2018 Wrap Up

Blogging is just not something I seem to prioritize these days, which is also the case for the vast majority of quilters I know who have blogs. Still, I see this blog as a way of tracking finishes and goals and so I will do a wrap up of 2018.

My goals as set in January were:
1. Turquoise and yellow quilt for my cousin's new baby that I made but have been avoiding basting. FINISHED!

2. Teal and grey baby quilt for a friend. FINISHED!

3. Finish binding my Christmas Improv Quilt. FINISHED!

4. Quilt the Rainbow picnic quilt. FINISHED!

5. Quilt my Aviatrix Medallion. FINISHED! (Though technically I had it quilted).

6. Finish a Knuffle Bunny quilt I have waiting. FINISHED!

7. Pineapple Farm Quilt (for April). FINISHED!

8. Gamer Quilt (for hubby...maybe March for his birthday?) FINISHED! (Though for our anniversary in July instead).

9. Finish the QB travelling quilt that I have been doing with friends...assuming C gets out of thumb jail after some minor surgery on her hand in the new year. FINISHED! (Just waiting for A and C to finish so we can exchange at March Break!) I can't show you a picture because they haven't seen it yet!


I also made these things in 2018:

Baby quilt for a co-worker

A map quilt of Southern Ontario from a workshop I took through the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild with 3rd Story Workshop.

Pillowcases for my nephews.

A shoe storage bag for packing for my MIL.

A pineapple Sew Together Bag for my MIL (my other MIL...yes, I have two!)

I kept it simple for her and she loves it.

I used the stars I won at the West End Modern Quilt Guild for our Block Lotto to make this baby quilt to donate.

I made 17 of these vinyl pouches using the pattern Pouch with a View from Three Owls.

They will be the goodie bags for my daughter's fifth birthday party the second weekend in January.

And they have these adorable charms on them.

I put binding on this quilt that my friend C pieced and A quilted as a gift to a principal friend who was retiring.

My older daughter had a sleepover party in October and each girl got a pillowcase.

A Peppa Pig pillowcase for my youngest daughter and a Mario pillowcase for my best friend's son.

I made more of these then I can count, but this large size (Project) was for a family friend's son who LOVES flamingos. It held his birthday gift.

This Thank you Nadia quilt for my daughter's Grade 4 teacher in June. I guess I never posted about it? It uses the free Art Gallery Plenum pattern and I quite love it. (The teacher's favourite colour is red).

So I was busy quilting. I do not have as many quilt finishes as I normally would (only 11 this year) because of our new, furry family member who arrived in August. Basting has now become impossible because of the help of our very friendly puppy. I have FOUR quilts ready to baste at my friend A's house later this week! So stay tuned for some new finishes soon!

Hooray for another awesome year with lots of great finishes!

#QBtravellingquilt and One More Shop Hop

The #QBtravellingquilt continues. I finished my addition to A's quilt by using From Blank Pages' pattern My First Alphabet (this is the 3" size). I also, as per our challenge, used a new skill which was layered applique with free motion black outlines (say what??! I did applique??).

I love the result and she seemed to like it. Her quilt is colourful while still being quite soft-looking. The other two quilts are sooooo saturated by comparison but they all look amazing. I wish I had taken a picture of what my quilt looks like after C added some EPP stars (EPP!!!).

So pretty, isn't it?

 With my QB peeps we decided to go on a Toronto shop hop since our July shop hop took us West. We went to four stores: Sew Sisters, EweKnit, The Workroom and Len's Mill Toronto. I had never been to that Len's Mill and I loved it. Great selection, better organized than the Guelph location I usually go to and I found several yummy purchases. Plus the woman cutting our fabric was chatting with us and totally our kind of person. We invited her to come to lunch with us but she thought perhaps her boss would disapprove.

I only took pictures at The Workroom because it is in the new location and I had not yet been there. But I also had to take a picture of this graffiti mural right next The Workroom because it was just so good.

There's lots you can interpret from Make Good.

One angle of the new space.

More of the new space.

The Workroom is not my favourite, mostly because of their very high prices (most fabric is $19.99/m) but the space sure is beautiful! I found some fabrics that I liked and splurged. 

The end result of the trip was a lot of fabric- mostly reds because I needed a ton more reds to make a pineapple quilt for my mother-in-law for her new house (look for a future post on how that is going). There is a healthy amount of Alison Glass (from Len Mills) and that bottom fabric is an old Valorie Wells fabric I got at Sew Sisters that was in the extreme discount bin ($4.99/m). It is not my colour BUT it is perfect for the colours my MIL wants in her quilt, the fabric works well in terms of scale and the pattern sort of looks like fronds which works for pineapples and it was CHEAP. Sold. They only had 3 3/4m and I technically need 4 3/8m but I will piece something together to fill it out!

It was a great trip with wonderful friends and the high will have to last some time because C and I are going on a fabric fast from September 1- December 31. Note that the rules are:
1) No new fabric purchases from September 1-December 31.
2) Using gift cards doesn't count.
3) You can make one preorder of a must-have fabric.
4) You can purchase one pattern during that time if desired.

I'm sure we can do it. Especially because we both preordered a TON of new fabric from Dinkydoo fabrics that should be coming every day. Like, I need a new fabric shelf ton of fabric. :)

QB Travelling Quilt

I have the privilege of having not one but two quilty friends who are always up for sewing days and shop hops. And when I suggested to them that we try a "travelling quilt" they both jumped on board! It is cost effective because we all live close together (zero postage!) and C and I have extensive stashes so we didn't need to purchase a thing (A is a buy-with-purpose quilter- I know, I don't get it either- but she ordered a beautiful bundle for hers!).

We each make the first "foundation" block and choose two words to represent our vision for the quilt. Mine are "decadent geometry" and I pulled a bunch of super saturated fabrics based on some colours in this Katy Jones limited edition print from Art Gallery Fabrics. The teal, navy and deep pink just delight me for some reason.

The fabric pull with the pattern for the foundation block.

I went with half of one of these pillow fronts from Love Quilting magazine. 

This is my favourite quilting magazine and it is, unfortunately, very expensive because it is a UK import. My hubby paid for two years subscription but I told him not to renew...I can choose if I want to buy it from the local bookstore.

The cutting was actually a bit of a pain in the butt, but I was like where it was going when I finished cutting all the templates and laying it out.

I could see it coming together.

And here is the finished result!

My foundation quilt block.

Decadent Geometry will come back to me two more times before being finished by one of the other two ladies in January 2018. We have a spreadsheet and a list of rules and I am soooooo excited to give this a try. It pushes us all out of our comfort zones in the best way!

I'm sure you'll see peeks into  #QBtravellingquilt as I work on the other two. I wonder what we will all end up with in January!!