RSC 2017 Goals

I have decided to try to finish several of the RSC quilts that I started in years past.  Something would happen along the line and I would work on other projects such as The Block Lotto (which Sophie who blogs at Sophie Junction) so beautifully runs.  I still plan on participating in the Block Lotto for 2017.

Speaking of The Block Lotto, here's blocks I won 12/31/14.  Expect to see a finish on this quilt in 2017.  The block on this quilt is called Big O.  This is the first quilt I made with a black background. 



I need to work and finish my Picadilly Circle blocks.  They look like this:

I only need four blocks (bright green and light green, yellow, and dark purple.)  I do need to make all the border pieces of Kelly green, red, dark blue, light purple, teal, dark orange, lime green, dark purple, yellow, pink, medium purple, and bight orange.

I have until Valentine's Day to complete and mail off a quilt top to Julianne of Quilting with Calicos.  We have both been secretly making Soul Searching blocks in 2016.  Then we will swap quilt tops.  I have three blocks to finish and then will reveal my scrappy top that I made for her after she receives it in February.  Kevin the Quilter did a gorgeous Soul Searching quilt in purples and blues.  You can see it on his blog here.  I'll be working on finishing the blocks for her quilt top during Christmas break.  It's getting exciting.  "Soul Searching" is a quilt design by Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession.  Luckily my local library has this book when I need it -- FOR FREE USE!!!



With piece parts that are left from Soul Searching blocks I will make more plus blocks, one by one...



I have almost all of the sawtooth blocks done from the RSC15 challenge.  I need to make the connecting blocks.



I still haven't figured out how to sash and border and finish my kite girl quilt.  It was a RSC14 project.  I love these little kite girls!  They really deserve to be finished.



 On pinks and orange months look forward to seeing some of these blocks.  I need to make a cute baby quilt out of these fabulous kite blocks. I love these cheerful colors!  Now that my fabric scraps are sorted by color it should be a simple fix.  All I need to do is cut and sew!



Inspired by Marcy at Made by me in Red a new project this year will be a scrappy dog quilt.  I love Marcy's scrappy red background.  I haven't picked my background color just yet.  I sure have a lot of pinks that would work well with this, but it's still undecided.  I have until mid January to figure that one out.

This should be enough to keep me busy with rainbow scraps in 2017. 

Happy New Year!

Here I am at my best.  LOL.  I don't usually post pictures of myself, but this is a fun picture.  Our local guild Christmas party had a photo booth-type thing as one of the fun things we did at the party.  This is me...

#APQResolution

I joined a UFO Facebook page.  I read about it on Pat Sloan's page this morning here.  It directs you to the All People Quilt info here.

I kinda need to have some of my quilts done at certain times of the year.  I may need to change a few things or finish early and find another project for that month (such as the Quilt Doodle Designs 2016 that I'd like to have done for the blog hop in January...)

Here's my list...

Block 2 -- Day Into Night Star -- Pat Sloan's Winter Solstice

Here we are in the second week of winter already.  Yesterday Pat Sloan's second block for the Winter Solstice QA was released.  Here's my Day Into Night Star block.

Pat Sloan just started a new site.  It's called I Love To Make Quilts.  Right now there is a Winter Solstice Project just getting started. It starts now and ends 182 days later on Summer Solstice.

Wordless Wednesday

2016 Charity Quilts List

After reviewing my top five quilts for Best of 2016 here, I didn't feel like I didn't accomplished much for 2016 as a quilter.  Then I read A Quilting Reader's Garden blog post in which she showed many charity quilts that she did this year.  I thought I would do the same and post pictures of charity quilts that I worked on, longarmed, or finished for our local quilt guild.

Here are several of them:













And then there were the customer quilts that I longarmed:








...now I feel like I accomplished something for 2016!

Best of 2016

Cheryl over at Meadow Mist Designs is again hosting the Best of 2016 linky party,

As I look back through all my posts and quilting efforts, I realized that I spent most of my 2016 efforts on charity quilts for our local guild (I finished longarm quilting at least 16 of them), customer quilts (at least 10 of them), and advancing quilts I have in progress.  I don't think I really had a large quantity of my own fabulous finishes this year.  But here are five of them:

Number 5 -- Winter Wall Hanging, completed 6/24/16
This little quilt was a panel put together by a good friend's mom.  She could not finish it due to having a stroke.  My friend gave it to me to quilt and finish.  It was on my longarm frame from November or so, 2015 until June, 2016.  It was one of the reasons I didn't have so many finishes.  I didn't want to advance it on the frame when I didn't know if I had time to do some of the custom quilting.  But it was an awesome finish (in quilting).



Number 4 -- Hunter's Star, finished for my local quilt guild 10/28/16

This quilt was started by someone in our quilt guild.  I did the longarm quilting and binding on it.  I quilted it with Circle Lord's giant template board, Egyptian Eye (one of my favorites.)  It is a beautiful finish.  It will be one of our guild's auction quilts for 2017.



Number 3 -- Red and White, finished 6/17/16

I get tons of books from our local library (most of them quilty).  I also get tons of dvd's to watch while I sew there.  One of our librarians had a baby girl this summer.  I made this little quilt for her using my Accuquilt signature block.  Although the quilt is small, I loved the red/white.  I will be making Pat Sloan's Winter Solstice quilt in all red/white fabrics for a 2017 winter sew along.



Number 2 -- Flowing in the Breeze (pattern by Beaquilter, finished 8/5/16

I was a pattern tester for this crib quilt for Bea.  She designs beautiful things.  This was a nice pattern using Accuquilt GO! dies.  She designed it for the Accuquilt Qube set.  It is called Flowing in the Breeze.



Number 1 -- 16-Patch, finished 7/29/16

This pattern was just a simple 16-patch quilt that I used scraps during the blue and green months of the RSC16 (Rainbow Scrap Challenge, 2016 that posts each Saturday at Angela's blog, SoScrappy.  I love the group of people that check in each week for the challenge.  I experimented with just an all-over stippling with the quilting.  This quilting was finished on this quilt in 58 minutes (on and off the frame).  I love the colors.  I love the soft feel.  I love how it looks on the clothesline... that's why it's my favorite finish of 2016.



Expect several MUCH MORE ELABORATE finishes for 2017 from me.  I have 71 WIPS on my list for 2017 (I'll publish that list of "starts" on New Year's Day.  I'm hoping for 2017 to have many more favorites to pick from in 2017.  The list will be much harder to decide next year because I have some quilt with hand work (mostly applique), some big Bonnie Hunter finishes planned (Allietare! and Celtic Solstice), a few Block Lotto wins, QA's and BOM's, and much, much more!  I also have two new Circle Lord longarm quilting templates that I can't wait to use in 2017.

Stars Stripes, & Other Stuff Top Complete

Merry Christmas!  I scheduled this post in advance so that I could spend the day with my family.  Having a 9.5 year old is a magical time and I wouldn't miss it for a second!

After I finished all nine of the hand applique stars I couldn't just let them sit on a pile.  I quickly put them together into a little quilt.

I didn't really care for the rail fence blocks in the quilt pattern.  I just added some plain squares.  It's Americana enough for me.

Here's what the little quilt looks like in the book.

 

Here's what the book looks like.  I'm still not sure where I got this book... A garage sale?

 

 

I'm linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.  The place for today's linky party is here. It's another gorgeous day outside here in Ohio.  There is a white blanket of snow.   Have a great week, everybody!

 

2016 Quilt Doodle Designs Top Complete!

I was so excited to stay in all icy Ohio weekend last week and finish this quilt top.  It is the 2016 Quilt Doodles BOM quilt.  The quilt was designed by Cindy Staub who blogs at Quilt Doodle Doodles.  Monthly patterns are still available in her shop.  You can get more details about this specific quilt on Cindy's site here.

January, 2016 was a blue month for the RSC16.  That was when I decided I would do an all blue quilt.  I'm linking up to the RSC16.

This is my first all blue quilt.  I'm sure now it won't be my last.  I just LOVE the way it turned out.  I'm pretty sure I will use dark buttons to embellish it after quilting.  Reindeer need eyes, hats need button tops, Santas need eyes...  Maybe even the wreaths will get holly buttons to even it out.  It will be fun to dig through my grandma's precious vintage buttons to see what will work.

I already know that I will be using my new Circle Lord giant template board, Milky Way on it.  Can't wait to use it.  The poor UPS guy walked up 800 feet of icy driveway (and up and down the hill) to deliver it this week.  When a fit young man!  And he did it with a smile.  We get great service here!

Anywho... here's what my new Circle Lord template looks like:



Check out all the great Circle Lord products on Michael and Kay's site here.

I need to go through my stash to find a bunch of big pieces of blue to piece a back.  I hope to have the whole quilt done by the time of the Quilt Doodle Designs blog hop January 19 - 22.  I'm expecting a spectacular finish on this one.



 

Prepping for Slow Stitching

I'm really enjoying the process of Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.    But sometimes I need to sew a few things in prep work for what needs hand stitched.  Here's a bunch of 1.5" strips being made into various blocks for Homestead Harvest, a pattern found in Kim Diehl's book.

 

The presents are wrapped.  I really should be C L E A N I N G for all the holiday company I am entertaining tomorrow...  It'll get done, right?  Let's relax with a little stitching.  Christmas break will be over much too soon and pulling out all these neutrals helps me sort fabrics for the Bonnie Hunter mystery that I am still pulling fabrics for...

 

Here's a picture of the quilt I'm making.  Should be some fun learning applique here!

I'm so happy that I found "Ohio Search" button on our local public library website.  I have been using it for some time now.  Whenever there is a book or pattern that someone posts, instead of finding the book and buying it, if there is a copy that can ben borrowed in an Ohio public library, I can request it and it gets delivered to my local library for pick-up.  Then I use it just like a regular library book, paying extra attention to the due date.  Fines are a bit more steep (like $1/day if it becomes overdue.)  Luckily I've been able to make enough notes or scan enough pages onto a flash drive so that I have the pattern that I need.  It's an awesome way to check out quilting books without spending a fortune.  Check it out to see if your local library has that option!  It's well worth it.

 

Here's the cover of the book:

 

 

Isn't the quilt on the cover spectacular?

 

I'm linking up with Myra at the Finished or Not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts.