2014 In Review

I wanted to collect all my quilts for this year in one place, so I can see what I'm up against next year for UFOs.  I divided them into categories, based on progress and destination.


Quilts finished this year, pieced and quilted.  There are 3 mystery quilts in there, 2 shop samples, a quilt for my son, and 3 projects from the April quilt retreat, among others.

Charity quilts:



Previous UFO tops quilted this year:

Tops finished this year, but not quilted:

Tops quilted this year, but not bound:

There's a lot more there than I expected. I had been thinking it was a slow year and very little got done.  But I count 26 quilts (finished ones plus tops) - I can hardly believe I did that many.  However, only 4 tops out of my "to be quilted pile" got done. And I added 11 more. Net increase of 7 quilts on the pile this year.  I really do need to tackle that this coming year.

Another (almost) finish!

Not quite a finish for the year, but I did get another quilt off the longarm today.  Last one for 2014, and I should be able to get to the binding over the next week, so it can be #1 for 2015

I did some custom quilting on this one - I want to try to expand my custom skills and design ideas this year, rather than sticking with my fallback pantographs. So that's my goal with my own quilts in 2015.  I'm sure some will still be pantographs, but hopefully I can expand my horizons with a few of them.  After all, there are 18 (or more) to quilt :)

Design Wall Monday

I have a couple of things in progress this week. Frist, Bonnie's Grand Illusion Mystery.

Bonnie was kind to us this week. After the weeks of 260 broken dish blocks, and 100 slanted diamonds, she gave us a step with 29 blocks this week.  29 4-patches, in fact.  I can do this!!

In fact, I even managed to finsh clue #2 (although I didn't take a picture of it). Thanks in large part of Swooze who pointed me to a blog that described strip piecing those particular units.

I am now all caught up with Bonnie, and ready for the next step.

And this is back up on my design wall.  Judy's Tell it to the Stars mystery.  I just have the borders to do - November and December's clues.  So I'm working that this week.  Lots of little half-square triangles and flying geese.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone is up to for the final Design Wall Monday of 2014. And don't forget to drop by the Grand Illusions Monday linkup

Stash Report - Dec 28

My final stash report for 2014.  Pushing through, I had a few finishes this week.  I showed them here.
My Kaffe Fassett top is done.  That's a nice chunk out of my stash this week. I'll have to pick a backing for it, but I have a few other quilts in the queue ahead of this one, I think.

2 bindings - 1 yards
1 quilt - 6 yards
1 backing - 3 1/2 yards

Total out this week - 10 1/2 yards

Stash totals for the year:
485 1/4 yards in
196 3/4 yards out
Total: 288 1/2 yards in

NO. I just can't do it. 3 1/4 yards short of my 200 yard goal! I have to make one more backing before the day is up.  That'll fix it :)

Drop by Judy's blog to see how everyone else did in their stash busting efforts this year.

Mystery Overload

Willpower? What willpower?

It's almost New Year's, which seems to be a traditional time for mysteries to take place.  I don't need another project. I just itemized all my projects already on the go for 2015, and swore off new projects.  And I remembered that I found a New Year's mystery last year, so I did some googling to see who was hosting one this year.  And now I appear to have jumped in with both feet. But I can't resist a challenge, and trust me, this is going to be a challenge.

Here's what's up for New Year's this year:

1. Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusions Mystery - already in progress, but booting right along at 1 clue a week, so should finish early January
2. a New Year's Eve mystery, from QTMysteryQuilts, a yahoo group. (starts 3am, Dec 31)
3. a New Year's Day mystery, from Merry Mayhem (10am Jan 1)
4. a New Year's Day mystery, from quilting.about.com (7am Jan 1)

The good news is that 3 of these are 1-day mysteries. So I should be able to avoid stretching them out for the whole year.  AND, the most important part, every scrap of fabric for all 4 of these quilts is coming out of my stash!

2. QT Mystery Quilts - Black & White with a splash of (scrappy) red

4. quilting.about.com - green quilt (3 greens) with gold accent

3. Merry Mayhem - scrappy darks & brights
(there's more orange/yellow than shown here).

1. Bonnie Hunter - Grand Illusions.  Scrappy green, aqua, pink with yellow, black and white.  A jumbled mess because cutting has commenced.

Final finishes for 2014

Wrapping up my accounting for the year, I have a couple of finishes to report. The bindings went on both of these quilts earlier this week.  The push was that I registered them both for the UFO challenge at the Ottawa Modern Quilt guild - and I just couldn't bring myself to show up without them done. The large quilt was bound on Sunday, and the small one on Monday after work. Just in time for the Monday night meeting.  It was worth the effort to get them done - both of my tickets in the UFO challenge draw paid off!  I brought home an Alison Glass charm pack, and a second one that will hopefully work with it.

This quilt is the Back to Square One medallion mystery from Judy and Vicki in 2013. Finally quilted this fall, and now bound and ready for use.

The second one is a modern wallhanging.  The blocks are appliqued onto a single piece of background fabric.  Yes, I said applique. Hand applique even.  There just wasn't any other option to get the look I wanted, so I set aside my dislike of applique for a few moments.  I'm very happy with how I managed to get the binding to match the background.

I also finished my Kaffe Fassett quilt top. 

And there will (I hope) be at least one final long arm quilting project done before the year is up. But that had to go on hold for a few days, while my son was visiting, and using my longarm studio as a bedroom.

Christmas Day Stitching

Merry Christmas, everyone!

While my kids are catching up with their friends in the online gaming world on Christmas Day, I've been spending quality time with my sewing machine :)  Catching up on Bonnie's "Grand Illusions" mystery is on the schedule for today. Clues 1,3, and 4 are now complete. Yes, there is a noticeable gap in there. Clue 2 is scary :)  But I might get started on it after dinner.  That would get me all caught up before clue 5 comes out tomorrow morning.

I'm very curious to find out how the green rectangles - finish at 3x6 - are going to work with the broken dish units - finish at 4x4 - in the final project.

Adding this post to Bonnie's Monday linkup - I think I still have a couple of hours to catch this week's deadline.