16 in 2016

As 2016 winds down- which many people are happy about- I wanted to complete my annual wrap up of the quilts I completed. In 2016, marked mostly for me by me starting an awesome new job in September which resulted in less sewing time- I completed 16 quilts. Of those 16 I kept two.

Starting at top left and rotating clockwise, finishing in centre: Sweet Pepper Jelly, Quilt of Belonging, Thank You Stephanie, Little Eye, Tumbi, Canadian Wilderness, Welcome to Canada, AeroPlus

Starting in top left and rotating clockwise, finishing in centre: Midnight at the Museum, Force Field, Bearss, Diamond in the Sky, Bunnies, Glisten, In the Garden, Fishy Friends

I've definitely upped by paper piecing game this year and had lots of fun mixing and matching from my stash. I went on a six month fast from buying fabric (along with my friend C) and really didn't suffer too badly from it. I made enough flying geese between In the Garden and Force Field to last me at least until 2018. And I now have Sweet Pepper Jelly as my go-to quilt for the car and my youngest daughter has her Little Eye quilt to drag around and have picnics on almost daily. Definitely a successful year!

I think Little Eye ended up being my overall favourite from this year because I drooled over the inspiration quilt for so long and then finally made one! I love how it turned out.

I made other things, too, in 2016. Pillows and pillowcases and Halloween bags and Sew Together bags. But the quilts are where my heart truly lies.

What was your favourite finish of 2016?

Bunnies: A Finished Quilt

My eldest daughter is eight years old, and when I returned to work when she was 10 months old (thanks to one year guaranteed maternity leaves here in Canada) a family friend was staying home with her second son who was six months older than my daughter. 

This friend has looked after both of my daughters over the last seven years and it occurred to me this past June when she helped carry yet another quilt to another one of my daughter's teachers that she deserved one of her own!

She is obsessed with bunnies (and she's terrified of birds- I don't get it) and so I decided to use the Quiet Play Geometric Bunny pattern to make her a quilt that had all of her bunnies on it...her, her husband and her three sons. The quilt is lap sized (though I didn't measure final dimensions. I never do.)

Here is Bunnies. 

Bunnies! I made the bunnies and then filled in around them in more Kona White. Then I improv-pieced a top and bottom border using the leftover teal bits (all Kona) because that is her favourite colour palette.

I used the famous Ikea Nummer fabric for the backing and I think it is really charming for this quilt.

This bunny is in all teals, a colour she really loves, to represent her. You can see here how I did organic diagonal crosshatching for quilting. I call it organic because when the first line wasn't perfectly straight I decided to just go for it. It would drive all of my quilting friends nuts but I still loved it!

Her three sons each have a favourite colour so of course the bunnies are in those colours, in birth order. Her husband is represented in grey. As her oldest son observed, "That grey bunny must be you, Dad, because you are so old." From the mouth of babes...

She totally loved the quilt, which was gifted as a Birthday/Christmas/Thank You present on the 19th of December, even tearing up. The label, which I didn't photograph, was written by my eight-year-old on behalf of her and her sister. 

Fishy Friends: A Finished Quilt

I started a new job in September, teaching at a brand new school with many new co-workers. One of these new colleagues has become a treasured friend already, and though I did not know her when she had her son, I knew within the first few times meeting her that I would be making him a quilt.

Her husband is an avid fisherman, and when she told me the story of how she really wanted to order HBO for their TV package and she lost out when he ordered the Fishing Network instead, I knew which fabric from my stash to pull out!

This fabric is not my favourite, honestly, but my husband saw it on my Pinterest board and ordered it for me before the days of me sending him direct links to the fabric bundles I want. Turns out it was a good call because these fabrics, combined with some special Alison Glass, Tula Pink and other bits from my stash, are a lovely little combo for this little boy.

I went with a simple tumbler block using 5" squares. Her son is just barely one, so he is still pretty little, and I made a fairly little quilt to match!

There are fish...and lures and seaweed and narwhals!

I did straight-line quilting, stopping to pivot at each "bend" so that the quilting echoes those tumbler lines.

The back is mostly a blue with a green polka dot with a little bit of green narwhals and a touch of under the sea print from Lewis and Irene.

This quilt will be given to her at the end of the month, right before we leave for Winter break. I hope she loves it and her son gets lots of use out of it!
(I kind of also hope she cries!)

Force Field: A Finished Quilt

Within my one group of friends there are 13 children, all within a 9 year span. Since I started sewing I have slowly been making my way through each of the children, making them each a quilt. When I started making quilts there were 8 less children! 

This quilt, Force Field, is the very last of the quilts for the children in that "family" of friends. He is 11-years-old and joined our family late when his mom married one of our group. It is hard to make quilts for tween boys, let me tell you, but fortunately he likes Star Wars (and Harry Potter but I couldn't make that work) so I decided to go with a Star Wars quilt. I used a free pattern called Banners from Fox Favourites on Craftsy and it was, at times, a bit tedious to make all those little flags, but look how cute it is!!

(The wind was blowing and my husband was getting irritated so these are the best pictures I got).

Force Field!

I used a lot of Star Wars fabrics by Camelot that I picked up some time ago for this very purpose and found that some Carolyn Friedlander from my stash as well as the ever-present Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets worked perfectly with this quilt. There's even a guest appearance by Riley Blake chevrons!

For the first time in maybe ever I used a non-Kona solid. Gasp! This solid was a better match and was available at a local-ish craft store so my friend A told me to just go for it. Forgive me, Robert Kaufman!

The back is all one fabric, picked up for me by A at a discount fabric store she was at one day. What did quilt buddies do before days of texts?

Very thematic.

The little boy...who is not so little...will receive his quilt this Christmas when this group gets all together and I hope he loves it!