Monday, December 31, 2012

2012 Year in Review

2012 was probably my most productive quilting year to date. 
I completed 15 quilts this year ranging from king size to small wall hanging quilts.

I also made three pillows and five pincushions in 2012.

Four of the projects were my own designs in which I shared the patterns/tutorials on my blog.

At the same time, I still have quite a few projects in the works that I hope to finish in 2013. 

I'm ready for 2013!  It's been a rough year for me personally, so I'm looking forward to the new year and new beginnings.  My New Year's Resolution is to focus on myself - putting myself first and working to make myself as happy as possible. I've always been the person to put everyone before myself.  This year, I'm going to spend time focusing on myself .

I hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Friday, December 28, 2012

Making Progress

Well, with the holidays, I've only managed 30 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and the occasionally hour over the past couple of weeks to continue quilting my modern hexagon quilt.  I just have two corners to go to finish quilting before I'm ready to make the binding and finish this one!
Sometimes I get these crazy ides, like pebbling an entire quilt in metalic thread several years ago.  For this quilt, I decided to echo 1/4" lines on the outside of the hexagons.  Yup, crazy! It's taking a while, but it's looking good.

It goes well with the quilting in the hexagons and the alternating width echoing in the center.

I just have two more corners left to complete and one hexagon.  I just received the thread for the last hexagon in the mail on Monday, so I can finally get that one completed.


I think it looks awesome from the back!  I love the rainbow effect that various thread colors make in the hexagons.

Now, maybe things will get back to a level of normal and I can get some quilts completed!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Christmas Jackpot!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas this year.  I certainly did.  On Black Friday, my sister was over and did some shopping online.  After seeing a ton of sales online for various quilt shops, I suggested several ideas for myself for Christmas at various stores.  My "list" this year in terms of quilting stuff involved filling a bunch of baskets at various online stores, handing the computer to my sister, who was in cahoots with my mom, and her completing a bunch of Christmas shopping for me that day.
Solids were the first theme of Christmas.  I got a Moda Bella Solids color card, a Michael Miller jewel toned fat quarter bundle and another fat quarter bundle of the new Kona solids.

Speaking of fat quarter bundles, I got a subscription to the Fat Quarter Shop's Blogger's Choice fat quarter club from my parents.

I got some great notions as well.  This travel pincushion on the left has a cover, which will come in handy when traveling.  I'm excited to get more of the Clover binder clips.  I had a 10 pack, but will definitely put this larger case to good use.

And I got a fat quarter bundle and coordinating Aurifil thread of Simply Color, one of my favorite fabric lines right now.

I also got some great Tula Pink - Birds and the Bees (14 one yard cuts!) from KK and Tula Pink's book from another aunt.

I'd say it was a pretty good Christmas!  Now to find the time to begin digging into all of these goodies! 

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

WIP Wednesday: More Quilting

Man this time of year is busy.  I've only had a few hours to do some quilting this week.  On Friday I hosted a sew-in for the BMQG at my house and managed to bury the threads in my hexagon quilt and sketch out some various quilting designs, where I finally decided what I wanted to quilt them with.
On Sunday, I finally managed to sit down and begin quilting them.  Here's a shot of one of the hexagons from Instagram.
Here's another close up shot of one of the hexagons.
Here's a picture of the back.  You can see that I'm using matching thread for each of the hexagons, so you get this cool, muted rainbow on the back as well.  I have three hexagons left before I move onto the final background and get this quilt completed. I'm just waiting on some thread to finish it off.
Here's a closer picture of the back.  You can see that I stitched in the ditch around the outside of the hexagon and then quilted the intersecting lines before doing the dense back and forth triangle.  Overall, I'm really happy with how this is turning out.  It's just taking a while. I'm not sure when I'll be able to sit down next, between holiday parties, work and other social engagements, it doesn't look like I'll get much sewing in this month.

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

WIP Wednesday: Some Machine Quilting

Last night I got to work quilting my modern hexagon quilt.
I like to start in the center of the quilt to avoid puckering in the middle.  So, I drew a bunch of lines on the center portion of the quilt and started quilting.  I alternated between 1/4" and 1/2" between the echoed lines.
It took me a couple of hours to get this much done.  (Ignore the threads I need to bury.)  I really like how it came out.  It's cool how the echoed hexagons turn into a star as the pattern gets progressively smaller.  Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do in the white sashing and the hexagons. 

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Monday, December 3, 2012

Dazzling Diamonds Remix

When I taught my Dazzling Diamonds pattern at Quilter's Way a few weeks ago, I prepared some blocks in various stages to show how to paper piece.  Since I already had to make a few blocks, I decided that I would make another quilt to go in my guest room that I'm redesigning in blue, pink and green.
Well, I just finished piecing the remaining blocks and pieced the top together.  In my pattern, I offer up several different layout options, with this being one alternative to my original pattern.  In this layout, you lose the secondary design of the stars in the background.  BUT, you get this awesome sense of movement - your eye is directed to the center of the quilt.
I've enjoyed making this version in prints instead of solids like my previous version.  Like it's predecessor, this quilt measures 24" square and will be a wall hanging.
One of the things that I love about paper piecing is that you have a full-size template to sketch quilting ideas.  I'll occasionally use a light pencil to sketch out quilting motifs before I tear the paper off the back.  I don't recommend using a pen or marker (don't ask me how I know) since you can easily tear the paper with a pen and a marker can easily bleed through the paper and onto your fabric.