2015 Summary and 2016 Quilting Goals

2015 has been a good year for me.  I didn't write or blog about any goals for this year, but I had 3.

1. Make 36 quilts.  We made 44 quilts this year, 3 of them by my kids! My 4 favorites are:

Stained Glass

Postcard from Oklahoma

  

Scrappy Twister

Morse Code

2. Finish cutting all my scraps, and keep up with new ones. I did manage to get all the scraps cut and have been doing a good job keeping up with that.  It's so nice to look at the organized scrap bins and be able to find things. You can find the sizes I keep in this post.

3. Use up the unloved fabric in my closet. That fabric was the larger than 1/2 yard, but smaller than 3 that somehow got purchased.  It's the "what was I thinking" fabric. I did clean out the closet and get them all used.  Here's few of my favorites.

Adding Up Nicely

Floral Plus Quilt

Happy Garden Quilt

Rainbow Brick

New things this year:

1. I opened an etsy shop last month.  I have been thinking about it for a while, but had some reservations.  With my good friend's help and encouragement it is open!

2. I became a pattern tester this year.  This has been so much fun!  I have gotten to make quilts that I would not have picked out myself.  Not to mention getting to know the pattern maker - love you, Myra!



2016 Goals
I have decided to start keeping track of my fabric usage in 2016.  I figure I should be accountable to someone. So to see where I was this year as best as I can recall I added up what I used and took a guess at what I purchased.  Looks like the 44 quilts used about 250 yards.  I think I bought around 245, but I'm sure I missed some smaller purchases.  It's probably closer to 275. Not bad considering our local quilt shop closed and I bought 160 yards from there.  I plan on using much more than buying this next year!

Make 36 quilts. Same old plan - about 3 per month.

Use up the large "what was I thinking fabric".  Some of it is actually quite pretty, but ends up in this category because it is a large print fabric and needs to be mixed with blenders.  There are around 20 of these fabrics and I have started making piles and picking patterns already.  2 quilts are already cut and 1 top is finished. Here are a few of the piles:

This cleaned out my large piece bins and now I have a nice selection of more solid/blender colors for backing all sorted by color.

Thanks for taking time to read my blog.  I enjoy sharing with you! I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a great New Year!  May 2016 be a year of great blessings for y'all!

Key to My Heart

Myra of Busy Hands Quilts has released a new pattern to her Craftsy shop!  It's called Key to My Heart.  I loved that the squares went together quickly.  It would be cute in so many different colors. I had a pile of black and red prints sitting out from my twister quilt so I decided to use those.  Reminds me of stop signs!

Quilted with a loopy meander, just because it was easy! I added a solid black binding because the other fabrics were too busy with this top.

My typical back when I have lots of fabric is just to add a color accent to the main print.

Linking with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Hand Dyed Quilt

52 x 66

All of the fabrics on the front are hand dyed except the pink and yellow. I used a ready for dye cotton fabric.  After washing this quilt 3 times, it still doesn't have that same soft feel as my other quilts.

The pattern was easy, I cut up a bunch of 2.5 inch squares so I could control where the darker squares landed.  But you could easily have strip pieced the blocks.

I found a matching moda marble in red for the back and some blue mirage stuff in my stash that was almost the exact color.

I ended up with several knots on the back (around 8).  I have since loaded some practice fabric and used the rest of the bobbin (and several more) and didn't get a single knot.  I quilted fast, slow, meander, loop, feather, back and forth.  The knots were spread out all over the quilt instead of being in one general area.  Don't know what happened, but I am glad that it seems to have stopped.

I also had some bleeding on the white after washing with 2 color catchers.  I washed it again with 2 more and some synthrapol (we use this when we tie dye shirts) and it all seemed to come out.  I thought that was why the quilt wasn't soft, so I washed it a third time, but nothing changed.  Anyone have a good way to soften this quilt?

Linking with: My Quilt Infatuation

Morse Code

52 x 64

This was a fun one to quilt!  The pattern is called Tonga Punch Morse Code.  I changed it a bit by taking off the borders and I added a few extra rows.  I like this pattern because each row is one  2-1/2 by WOF strip cut into pieces. Original pattern can be found here. 

I thought it would be fun to quilt dashes and dots in the sashing.  They aren't even close to perfect, but if you don't get too close they look really cool!  I was also going to do a square spiral in each row, but after quilting the first one, it was way too dense.

So I switched to a boxy type line that you can see above.  Since I had already quilted a row of the spirals, I continued that design every 4 rows.  It worked out evenly down the quilt.

I threw in this fabric from Hobby Lobby on the back because the tan was a little short.  It's almost the same colors as the front. It was nice to try some different quilting for a change.  It has great texture, can't wait to see it after it gets a wash!

Linking with Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Rainbow Patchwork

45 x 54

Can you believe this quilt is made from leftover from my postcard quilt?  I had cut the leftover strips into squares and had so many I wanted to make a quilt from them. I did have to get into my stash for some purple, but that was about it.  I wish I had taken a picture of the top before it was quilted.  It was so plain.  Now it looks awesome!

I quilted back and forth in each square across the quilt alternating directions.  I only messed up once. Can you find it up there?  I'll give you a hint:  it's on a green square.  I had started thinking about something when I was quilting and oopps! Went the wrong way! No big deal.

For the back, I used a gray scratchy looking fabric that was wide enough for the whole quilt.  I used it for the binding too.

Myra, I thought of you when I saw the pictures of this quilt!

Linking to Freemotion by the River

Frogs and Bugs Baby Quilt

31.5 x 40.5

This is a simple and cute baby quilt.  My 10 yr old son made the top.  He has gotten so much better.  In fact, most of his seams line up perfectly!

He chose some frog and bug prints to go with some of my 5" square scraps.  I gave it a quick meander and added the matching binding.

I think he needs to be making some more baby quilts because I usually don't make those myself!

Scrappy Black and Red Twister

x

This twister quilt was made following Jasmine's tutorial except I cut my squares at 6 inches instead of 10 to make a smaller twister block.  And I used white for every other twister to lighten the quilt up a bit.

I laid my ruler 1.5 inches in from the left on the top and 1.5 inches in from the right on the bottom and made a cut.

I don't have a rotating mat big enough so I just moved my ruler without moving the fabric.  Repeat the same cut.

Each piece ends up looking exactly the same.  NOTE:  remember to place all squares right side up when cutting on the 4 pieces or they will be backwards.

 

I was deciding between twisters that were all the same in the block or the scrappy version. After I laid out the pieces, I decided it would be easier to cut some of the white into 2 pieces instead of 4 so there would be less sewing.  I forgot to take a picture of this and you can't see it in the picture.  Sorry!

I went with the scrappy version.  I somewhat randomly placed a black and red print together and sewed all the blocks.  Then I trimmed them to 4.5 inches.  Them placed them out on the design wall to make sure all the different fabrics got spread out.

I really love this quilt!  I plan on making some more in the future.  Perhaps lime green and teal or maybe even 3 different colors.  Lots of options with this pattern.  Hope you give it a try!

Super Simple No Seams to Line Up Guy Quilt...

...for lack of a better title!  I even asked my boys for some ideas - "super cool line quilt"  and "cool quilt" were some of the wonderful suggestions I received!  My inspiration came from here with no help naming this quilt either.  But it is simple and easy to make!

53 x 63

Blocks are cut at 6.5" x 4.5" and sashing is 2.5"  I used most of the same fabrics from the last quilt, but this time I wanted to use up all the striped fabric.  I love the striped binding.  I didn't know weather to connect my strips on the diagonal or match them up straight.  So I went with diagonal because it goes through my binding machine easier!  Here's a closer look at the prints.

 Lots of stripes on the back.  It wasn't tall enough so I just cut it in 3 places and added some fabric from the front. I was all out of the red which would have looked great on the back.  Still looks great.  I think stripes are perfect for a guy quilt!