Backward and forward

Hello again, everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday.  I did almost nothing for the last week, and it was heavenly. My son did a lot of cooking, we ate in a bunch of restaurants, I did almost no laundry or cleaning, and I stayed away from all things shopping related.  I also got to see my family, including my parents and some of my (many) brothers and sisters, plus I went to my niece's basketball game.  Oh, and I also bought a new car and drove it back here from Wisconsin, but my husband had more to do with that than I did.  It's been great!

So, now here we are at the end of 2015 and it's time to look back and see where we've been, and also look forward to see where we're going.  A bunch of bloggers I follow have been doing "best of" posts, but I can never pick a favorite or a "best."  Instead, here's some highlights from the past year:

Burgoyne Surrounded!  Such a fun quilt to make.

Odd Fellow's Gathering!  I know I just said that I can't ever pick a favorite, but this is a quilt that I truly love.

Summer Picnic!  A  UFO for many years, finally finished up and cuddly.

Mutant Elephants, complete with legless bird.  This was a really, really fun quilt to make, and is going to stay at my house forever.

And, of course:

Sewing Lessons!  Now off being quilted, and soon to be ready for snuggling up on the sofa.  I'm pretty proud of the tutorials and directions that I wrote for this project, since I had never done anything like that before, and I hope it turned out well for everyone who tried a block or two.  I learned a lot and I hope you did too.

Of course, there were a lot more quilts and smaller projects throughout the year, and I truly enjoyed (almost) all of them.  The quilts were all great, but the BEST things from this year are the friends I have made and the things I have learned.  I truly appreciate all of you and I am grateful for all the things I have learned from you.  Thanks so much for reaching out, for teaching, and for sharing your talents with all of us.

(I may be tearing up a bit!)

So, that's looking backward!  Looking forward, there are a lot of fun things coming up in 2016, and even more changes for our family.  First, I started a new BOM for RSC16, which I think will be challenging for me and will turn out to be an awesome quilt.

I also have several projects that I'm still working on, including two unfinished quilts from RSC15.  Sometimes I can hear them calling to me from their storage boxes.  First to be finished (I hope) is the Paper Dolls quilt:

Those ladies want to come out to play!  I also need to finish the Framed quilt:

There are only 3 big blocks left to make for this one, and it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it.  Since I already have the stars, they would go pretty quickly, so I'm hoping to knock this one out pretty soon, too.

And then there's the Roman Floors quilt, also partway finished:

This quilt is turning out so great, but I got really, really bored with making half-square triangles, so I put it away for a while.  I think I could pull it out and work on it a little at a time now, though.

In addition to the unfinished projects, I also have three big new projects to work on in the new year.  First, our daughter is getting married in April, and that means a wedding quilt!  I let them choose (from a list I made--I'm not crazy!) and they picked the Eureka quilt in green and aquamarine.  I think it will be striking--and a LOT of work.

Our older daughter has requested a "Paris" quilt.  Her only color direction was "calm."  The biggest thing, of course, is that she would like it to be finished before her sister's wedding quilt, thank you very much.  Sighhh.  Anyone else out there have two daughters who could not be more different?  I'm planning to use the neutrals from the scrap bags to make Bonnie Hunter's Strip Twist pattern.  That should look good and go together fairly fast.

Finally, I am making Lorna's Forest Friends quilt in a baby size for a very special baby.

Picture from Lorna McMahon at Sew Fresh Quilts.  Go there and buy the pattern!

Our son and daughter in law are expecting a baby in February!  We are so excited!  And if you think we're excited, you should see my Dad.  He's ready to burst over his first great-grandchild.  Everyone is doing well, and we're just looking forward to a lot of happiness this spring.

Of course, my big goal for this year is to keep on enjoying stitching and blogging, and to keep on enjoying YOUR stitching and blogging.  It's been great to have a community, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Hope you all have a safe New Year celebration, and a happy beginning to 2016!  See you next week!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Val's 2016 goals linkup, and also at the Best of 2015 Linky Party at Meadow Mist Designs (great idea!), and the 2016 Planning Linky Party by Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl. 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!  

May your day be merry and bright!

Intricate Stitches--a new BOM

Hi all!  Things are perking away here for Christmas, and I am finally relaxing.  It feels like I have been tense for months and am finally getting some time to unwind.  It feels great!  The fact that there are cookies involved has nothing to do with it, I'm sure.

We had an unremarkable drive back to Wisconsin and it feels great to be here again. (And the air is so clean!)  On the drive I had a lot of time to think and plan for next year.  It's going to be a big year for us, and there will be several big quilts coming up--including a wedding quilt.  (!!!) There are several other projects waiting in the wings that I'll be sharing soon, including something new I just learned and am really looking forward to getting a lot more practice doing.

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I've finished two of the quilts for this year and still have the Framed quilt and the Paper Dolls quilt to finish up.  They will be done soon enough, and they're both going to be amazing.  I'm also bringing over the string blocks from last year and making more, because I don't have enough for a quilt yet.  And then there's this:

Okay, so I don't draw so well (the car was moving, after all), but you get the idea.  This is a quilt that I am planning as my major project for the rainbow scrap challenge for next year. This quilt will have 12 blocks-- one per month-- surrounding a large multi-colored central block (which I haven't chosen yet). I'm also thinking of making a pieced border for this one, but I'm not sure just yet.

The "working title" of this quilt is Intricate Stitches.  Why "intricate?"  Well, since there is only one block per month, I'm planning to make some traditional pieced blocks that aren't often seen because they have a lot of pieces, some of them very small.  Blocks like these:

Yikes!  I can hear what you're thinking! Why such complicated blocks?  Well. . .these blocks are a part of our quilting heritage, and they aren't in very many modern quilts.  I totally understand why!  Simpler blocks make faster quilts, and any repeated block makes a terrific, striking quilt.  But our lives are different from our grandmothers' and we don't have the same kind of time to repeat these blocks over and over again, so they are often overlooked.  They are gorgeous, though, and deserve to be used.  So, I figure that one of them a month is enough to handle, and together they'll make a wonderful quilt.

For my fabrics, I got the special hand-dyed RSC fabric pack from Vicki Welsh.  These are gorgeous!  (All of her fabric is just beautiful and very high quality.) Check out some of these fabrics:

Pretty!  I also have some other hand-dyed scraps that I'm planning to incorporate as well.  Altogether I think this is going to be a great quilt and I am so looking forward to making it.

If this sounds appealing to you, I am planning to post tutorials for a block each month as a sew-along, just like the Classic Stitches quilt.  I'll put up a new tab for this pretty soon, and the January tutorial will be along in the first week of 2016.  Come on along and join in!  These blocks look really intricate, but once they're broken down, they're just good old half-square triangles, flying geese, strips, and squares.  I'll make it as easy as possible!  Because heaven knows I have less time than I've ever had to sew.

So, that's the intro!  Think about joining in. It's just one block a month, and they're 12-inch blocks, so the pieces aren't *really* tiny.  I may be crazy, but I'm not *that* crazy!  And the blocks look way better in fabric than they do on paper, so you know this quilt will turn out great.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and that all your Christmas wishes come true!

Sharing at  Let's Bee Social and soscrappy for RSC15!  Or 16!

Serendipity

Hi everyone!  How was your week?  Is anyone else having really strange weather?  It's been in the 60s here and yesterday it rained like crazy.  It was like a semi-pleasant, soggy, spring day.  It is still December, isn't it?  Just making sure I didn't somehow skip a whole season while I was in the library.

So, this week I didn't have a lot of time to sew because I was grading exams and doing other end-of-semester work.  But I did finally finish and then actually sewed up this lovely thing:

Isn't she a cutie?  Because of yesterday's rain, and the aforementioned job duties, I had to wait until today to get some pictures.  It was still super-wet out, though, so if you see dark spots, it's not dirty, it just got a little damp.

Amazingly, there are three shades of gray in this quilt.  I would never have guessed I would ever make a quilt that was mostly gray.  It was a challenge, but I think I conquered it.  I was afraid it would be too dark and drab, so I included the lighter gray cornerstones.  I tried multicolored ones, but they looked bad. You wouldn't think they would, but they did.I think altogether the grays make the blocks really stand out.

If you remember, these are the 12 inch blocks from the Classic Stitches tutorials and are all scraps.  I didn't start out thinking that I'd make another quilt from those blocks, but it just kind of happened, so I'm calling this quilt Serendipity--a happy accident.

Serendipity is probably my last finish for 2015.  I don't know about you, but this has been a tough few months for me, and right now I'm exhausted.  Plus, we are travelling for Christmas!  We are heading back to Wisconsin and I can't wait.  We will be staying with our son and are hoping for snow.  I don't think that will happen, but it's nice to think about!

Now that two of my RSC15 quilts are done, next week I will post my plan for a new quilt for RSC16.  In case you don't get a chance to stop by, though, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, some time with your families, and some rest.  And if you want it, maybe some time to stitch a few seams, too.

I have to go pack!  Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sharing at  Confessions of a Fabric Addict,  Finish it up Friday. and soscrappy for RSC15.