Thursday, January 3, 2019

New year, new old project

Hi everyone, and welcome to 2019! How is it possible that it's been 19 years since the turn of the century? Even writing that freaks me out!  Not long ago a student wrote in a paper about "the late 1900s." That really did freak me out, as a mid-1900s person myself.

So, did you accomplish everything you planned to over the break?  I did not. I had great plans, but I was so, so burned out on everything that mostly I just watched a ton of movies, read books, wrapped presents, and tried a lot of baking experiments.  In the sewing room, I deep cleaned.  What?  Yep, I even moved all the furniture and vacuumed behind it. There was a lot of lint and dust, and I found a few pieces of fabric back there, too.

I only sewed a couple of things in the last couple of weeks, including these:


These are a couple of mug rugs that I made for my sister's Christmas birthday.  (She got her master's at Penn State.) If you don't recognize the blocks, these are Tula Pink modern blocks. I made a couple of quilts using the Tula Pink blocks when they first came out, and I was just looking through the book again. Some of those are really nice, easy blocks. There might be another quilt hiding in that book, you never know.

I also did some English paper piecing on these pretties:


These are some Bridal Bouquet blocks that I've been working on very slowly.  I've liked stitching them in the evenings, so I'd like to keep going a little more consistently.  I've got the next one all cut out and basted:


We all know that the basting is the worst part, right? I'll need a dozen of these for a decent sized piece, so this should keep me occupied for a while.

For one of my projects this year, I've decided to resurrect a failed project from 2017.  Okay, I'm resurrecting the idea, but I'll definitely be doing something else with this piece:


I started a temperature quilt in 2017, but then couldn't keep up, for one reason or another.  I'm always so drawn to those "365 day" projects where you make a block a day, but I couldn't manage to do one 3-inch square a day.  Tells you something about my life, doesn't it?  The piece above is as far as I got, up until about March.  It's about 12 by 55, so I think I could turn it into a table runner, or pick it apart and rearrange it into a small topper for the deck table.

So, let's try this again!  I redistributed all of the fabrics from the previous quilt attempt, so I started over with a new temperature scale, in 5-degree increments:


Let's hope that I don't have to use the colors at those extremes very much!  The brown is for 100 degrees and up, while the grays are well below freezing.  I much prefer the yellow zone!

So, here are my first two days worth of piecing:


This means I'm not behind yet!  I don't know how I'm going to set these yet, but I'll give it some thought.  I like the graphic quality of the first try, but the days and months kind of get lost.  I'll have to look around for some other settings pretty quickly so I can do them as I go.

I hope everyone had a very restful break and that your stitching year is off to a good start.  It's going to be a good one, I just know it!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday.

9 comments:

Danice G said...

'Love the mug rugs. They make nice gifts, especially personalized like those. Looking forward to seeing the temperature quilt. I do love the one that you did make a few years ago. Mine has been cut out for ages, lol.

Marie-Claude said...

I remember when you talked about the temperature quilt way back when, I had never heard of them before then!I was wondering how yours was going.:-) I might attempt one myself.

Been reading and enjoying your blog for a long time. Thank you for all the sharing and inspiration!

Marie-Claude Lajoie

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

I was born in 1952 - I used to imagine what life would be like when it hit the year 2000 and it always seemed so far in the future and how sci-fi would it be LOL - a lot has happened in the years for sure!!

Jo said...

I'm hearing you about the extreme temps. We are on 113 deg F at the moment. It's a stinker. I never seem to continue with the attempts either. I'd like to do a temp quilt but cannot choose a design.

piecefulwendy said...

Netflix has documentaries on the different decades. We just watched "The Eighties" with our 23 and 25 year old kids this week. Geez. Seems like yesterday, and yet it is so long ago (and a lot happened in the Eighties!). Hope you have better success with the temp quilt. I don't do well with block a day projects either. Block a month is better.

Roseanne said...

Hi Mari! I would say a 365-day project is pretty hard to keep up with! You can't help but have life get in the way, and you made it to March! That's fabulous. I love your color palette and I'm hoping for very few browns in your finished piece, and definitely none of the light gray. It's nice to feel refreshed and relaxed from the holidays, isn't it?! Your time spent reading and watching movies was much needed. Happy Friday. ~smile~ Roseanne

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

I just had to fill out paperwork yesterday, and wrote 2019 about 30 times. Strange. How about an economy block (square in a square) for your color quilt? Put the low in the center, then surround it with the high color. I'm like you, I'd want most of my days to be in the yellow temps.

Unknown said...

I've been really interested in the temperature quilts too! But I know I wouldn't be able to handle one right now. Maybe next year. Anina over at Twiddletales (https://twiddletails.blogspot.com/) is doing a temperature quilt along this year. She has a lot of information on how to get started, but she also some layout ideas that you might be interested in. If I do start one, I might just keep track of the temps for each day and then make a week's worth on the weekend. That might be the only way I could get through it! Looking forward to seeing yours!

Kate said...

The temperature quilts are such fun to watch come together. Hope this year goes smoother for you than last year did.