First Two Finishes of 2024

 The first two finishes of the year are for the same recipient. I've got a great-nephew due anytime now. He is my second sister's first grandchild, but unfortunately for all of us, my sister was taken from us too soon and she won't meet him this side of heaven. One of her great regrets was not holding a grandchild, so when I finished making memory quilts for her family from her clothes, I set a few bits of clothing aside. I can't bring her back, and it's a poor facsimile of her holding her grandson, but here's the quilt for him made from her clothes.

It's really soft and drapes like a hug. 

Here's the minky backing where the quilting really shows up. I was thinking of the stair step pattern as a stairway to heaven, and her coming down long enough to hold that grandbaby. Even though I've washed all the clothes, they still smell like her perfume. 

On a lighter side, my nephew wanted a beach theme for the nursery, so I went that direction with my quilt, and the quilt from me is a bit bigger, good for tummy time.

Working with my sister's clothes is heavy on my heart, so I decided to play around with my quilt. I grabbed two light tan fat quarters for the dry sand, two darker golden tan fat quarters for the wet sand, and blues and greens from the lightest to dark. I cut all the fat quarters into 2.5 and 4.5" strips, grabbed my specialty rulers, EZ angle for HST's, Companion Angle for QST's, and Tri-Recs for triangle in a square units. With a colorwash beach scene in mind, I started cutting units for 4" finished blocks. I made more blocks than I needed so I could really play on the design wall once the blocks were made. To up the beachy feel, I also added in some fussy cut 4" finished squares with sea creatures on them. 

In this photo you can see several of the fussy cut animals. I didn't want them super obvious, so I tried to put them in with similar colors. The colors are off in this photo, I should have taken it outside. The first photo shows the colors much more accurately. Several of these fabrics were brought to me by DD#2 when she went to Hawaii last year. 

My quilt for baby has a minky backing too, but I quilted spirals on mine, wanting to add in some wave action. 

I also sent a dozen beach themed burp rags I made. 

I never know how to list the first quilts of the year. Technically I could count them as UFO's since they were not started in this calendar year, but they were never set aside so I'm listing them as WIP's instead of either a UFO or New Start. 

I've got all the blocks done for my colorway of Indigo Way. I knew I was taking a big risk this year, because I was messing with Bonnie's values. I usually do a photo negative of her colors, using the darkest colors where her lightest are, and using my darkest where her lightest are. This year I messed with that, and if I was determined to do her layout, I shouldn't have. 

Here's a sample of the blocks in her layout, and I am not love with it, not even in like with it. I never make myself stick with a designer's suggestion fo layout, so I played around with it, and I did find something I liked. 

Straight set with my purple background for sashing, but these light teal cornerstones, yup, this I can get behind. I'm using the units from the setting triangles to make extra block B's. 

I'm going to try my men's shirt version with the on point layout but with solid setting triangles. I wasn't a fan of the border, and I only made those units in my colorway, because I was pretty sure that step was the border. I'm still debating if I'm going to try to rework the border or just use the units in another quilt. 

I'm almost finished quilting a UFO too, so maybe that will be on the blog finished next week!

Time to Show Off My Husband's Work

 I told DH back in maybe October, that what I really wanted for Christmas was a wall mounted quilt rack for an empty wall in our living room. I knew he wouldn't have time to make it before Christmas, and I was fine with that. 

Most of my quilts I donate, and I usually wait until I have several done before I turn them in. The thing is, once they are done, I stick them in a closet and there they sit until the closet is full and I bring them in. I never look at them after they are done, and I realized that's one of the reasons I feel like I don't get enough done. I've decided I need to be able to enjoy my work for a bit, before they get donated, thus a huge wall mounted quilt rack. He finished the rack yesterday.

Yes, it is straight, see the big level on the left side of the photo. Our ceilings are slanted with the roofline which makes everything look wonky. It's exactly the same measurement from the floor on each side, and the bars are level. 

I'm not sure how well it shows up, but the cuts for the bars are shallower as you go down so any bulk from multiple quilts hanging has someplace to go. the uprights are in studs, so the weight of the quilts shouldn't be a problem. My goal was a quilt rack large enough to hang a dozen quilts, four bars with three quilts across. I'm quite happy with how it came out. I want the finish to cure a bit more before I hang quilts on it, but when I do, I'll show it again. 

That's what DH has been up to, but I haven't been idle either! I've basted six quilts in the past few days, and I'm still working on tidying up. I came across the first design boards I made when looking through the storage room. Rather than pitch them, since I do have a big design wall now. I decided to mount them in the sewing room too. Is there really any such thing as too much design space, especially since I'm normally working on multiple quilts at once?

The black sections are my original design boards, that I used in my first sewing room. They are four foam core boards from the dollar store, wrapped with black flannel. I just duct taped the flannel to the back, then hung the boards up with 3M damage free picture hanging strips. If you are renting, this would be an option for you. I have two boards on top of each other hanging horizontally on the left, and two boards next to each other hanging vertically on the right. That's just what fit best in each location. I figure being able to keep a sample block up next to me while I'm sewing could keep me orienting things correctly on blocks that are easily confused. 

This quilt is on my big design wall right now. It's identical to a larger quilt I made a couple months ago. That one had 8" squares. this one has 6" squares. My big design wall is two sheets of foam insulation board. They come in 4x8 ft sheets, but I can't reach 8" high so I had DH cut them down to 7 feet. I wrapped Warm and Natural batting around these, and they are just leaning against the wall, so again, a renter-friendly option. We own our home, so I could permanently mount it, I just see no reason to. 

The baby quilts for a great-nephew on the way are my priority right now. I've finished quilting one, and I started quilting the second this morning. When they are both quilted, I'll machine bind them both in a day. That baby could come any time now, so I need to get these quilts done and mailed. At least the burp  rags are finished! 

I'm still not finished all the blocks for Indigo Way, and I'm as of yet undecided how I will assemble them. I like Bonnie's layout just fine, but I might not do it that way anyway. On my colorway I'm leaning toward assembling the center of the quilt her way, but doing the borders differently, and on her colorway I'm making with men's shirts, I'm leaning towards solid setting triangles and a different border. 

I've also been doing some cutting for more deadline quilts. I have four grandsons wanting new quilts this year, and I'd like to get all four cut out this month. Once they are cut, those can be at least leader/ender projects for a bit until their birthdays are getting close and they need to be the priority. I've gotten whole quilts made as leaders/enders, without them ever being the main project. I even assemble quilts with leader/enders, often just assembling two different quilts at once. 

Mystery Quilt Progress

 I've been busy working on Bonnie Hunter's Indigo Way mystery. I've got all the block A's done in both colorways I'm doing.

Here's my colorway.

And here is Bonnie's colorway, but using only men's shirts.

I'm working on the B blocks now, though I am taking time out of that to assemble both baby quilts I'm making. I had hoped to be quilting them by now, but those plans were derailed. Those need to be finished ASAP, so now those are my priority. I sewed the rows for both quilts into pairs this morning before I went out to lunch with my sister and a niece. After I finish this blog post I'll be sewing pairs together so maybe at least one will assembled by the day's end. Neither are getting borders.

The first blocks for the Greek Murder Mystery came out yesterday, and they were super quick, so I've already finished them.

The light green looks more accurate in this photo, but the darker green looks black.

This photo shows the darker green correctly, but the lighter green looks mustard yellow. Rest assured, actual colors are somewhere in between. I was really happy when I realized I won't get the February murder mystery blocks until after the family reunion we are hosting! I made January's blocks, then packed them up with the mystery fabrics and put them aside. Off my to do list until after the next big event!

DH and I are both busy working on projects we want finished before the reunion. DH is making me a giant wall mounted quilt rack for an empty wall in our living room. I'll mostly be displaying quilts I plan on donating, so I can enjoy them a bit before they make their way out the door. They usually go straight into the linen closet until I have several ready to donate, and I never get that sense of satisfaction for having finished them. I decided displaying them while I'm waiting for several will allow me to see my work before it's shipped off. 

I've got about four weeks before the reunion, and right now my priorities are baby quilts, because they need to be mailed out soon, and CLEANING up my fabric and sewing rooms!!! On the weekends, my priority is the cleaning part. Of course I'd rather sew, so unless I spend all morning cleaning and organizing, I'm not letting myself sew on weekends. So far, so good, on that front, I actually have my cutting table cleaned off, which is super important, because I baste everything up to a twin size on my cutting table. When I'm down to one week before the reunion it's going to be all about cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms, vacuuming and dusting. Most of my house is fairly uncluttered, but my sewing and fabric rooms were a disaster, so I really need to put the time in those. I'd really like to get both Indigo Way quilt tops assembled before the reunion, which will get a bunch of stuff out of the way naturally. I'm not sure that's going to happen, so we'll see. In my fabric room, what's still looking bad is I have a couple quilts I cut backings and batting for, but never pieced the backings so I could baste them. That is an OK weekend project, because I have a spot for basted quilts in my quilt closet. Getting those off the countertops and basted will make my countertops look much better. I also have some cut scraps I never put in the scrap user system, so taking care of that will help too. I have quilt projects hanging around in both rooms, and that is more problematic. I will NOT shove a bunch of different projects in a box to make my rooms more presentable. I will organize and put away the things I can, and whatever is still out will be current projects, and if it's out, it's out. I sew almost every day, and if it looks like I was just sewing in there, so be it. I know there will be a few people who want to see my sewing room, but it's not like people will be hanging out in there. 

I did get everything off the floor in both rooms, and I'm working my way down to surfaces. I wasn't even sure I could put all my cutting dies away, but after straightening things up, I actually did have enough space to put them all away. My designated area for the long dies is at capacity though, so if I want any new ones, I'm going to have to make some hard decisions. I'm actually debating selling my Studio cutter and all my Studio dies, and switching to a Go electric cutter. I have a LOT of Go dies, so it definitely wouldn't be starting from scratch. The thing is, I love my Studio cutter, it cuts 10 layers of fabric at once! The Go dies only do 6. The cutting plastics for the Studio cutter also last longer than the Go cutting mats. The Studio cutter is MUCH easier to crank than the Go manual cutter was, so I can still use my Studio cutter, but looking down the road, it might be better to switch. I'm having a lot of pain in my right wrist, I'm sure it's arthritis, not carpal tunnel, but either way, it's not likely to improve with age. All the cutting I did for Indigo Way with dies, I cranked it with my left hand, which is a legitimate work around. I haven't decided for sure, and there is no reason to rush my decision. 

On the home front, our kitchen faucet broke this week, and we are hiring someone to replace it tomorrow. DH knows how to replace one, but his back has really been bothering him, and spending a couple hours replacing a faucet won't help.  I'm not interested in tackling a faucet replacement, though I have tiled rooms and I've got lots of experience hanging shelving and such. I can do lots of household stuff, but sometimes the wiser option is let someone who knows what they are doing do it. We were planning on this being a year of repair as DH is readying for retirement, we just weren't planning on THIS repair! 

2023 Reckoning and 2024 Goals

Happy New Year! 🥳

I always reflect at the end of a year, and make plans for the new year. I am a planner by nature, not that I can't adapt to changes, but that I just naturally make plans, set goals. This morning I was thinking how many plans we've had that have fallen through. Some big plans fell through (We had planned to move in 2020 or 2021 and that fell through in a big way), some home renovations we still haven't finished,  some smaller things fell through, like having a year end basting spree or just finishing more UFO's. I can make plans, but I can't predict what life will throw my way. I had no idea I'd live in hotel for three months in 2023. 

I've often told my kids, life is what happens while you are making other plans. Plans are helpful, but being adaptable to change is PRICELESS. 

I just looked over 2022's year end post, and I didn't make a lot of firm goals for 2023. I mentioned making a baby quilt, which I did. I mentioned two of my grandsons wanted new quilts for their birthdays. Funny thing about that, those grandkids still don't have new quilts. I would have had to bring all the fabrics and finished their quilts while living in a hotel, and that wasn't likely to happen. Again, life throws curve balls sometimes. When I got back home, three other grandkids asked for quilts, and I did get those done! I wasn't playing favorites, it just had to do with birthday timing. This year I hope to get the original two quilts done before the birthdays on question, plus I have two other grandsons wanting new quilts now too. I have everything to make the four quilts, so barring another curveball, I'm hoping to make all of those. 

Last year I mentioned needing to make two scooter rally quilts, plus all the rally bags. I did get all of that done. 

In 2022 I used 9.5 miles of thread, in 2023 I used over 11 miles of thread. In 2022 I had 24 finishes, 11 of which were UFO's. I had hoped to finish more UFO's in 2023. Well, I had 26 finishes in 2023, of which only 7 were UFO's. 2023 was pretty hit or miss for me. I know the three months in the hotel really kept my finishes, especially UFO finishes down. I have a whole closet full of quilt tops, but no basting and no quilting happened in that hotel. Basically, for a quarter of the year, only piecing was an option, and by the time I got back, I had deadline projects to concentrate on. 

So, besides the four quilts for grandsons, what are my goals for 2024? I have two baby quilts to make, and they need to be finished this month. One is half assembled, one is in blocks. I'd like to make quilts for my nieces and nephews that don't have one from me. That's mostly the unmarried ones, but I'm thinking wedding quilts are likely a thing of the past for me. I'm having to accommodate my RSI more and more, and I know there a very few queen/king quilts left in me. Doing them on a deadline is even more unrealistic. As I finish several big quilts already started, I can decide whether I am up to quilting it myself, or if I should send it out to a longarmer. I still feel confident quilting twins and smaller on my own. 

Mostly I need to start utilizing my time better, not to get more done, but to take the breaks I really need to be taking. I need to appreciate the journey, and not focus on the goals. I'll always want to be productive, but my main goal for 2024 is to be kinder to myself.