As noted previously, for several years I have been maintaining a spreadsheet of all my quilting projects. Since I started actively quilting in 2001, most years I tended to make between fifteen to twenty, with a few years as high as 30. In 2023 I had reached a personal milestone of 50 quilts in one year. Then in 2024 I exceeded that without really planning it, getting to 63 quilt projects completed.
Just to be clear, I do count the quilts once they are tops hanging in the closet. I generally only quilt them once I have an intended recipient, primarily because they take up less space unquilted. Once I start getting more than a couple dozen hanging, I'll have a quilting marathon. At year end, I only had eleven unquilted, seven of which were pieced in 2024, so that level stays about flat from year to year.
I'm not exactly sure why so many in 2024. I think I just had a lot of ideas and a lot of free time. Looking at where did all those 63 quilts go, here are the stats. 47 were donation quilts, 14 of those to the Roll Call program, 24 baby quilts to crisis pregnancy center or NICU, and 9 to QGPC. Of the remainder, three were graduation gift T-shirt quilts, four increased my personal inventory, and the rest are either unquilted which will likely be gifts or donated later.
One of my big efforts this year was for the Roll Call program. I was given several bags of patriotic scraps by a friend who coordinates the quilt program, and I really wanted to use those up. The result was I made fourteen quilts for roll call in 2024, plus several more that I quilted for others. I am honestly a little tired of red/white/blue and plan to take a break for a while in 2025. I am down to just one small basket of patriotic fabric, so I feel like I accomplished my goal of sewing through all those scraps. Most of the 14 quilts I have already written about, but below are the ones from late in the year.
This scrappy quilt was to use up leftovers from other quilts and a stack of precut 2 x 4 rectangles I found in the bag of scraps.
Scrappy Friendship star. I had previously made a version of this with novelty fabrics, leaving out the sashing. It makes a nice secondary pattern, but the bulky seams between the blocks was a problem. So, in this version I added narrow sashing to make construction easier.
This next pattern by Kim Brackett is called Lake Cabin. I had a stack of off white and cream fabrics from the patriotic scraps that I was having problems using. So, they all got dumped into this quilt. I realized after all the blocks were made that about a third were going a different direction. Oh well, it's such a busy pattern, it's pretty hard to find the odd ones.
This is another pattern by Kim Brackett (obviously my favorite designer for scrappy quilts). I did purchase the background fabric, a wonderful nautical theme from Hobby Lobby. It was a nice weight for a white (which are often thin) and l like how the blue line drawings blend with the other fabrics. A fun pattern to make and it turned out very dramatic.
I had a yard of white flannel stars that I was struggling to use up. I decided a simple sashed Disappearing 9 patch would work and fortunately I had just enough fabric - I think I had to piece 2 of the blocks but they are invisible now that it is quilted. The border was left over backing. I always have left over long narrow pieces of backing and it is nice to be able to use them in another quilt.
In 2023 I joined a quilting group at our church which supports a local crisis pregnancy center. Most of the quilts made in 2024 I have already posted but here are three from late in the year. For this first one I had purchased the pattern called Hitchhiker's Star for a patriotic quilt and decided to make a baby version too. The pattern was designed where you picked the finished size of your quilt, then the pattern gave the size to cut the squares. There is some trimming waste, but it was still fun, and except for some of the bulky intersections which required pressing seams open, I enjoyed making it.
This novelty color strips quilt was very fast & easy, perfect for a baby quilt. The hardest part was picking through my precuts and finding enough purple and orange squares.
I got the idea for this third baby quilt from one of the Roll Call tops I quilted. It was fun to be able to use up some squares that typically don't make it into the color focused patterns like the one above. I also used up a bunch of waste triangles I had been saving from other projects.
Here are a couple of December novelties which aren't yet quilted. This bow tie quilt was fun. I enjoyed finding coordinating fabrics plus I was able to use up some more waste Triangles.
This novelty quilt is based on a pattern by Jen Kingwell. It is still unquilted and I might end up keeping this one, it turned out so well. The construction is just square in a square, but it looks a lot more complicated.
For QGPC, my local guild, I made these three clocks using a raw edge reverse applique method I had learned at a workshop. I was helped with the hand work by a guild friend. I've made clocks twice now as a fund raiser for our country store sale and they are always a big hit. Note, I only counted these as one project since they went together fast.
Every alternate year our local quilt guild, the Quilters Guild of Parker County, puts on a quilt show. As part of the fund-raising efforts, they raffle a quilt. I had suggested the pattern called Flower Box by Kim Brackett as one that would work well for a group quilt. Next thing I knew I was the raffle quilt coordinator. We collected donations of batik 2.5" strips then had several group sew days to make the blocks. I trimmed and put the blocks together and then the quilting was done by another guild member. We raised approx. $1500 in ticket sales. It was fun, but a lot of work to coordinate.
Well, that is it for 2023. I have to admit I am very proud not only of how many quilts were made last year, but also that I was able to keep up with my blog posts. These are the only quilts left from 2023 that I hadn't already posted, much better than prior years.
One more accomplishment in 2023. I finally came up with a brilliant idea to organize my photos - at least I think it was brilliant. Previously I had struggled with finding photos and matching them to the spreadsheet list. I would look in the list, find the blog post and date, then go find that blog and scroll through to try and identify the quilt - frustrating and time consuming. While working on an excel spreadsheet for my job, I was linking file locations and realized I could do the same for my quilt photos. I wanted to download and back up all my quilt photos anyway, paranoid that google would lose them. I spent a day downloading, organizing and renaming all the photos, then linking them in my spreadsheet. Now all I have to do is click on the link and it pulls up a photo. It works so well I keep finding excuses to look up things.
I discovered I had photos for all my quilt projects except one of my daughter's baby quilts (which is now missing) and an I spy book I had made for a church friend, not too bad for 25+ years of quilt. I am feeling extremely organized staring out 2025. Happy New Year!
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