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