Wrapping up 2025

 I have been doing this blog for over 10 years.  And JUST TODAY I realized I can see a summary of comments in the edit screen.  Wow, more people have been reading and commenting than just friends and family.  I'm kind of stunned.  Nice that other quilters have found me and enjoy the blog.  Though now I'm feeling a bit of pressure about my spelling and punctuation.  Not to mention my writing. Guess I need to up my game a little.  Nah!

I have been better about keeping up with the blog this year.  Not surprising since I officially retired in March.  I've also sewn a lot in the last few months of the year, so I do have another catch up post to do.  My finished tops count isn't as high as last year, but the tops hanging in the closet are starting to stack up again (22 unquilted). That seems to be my pattern the last couple of years, so I guess January will be another month of quilting.

Several weeks ago, I was out of ideas for quilts I wanted to make, so I went back through my old photos for inspiration.  Most of the quilts in this blog are from that review.

I ran across this pattern which is from the book Spectacular Scraps by Judy Hooworth & Margaret Rolfe.  It was one of the first quilting books I purchased.  I had made a red and blue version which is still a favorite lap quilt.  I decided to make a baby quilt using pink and turquoise.  It is made entirely of half square triangles using scraps from the bin.  It stretched my tendency to try and make everything match.

I had seen this next quilt online several years ago and purchased the pattern but had never made it.  Called Hot Flashes from Cozy Quilt Designs, it looks very dramatic but is simple to piece and works great with novelty prints, especially the small scatter prints.

This next pattern was a sew day project at one of my guilds in Fort Worth, taught by my friend Beth. I believe she called it Whirlagig.  She also is a novelty fabric collector, and we steal ideas from each other frequently.

I still had a little bit of red, white and blue fabric left from the Roll Call quilts so I made a donation quilt using the pattern Talkin Turkey from String Fling by Bonnie Hunter.  She had strings in the large corners, but I just used one fabric.  

There were SOOOO many small flying geese in these blocks, sixteen in each.  I had agreed to do a School House demonstration on the Stripology ruler by GE Designs.  In addition to how to cut strips, I also demonstrated how to trim flying geese using the ruler.  As the old saying goes, the best way to learn something new is to teach others.  And I think I sold at least a dozen stripology books as everyone kept asking about the book.  This quilt was my demo, cutting strips, trimming blocks and making flying geese.

This next quilt pattern is also by Bonnie Hunter, called Four Patch Fun.  And it was very fun, only using 2.5" squares and 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles.  It's not as complicated as her typical patterns and it worked great for small scatter novelty prints.

I call this next quilt Woven Jacob's ladder.  I saw it on FB, I think in an advertisement for a quilting group.  No credits were given so I don't know who designed it or what it was called.  I decided to use some fabrics that had been in my stash for several years. It makes a very interesting effect, using two different blocks to give a wonderful secondary pattern.  I would have liked to make it a bit bigger, but I ran out of a couple of the fabrics.  So, I added some borders instead.

My friend Ellen did this pattern as a mystery quilt at a Valley of the Sun retreat.  I wasn't able to attend but I saw the quilts others were posting, so decided to make one with novelty scraps.  The pattern is called the Case of the Stretched Chains by Billie Lauder.  

After my daughter and her roommate brought both their cats to our home for Thanksgiving, I realized our ottoman needed a quilt for protection.  I found this quick pattern called Leo in "Master Your Stripology Rulers" by GE Designs.  Making flying geese with the Stripology ruler really is fast and accurate - my complaint with previous methods I tried was always the inaccuracy.  When I first put the blocks together, I didn't really like how the fabrics were working.  I added sashing and corner stones which made all the difference.  I love how it turned out, and Ranger my cat also loves it. The stacked flying geese even look a bit like Christmas Trees, sort of. Best part, every bit came from my stash.

I have now made this next pattern three times and it's such fun to do I'm sure I'll do it again.  It is called Hitchhiker's star by Hunter's Design Studio and the instructions are almost like a mystery quilt.  I had a stack of wild (for me) African inspired fabrics from the giveaway table at guild meeting a while back.  I used some of them in my Ring Cycles quilt for the center stars but still had several left over in my scrap bin.  I also used up some black backing scraps for the background.  It really is a good feeling to use up scraps.  Kind of like cooking dinner with what you find in the pantry.

The last time I made this next quilt was ten years ago for a little girl named Georgia.  Gosh, she would be in high school now.  I always enjoy matching the colors of the novelty fabrics to make blocks or secondary patterns.  I call this one Hugs & Kisses.  It is made with four 4.5" squares and two folded corners.

This quilt called Twisted Happy Blocks by Mary Johnson at MaryQuilts.com  was a freebe I found in 2008.  Not sure why I hadn't made it again since then as it is a fun one to make. The centers are my usual 4.5" squares, and the blocks finish at 6".

Going Way Back to my About.com quilt forum days, this pattern is called Brenna's Hearts.  One of the forum members did a block swap with these blocks which was named for her daughter.  I made a version for my daughter in 2006 using yellow, orange and red with black background.  It is one of her favorites, but I hadn't made it again since.  I decided to hit the scraps again and make a donation baby quilt.  Each block finishes at 4".  I did not use novelties as I wanted the hearts to be clear, bright colors.

I decided to make a novelty version of the Sisterhood quilt by Villa Rosa Designs, with white background.  This is such a fun pattern and goes together so quickly.

Dizzy Daisy is a quilt pattern by Missouri Star.  Since I decided to repeat the fabric in each of the four petals, it was challenging to get all 26 letters of the alphabet in only 12 fabrics.  Then I realized I could use the corner stones to fill in the missing letters.  Problem solved.

So that is it for 2025.  Sixty-one projects for the year, excluding the ten kits I cut for the retreat.  Not as many quilts as last year, but pretty close.  I'm pleased with all the scrap quilts I made.  The scrap bins are not empty, but they are definitely less stuffed.  Looking forward to another fun quilty year in 2026.

Retreat Fun with Friends

 In mid-November,  I was able to attend a local retreat with a dozen of the ladies from my church sewing group.  As usual before a retreat, I over plan.  I found myself cutting a bunch of kits and offered to the group if anyone needed something to work on, I would have some extras.  Whoa, the response was a bit overwhelming.  I figured two, maybe three people might say something but then probably not actually want one.  Nope, seven people responded right away.  Geesh, the pressure was on.  I knew pulling together that many novelty kits would be difficult in the time available, so I told everyone I'd see what I could do.  I decided some of the kits could be regular baby quilts from my scraps or stash, but they all needed to be quick and not complicated.  

As it turned out, I was able to prepare five novelty kits and five regular kits, (plus four novelty kits for me).  Aha, challenge accepted and met!  I still was a bit skeptical how many would actually get picked up but I knew any leftover I would eventually work on.  The four I set aside to work on had some more complicated piecing, odd half rectangle triangles or split rectangles.  So, I walked into the retreat with a large canvas bag of kits, all cut and ready to sew.  I had printed pages from my OneNote workbook, showing the block construction and general layout.  A few I wrote some very brief instructions, worried that it would turn into a bunch of people standing at my chair asking questions.  I shouldn't have worried as it went very well.  All 10 kits were taken and all but one was completed during the week.

It was kind of an interesting experience seeing others sew a kit I had put together.  Turns out I made several cutting and math errors, but all we were able to accommodate.  I especially enjoyed seeing how much fun everyone was having with the novelties.  I ended up working on a project someone else brought when I discovered I forgot to bring setting triangles for one of my projects.  It was such an enjoyable time, working together and sharing.  

This fabric was left from a previous large veterans quilt, just enough for a baby quilt.  This is Tina, with her very FIRST quilt.  She did a great job, even with the odd angle of the hexagon.  I think she may be hooked. Pattern is Strips and Stripes by Krista Moser.

Nancy F had fun with this pattern, entwined and I was able to use of the very last little bits of these very old fabrics from my stash.  I had forgotten to get photos, so some of these following pictures were from our Christmas party two weeks later.

Nancy S enjoyed working with the novelty fabrics, pattern is When I'm 64.  It uses lots of scraps but goes together very quickly.

Here is another quilt pieced by Nancy F.  I had to chuckle, she was sitting next to me at the retreat, and she just kept saying, "So Much Yellow"! The pattern uses alternating snowball blocks and nine patches for a great secondary pattern.

Lissa made two kits.  This first one is a rainbow version of Strips & Stripes.

This ladders quilt uses novelty fabrics.  I kept hearing Lissa exclaim about the fabrics from across the room.  Now they understand why I enjoy sewing with them. She did have some problems understanding my notes.  Now I know to put a picture of the block at the top of the instructions, instead of the bottom.  But I helped her with the ripping and she kept smiling.

Kay was a great sport about this kit.  I had miscalculated when I cut the black squares and left off one seam allowance.  So, we had to adjust the pattern a bit, but it still came out cute.  Fortunately, I had included a few extra novelty strips, so the first block cut wrong, wasn't a problem.

Jackie really enjoyed making this Disappearing Nine Patch.  I think she is planning to try it in different fabrics.  It is a very easy and flexible pattern. In the background is another quilt she was working on.

There were two more quilt kits, but I didn't get photos.  Shout out to Astrid and Debbie for also working on my kits.  If I can get photos with them at our next sew day, I will add them to this post. Thank you for everyone who worked on one of my kits.  My novelty drawers are a bit less stuffed than they were previously and now we have some great quilts to donate to Grace House.

Here are the four that I worked on at the retreat.  This first is called Kitchen Sink by Kim Bracket.  This is the one I forgot to bring setting triangles.  I also mis-cut a handful of pieces the wrong direction.  So those I fixed once I got home.  But I did most of the pieces at the retreat.  This one was very difficult to cut and time consuming to sew.  I don't think I'd do it again.

This pattern is BQ5 by Maple Island Quilts.  I've made several of their patterns which are designed to highlight large prints, but they work great for novelties too.  The most difficult part of this was getting the rectangle triangle blocks to go the correct direction.

This Chain Letter quilt is one of my favorites which I've made four times.  Except for the setting triangles, it is very easy and fun. 

I've made this lattice quilt several times, but the last time was for a little boy who is now in college.  I decided it was time to do it again.  I may add borders later but it is a nice size for a baby this way.

Here is the entire retreat group.  We are in front of the quilt put together from some blocks pieced by a lady from the Fort Worth group who made gift baskets for us.  Cricket had some gray and yellow fabrics that went perfectly with the paper pieced blocks. Mary Anne and Lee are also pictured below with Deb & Astrid in addition to the others pictured above.

It was such a fun retreat.  There were several late-night ladies which was fun - I hate being the only one up late.  And a sweet reminder of my AZ retreat friends.  At one point, Deb's husband called and she holds up her phone and yells, "Everyone say Hi to Bob" and we all did.  Which is EXACTLY what always happens at the VOS retreat when Cathy Codney's husband Bob calls.  Made me tear up a bit.  We stayed at Rock House Retreat in Santo, which I have visited before and is a great retreat center West of Weatherford..  As always Bridget Light was a wonderful cook and Jo Lynn O'Neal a great hostess.  A wonderful four days with such a great group of ladies.  Thank you all!

Not so "Forever" as I had thought

 After the last forever project that took a year, I decided I was ready to do a full blown English Paper Piecing quilt.  A friend from Arizona co-owns a pattern company called The Darty Kite Company which specializes in EPP, so I went browsing on their site. And found a pattern called Circular Reference.  That name is pretty funny as it is a common Excel error.  Very appropriate for me as a former accountant and Excel geek.  It was pretty intricate, and I figured it would take me at least a year.

Well, I didn't count on getting addicted.  The pattern was exceptionally well written, with good ideas on fabric selection and organization.  So I jumped in selecting fabrics, 90 in total.  The pattern designer has suggested making a color map, then photographing and filtering in black and white to evaluate contrast.  Which I did.  Over and over and over.  Finally I decided I was tired of fiddling around and just wanted to get started, so I jumped in.  Below is the final Color Map, which I sewed into a small top that I thought I might eventually put on the back of the quilt.  I used my little flannel flags to label each fabric, then put corresponding numbers on small zip lock bags to hold the fabrics.

The pattern company also sold some great acrylic templates as well as papers.  Lessons learned, get the larger templates (3/8" seam instead of 1/4" seam) because then it's easier to not get the glue too close to the fold and not too close to the edge.  But I managed.  Also I learned that the glue builds up on the papers and expecting to use them 4 times is optimistic.  I had some raveling occur on some patches because it was difficult to get the glue to release once it was so thick.  Another lesson was sharp needles pierce the papers too easily.  I found that quilting betweens actually worked best for me.  And finally, batiks are a little more difficult to EPP due to the tightness of the weave.  I still like batiks for applique where I can use super sharp needles, but the combination of trying not to pierce the paper but still get through the fabric made then a little difficult (and of course about 30% of the fabrics are batik).

I had a grand time organizing the cut fabric patches in the numbered Ziplock bags.  And glueing the pieces and laying them out was fun.  Oh, and honestly there is something so satisfying about finding the perfect thread color to match a 20-year-old fabric.  I set up a kit with threads and tools in a project case and took it with me everywhere.  Unfortunately, I didn't snap a picture of the sewing case, it looked pretty cool.  I spent so many evenings (and afternoons) sewing.  I had to force myself to take breaks to save my wrists and fingers.  Stitching the split hexagons was very satisfying.  Sewing the rows together was a bit challenging until I got the hang of folding the papers.  It was just so much fun to see each circle emerge.  I found the entire process of this quilt to be very much like an enjoyable jigsaw puzzle.  I was absolutely addicted.  I found I didn't want to work on anything else.  My poor machine felt so left out for these few months.  And I do mean few months.  I started the weekend of July 4th.  And I finished, including the quilting and facing, Today.  Three and a half months!  So much for "Forever".  

I wanted the quilting to emphasize the circles but not detract from the overall pattern.  I used smoke colored Monopoly thread and stitched 1/4" away from the seam line.  I decided I didn't want anything to detract from the pattern, so I didn't add a border and faced the quilt rather than adding a typical binding.  And it's all done and ready to hang.  

Only problem is, now what do I do!  I need to find another forever project that isn't so much fun so that it will last longer.

Hand Pieced "Forever Project"

Approximately eighteen months ago, I was visiting a quilting friend and noted he was working on a pattern that I had tried previously called Ring Cycles.  I had only made a table runner because it involved a large number of "Y seams", and I had gotten frustrated sewing those by machine.  We talked about all the Y seams, and he mentioned he was going to try sewing the rows together by hand which would be much easier.  That got me to thinking, what if I did a combination of piecing methods.  I was looking for a new "forever project", meaning one like my applique projects that I could carry around with me and that would be more complex than my usual machine pieced quilts.  I also wanted to try English Paper Piecing but wasn't ready to commit to a large EPP project.  I decided to make the centers of the rings using EPP as a test, the small 9 patches by machine, and put the entire thing together with hand piecing.  I made about 300 small 9 patches using scraps from my stash during a retreat weekend, then started on the EPP.  The entire quilt was completed earlier this summer and is displayed prominently in my sewing room.  A friend helped me find the perfect border fabric which I pattern matched and mitered the corners. I decided I had spent so much time piecing that the quilt deserved a fiddly border too.  I had a lot of fun with EPP stars but I admit I did eventually get tired of sewing the white triangles by hand.  Still much easier to match the intersections by hand than by machine.  I do love the optical illusion of this pattern which is a variation of the traditional Jack's Chain pattern.  I machine quilted using my long arm with some basic outline stitching as I wanted the piecing to be the focus.  And I do plan to enter it in my guild's next quilt show.

Details of some of the stars, the quilting and border fabric.

At one point my iron burped some rusty steam on the quilt, which I rushed to rinse out.  The rust came out but then some of the very old fabrics from my stash BLED in several places.  Apparently when I first started quilting I did not prewash.  Sigh.  I forced myself to keep moving forward and get it completed before I worried about the bleeding.  Once quilted and bound, I soaked it using the method from the blog post "Save My Bleeding Quilt".  It worked thank goodness.  In the pink/turquoise star below, the bleeding was especially bad, with a pink/purple pattern across the white.  But it's all gone now. Such a relief!

Summer Sewing

 I've been playing with some ideas snagged from the internet which have been sitting in my idea OneNote folder.  Some are novelty and others are using up scraps.  

This first one called Circling Novelties was somewhat easy, though I didn't plan well where I started stitching on the partial seamed square in the center.  By the time I worked my way around to the last seam, I had to some ripping to do.  Lesson learned, make that center square a bit bigger.

This was a scrappy idea from Quilt Momma (a speaker at a long ago Valley of the Sun retreat who I have been following on FB.  I was able to clear out a lot of random scraps and used a very old specialty ruler (Scrapmaster) which made cutting the triangles super easy.  I think it was one of my first ruler purchases and had forgotten all about it.  I remember being confused about how it worked.   But now after 20 years of quilting it was easy and very helpful.  I wasn't sure when I first put the blocks on the design wall as it was so chaotic, but now that it's done, I think it is one of my favorites.  Originally planned to be a donation, it's now my nap quilt and makes me smile every time I look at it.  I'm calling it Super Scrappy Triangles.

I recently completed a hand piecing forever project which I'll talk about in a separate post.  These are most of the left over 9 patches from that project, started about 15 months ago.  It made a nice donation baby quilt.

This very fun quilt was made using up 2.5 x 4.5 left over novelties.  The idea was from a free pattern called Finding Your Way Home by Free Spirit Fabrics.  I did not follow the pattern, but instead just started laying out the rectangles while referring to the pattern picture.  This version only uses one quadrant of the pattern but made a nice size for a baby quilt.  I'll definitely be doing this one again (or some variation).

The next quilt is a much-repeated pattern called Frugal Patch.  It is one way to use up some of the miles of piano key strips left over from fussy cutting.  It had been a few years since I had made one.

I still have some left over patriotic fabric donated by a quilting friend who has now moved to Chicago.  I decided to try and use up some of what I had on a pattern seen online. I'm calling it dancing waves and it is kind of a strange pattern to lay out, but it has lots of movement.  I was able to use up the beige star fabric from the donated fabrics. 

Another quilt to use up patriotic scraps.  This pattern from Bonnie Hunter's String Fling book is one I've made previously.  This time rather than the usual strings, I used fabric printed lengthwise for bindings.  I also was able to use some cream fabric from my stash, no idea where it came from as I never purchase off white fabrics.  But it worked perfectly for this quilt.  The red triangles are some VERY old fabric from my stash.

A quilting friend who lives in New Zealand made one of these that caught my attention.  She always has such great scrappy quilts and I've gotten several ideas (and a pattern) from her.  This pattern was designed by Revelation Quilts and called Faux Diamonds.  There is lots of cutting, then sewing, then more cutting, then more sewing.  But it does turn out very dramatic.  It made a small dent in my blue basket of scraps. 

This variation of shadow box turned out very nicely.  I like all the movement created by the dark vs light strips.

And another novelty using black and white which turned out very striking but was super easy to sew.  I made strip sets for the black/white/black and reverse sections between the novelty squares, so it went together very fast.

I've always been intrigues by tessellations and the art of E.C. Escher.  I've looked at several patterns over the years but always decided they were too intricate to piece.  Then I ran across this cat one.  The fabric was donated by my cousin, who thought it looked like something I'd like.  It was perfect for the cat bodies.

Catching up once again

Well, it has been a busy month, at least sewing wise.  I've been spending lots of productive hours in my sewing room and having a marvelous time listening to favorite audio books.  I realized today that I had nine quilts that I hadn't posted about yet so here is the update.

Last post, I had shown a quilt I called small donuts.  This one I'm calling large donuts.  As always, it's fun to group the novelties by color.  I also used up some random triangle left overs.

These next two I thought I would try using strips of black and white.  I always seem to use 2.5" strips in colors but the black and white have been sitting in the drawer.  These were fast to do.

This whirly gig pattern is a repeat that I loved enough to keep.  This one will be a donation.

I saw the inspiration for this pattern in a t-shirt quilt.  The optical illusion created by the black and white was such fun I wanted to try it with novelties.  I love how it came out and I'm sure I'll do another one eventually.

This black and white with rainbow is a repeat of one made during Covid.  Still trying to use up some of those black and white novelties that seem to hang around forever.

This pattern called Wild Thing is a favorite.  This is the 3rd time I've made it.  The first one was for a young lady who loved purple (she is now an adult).  The second I did in rainbow colors a few years ago and loved how it turned out, so thought I'd do it again.  Lots of trimming on all those triangles though.

I had noted this pattern from Donna Jordan's website, called Mix and Match.  I decided to use up a charm pack that I could never figure out what to do with.  The colors aren't my favorites, but it is a very interesting pattern.  It wouldn't work with novelties though, so not sure I'll do it again.

This pattern called Blooming Meadows was designed by Nancy Rink.  I used up some bright flannels I had gotten on sale a few years ago, along with the yellow from my stash.  This one will be in our guild auction in September.  

Phew, well that's the quick update.  Back to sewing!