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.

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.

Make a Mini Make a Friend - 2023

This year I joined in with the Modern Quilt Guild mini quilt swap, it's the 2nd time I've participated, and it did not disappoint! This is a fun swap and I enjoyed creating something for my partner @margaretfleisher. I wanted to incorporate improv curves, and combined that with some paper piecing too. 

I started with some doodles, playing with the arrow shapes and then drew them out so they could be paper pieced. Other than a dislike of purple, I had free reign for color and started pulling the green and yellow from my stash, then added in the blues for contrast. After piecing the three arrows, I auditioned several fabrics before deciding on the orange dots.

I love free motion quilting, and once this was all together, it was fun creating different designs in each section! The middle design is a new one to me - and I'll use that again!

Swapping with Margaret at QuiltCon was fantastic! We pulled and flipped our quilts at the same time and I think both of our eyes lit up at what we saw. This is what Margaret made for me - and it's perfect. The curves, the colors, the fabrics, I love it all and can't wait to add it to my wall of quilts.

Many thanks to our swap fairy @lovinglissa as well. There's a huge crowd of swap groups and partners, so you get to see what others have made and there are so many amazing quilts being shared!

#mqgminiswap2023 

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

Field of Sunshine

In August R & I adventured eastwards to Ruby Branch Farms to see their sunflower fields! It rained on and off, and of course started up again once we arrived but that didn't stop us! We almost had the field to ourselves, and it did not disappoint!

I took a ton of photos, and since R & I are creative types, we were looking up close at the details/shapes/textures.

I'd say that the stormy skies actually made the sunflowers more vibrant in color and contrast, and they were really cool once you were surrounded by them. 

I'd definitely go back and maybe next time I'll remember to bring a quilt to photograph!

Twinkling Stars baby quilt

So you might know by now that I love making baby quilts for friends! Choosing colors or designs to match a nursery, or to create some fun for the new baby, to the crinkles after it goes through the wash before gifting - it's always such fun to create. Something about the joy of making something special for the new baby just makes me smile.

This quilt was no different, and it went to some dear friends of mine having their 4th girl. I made the older 2 girls book pillows, and the 3rd a star quilt too, so this one definitely had a theme of stars already decided.

I upsized the squares to about 3" from the mini I made earlier in the year for the #tqs_secretcolourswap2021. It took several days to choose and cut squares from the stash, and to create a variety of HSTs and trim them, but so worth it.

All the fabric came from my stash, and you know I love that scrappy look! The low volume prints really stand out and create twinkling movement. I used some favorite hoarded prints for the backing and free motion quilted it; there are 4 bees tucked into the quilting.

It was gifted to the new baby in September, and my friend sends me photos of the quilts in use which just makes my day & I know it'll be well loved!

Mini quilt swap stories - the secret color version

Back with another early 2021 finish to share here, the 'Happy Dancing HSTs' mini!

I participated in the #tqs_secretcolourquiltswap2021 hosted by @tinyquiltswaps back in the spring. This was a fun swap challenge in that we had to make a mini quilt featuring half square triangles and the favorite color our partner had posted in their mosaics. This came with a twist, all photos we posted of our progress had to be in black & white!

My partner wanted teal and I was inspired by one of the HST designs in her mosaic. So i math-ed out this design with the squares finishing at 2" and set about pulling fabric from my stash! As I also love teal - is was not too hard to pull fabric. :) 

Making & trimming all these HSTs took some time as I love the scrappy look, and it was fun to arrange and see how it would start to come together. The pop of orange added some lively movement as well against the low volume background.

For quilting, I wanted something with curves to soften the angular lines of the design. There were a lot of quilts hanging in exhibits at work finished with Baptist Fan quilting and it was a design I'd always wanted to try so I did! It required figuring out how far apart the lines in the fan needed to be, and then marking the entire quilt with the design. Thank goodness for a light box and my trusty Dritz Mark-B-Gone marking tool!

Once it was entirely marked, it was easy to free motion quilt all of the fan lines and I absolutely love how it turned out and am definitely adding this design into my pocket for use in the future. Of course there's a bee stitched it!

Well, we swapped in April and my partner really enjoyed the quilt so that's always great to see. One of the extras I sent was a coordinated mug rug.

Here's what I received in return which I also love! It fits really well with a couple other quilts on my mini wall and a great scrappy, improv HST look.

100 Stars Update

Popping in for a quick update on my 100 days Star quilt. I've completed the quilt top, putting all 100 star blocks together! While all the blocks were made entirely from my stash, I bought a few yards of a low volume star print to use as filler when putting the stars together.

I didn't want grid-like straight rows/columns, and my blocks weren't uniform in size, so there are lots of partial seams in this assembly. Then I put the filler fabric on the outer edges, so that once it's quilted, I can square it up without cutting into the stars. It took some time to puzzle together, and I'm a bit impressed with myself that it lays flat!

It's roughly 88" x 89" right now, and next steps include getting backing and figuring out how to quilt it.

Summer Biking

Over the Spring/Summer, with more time at home/out of the office, I had more time for biking this year. It's a favorite activity in nice weather, and gives some much needed stress relief & mental refocusing.

 I spend a lot of time on the local Greenway trail, as it's close by and a good distance, with views along the riverfront too. Going further afield, I enjoy the Tunnel Hill trail in IL, and made it my goal to ride the whole trail this Summer - instead of the same sections over and over.

 It's a rail-to-trail, so has a relatively flat & well maintained path with minimal elevation gains. As an added bonus, it's very scenic through the trees, has trestle bridges and even some tunnels. Driving out to some of the parking lots had me exploring some new countryside views, and hitting some back roads too.

The trail runs 45 miles from Karnak to Harrisburg. I did it in sections, from one parking lot up to the next then back each trip, so I guess I've done a round trip of 90 miles overall! 

The namesake tunnel is roughly the halfway point, and runs 500+ feet, making it eerie to ride (or walk) through! The elevation is the highest at this point too, so it's beautiful scenery being up on the bluffs and tree tops. Though it means one part of the trip is uphill...ha!

My favorite sections were the scenic ones around the main tunnel. The sections nearer to Harrisburg were closer to the roadway, so there wasn't as much quiet while riding the trail. Exploring new sections of this trail and getting outdoors was a wonderful part of this strange year.

Trail Complete!

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