when I try to stick to an all-solids palette, prints work their way into the mix every time! (Not a bad thing at all)!

When thinking of a class project, I decided to challenge myself to make an all solids quilt. Of course, that meant the class was going to make all solid quilts too. The wedges are freehand cut, and machine pieced. I love how the colors blend into each other across the quilt.

It's quilted with coordinating Aurifil threads in organic, wavy lines. My signature bee was added into one of the corners too. Binding is hand finished, and final quilt size is 39" x 52". this was bought by R to brighten up a blank spot on the wall at home and I know it'll be lovely there!

The title 'Syncopated' came from my love of music, and the way the wedges create their own off-beat rhythm of color.

Bloom - a quilting bee quilt

This summer I managed to finish this quilt from my time (May 2019-April 2020) in the #birthdaywishesbee on Instagram! For my month as queen, I asked for drunkard's path units of purples or blues with low volume backgrounds. This way I could mix around everyone's units and blend them together more cohesively across the quilt.

I love this Kaffe 'fan' print, and lovelovelove how well it coordinates with the colors!

For quilting, I did some echo arcs inside each of the partial circles, in coordinating Aurifil 40 wt. threads. In the background, I used a light purple variegated thread in a stipple design. Binding is hand finished to the back, and the quilt measures 59”w x 68”h.

Many thanks to my bee mates for their help in creating this ever blooming quilt!

Kailie, SJ, Sue, Karen, Marie, Brooke, Ashley, Caitlin, Cheryl, Kerry, Cassie