2018 Roundup

Here we are on the eve of a new year and it is time to look back over the past year to see what I have accomplished.  There seemed to be a lot of babies being born this year so many of my finishes are baby quilts, most of which have been given away.

January

This quilt top, Fancy Forest, was made in 2016 but it took me a while to find the right backing, so I got it back from the long arm quilter in January 2018 and added the binding.  This one is staying in my my quilt stash. 

March

I spent a lot of time the first few months of 2018 looking after my father who passed away in April.  I worked on my snowmen counted cross stitch project while I sat with him as he slept, and finished this old UFO in March.  It is still waiting to be framed.

I attended a Libs Elliott "Embracing the Chaos" workshop in March and made this little wall hanging at the workshop. 

April

I made this I Spy baby quilt for my cousin's new grand-daughter, her first grandchild.  I needed a simple project after my dad passed away to get me quilting again. 

June

I had three finishes in June.  This quilt was started at a Shannon Brinkley scrappy appliqué workshop in May.  

The second June finish was another baby quilt, this time for my husband's cousin's baby.   I used a charm pack to make this quilt. 

And, another I Spy baby quilt for another cousin's first grand baby.  I used Bonnie Hunter's bricks and  stepping stones pattern for this quilt. 

July

I participated in a swap at the London Modern Guild and made this sewing machine quilt for my swap partner in the Ancaster Modern Guild.  You may remember that my husband thought it was a hat...

August

The baby boom continued.  This quilt was made for a colleague at work's baby girl, born in September.  It is the only baby quilt I made all year that was done before the baby was born!

October

When I was gathering things up for a retreat in October, I found this quilt top, finished years ago, but not quilted.  I quilted it at the retreat and donated it to a fundraising auction for Camp Kintail.  I hope whoever purchased it is enjoying it!

This mini quilt was made with a package of 2.5" squares that I received at the 2017 modern guild retreat.  

December

I had a lot of finishes in December including some Christmas gifts and a new single bed quilt for the bed in my daughter's old room. I worked on the blocks for my Foothills Quilt-Along quilt all year and finally finished the quilt in early December. You may remember that I made this quilt from my husband's discarded shirts.  This is the only bed sized quilt I made all year. 

I made a few pincushions this year...here is a sampling.  The top 5 are mine and the others were made by my friend, Christine. 

I made this zippered pouch for my friend, Pat, for Christmas. 

Finn, the grand-dog, received this quilted crate liner for Christmas. 

I made Christine and I matching "Bountiful Boughs" wall hangings for Christmas.  The first one is mine. 

This one is Christine's.

I made my mother a small table topper for the little round table in her kitchen. 

I have one more gift finished but not gifted yet, so you will have to wait to see it.   I hope to deliver it later this week so check back for a blogpost about it. 

I also finished my Frank Lloyd Wright Fountain Glass Window counted cross stitch picture in December.  I had been working on it since April.  I have three counted cross stitch pictures which need to be framed and hope to do this in January. 

All in all, it was a productive year in my sewing room and I look forward to more finishes in 2019.  

Frank is FINISHED!

Today is the last Slow Sunday Stitching day of 2018.  In April, I started a counted cross stitch project,  Fountain Glass, a stained glass window designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  This past week, I finished the last few silver outlining stitches and this picture is done!  

This project represents a lot of time spent stitching in the car, in the gazebo and on the couch.  

I now have three counted cross stitch pictures finished and waiting for framing.  (two FLW windows and the snowmen) I will make getting these framed and up on the wall a priority in the new year. 

I took two weeks off work this Christmas and have spent lots of time with my family.  We finished one puzzle and have started a second one. 

 There have been lots of long walks with Finn as well as play time with him. 

 I have also been doing some reading. This is our stack of books that were under the tree...some belong to my husband and some belong to me. 

Of course, there has been lots of sewing going on as well. I am sleeping better and am feeling more relaxed.  The wide open zippered pouch below was made for a friend for Christmas.  She likes to knit and it is the perfect size for a smaller project such as a pair of socks or mittens. 

A confession...I am still working on one last Christmas gift!  With any luck, it will be finished today and I will deliver it later this week.  There is some hand sewing to do on it...  I will cut the outer circle to make the grey circle centred after I finish the blanket stitching.  I will do a blog post about the finished project later this week.

For 2019's Slow Sunday Stitching project, I have signed up for Sarah Fielke's "Coming Home" BOM.  I am in the midst of picking out fabrics for my quilt.  I will also start another counted cross stitch picture, likely another Frank Lloyd Wright window, to work on in the car.

I will be linking up with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers.  Take a look at all of the wonderful hand stitching that is going on there!

Finn's Quilt

One of the gifts I made last week was for our Grand-dog, Finn.  This little monkey needed his own quilt, since everyone else in the family already has one (or two!).  As you can see, I used some sock monkey fabric for the front of Finn's quilt and added a red gingham border and backing.  All of the fabrics are flannel. 

This little quilt has 5 layers of batting which I pieced using a zig zag stitch.  I used up some of my stash of leftover strips of batting from trimming quilts after they are quilted.  I just used some straight pins to hold it all together while I quilted it--My basting pins would not go through all the layers.

As you can see, Finn is quite proud of his new quilt.  I did not use binding on the edge of the quilt as it might come off if it gets chewed.  Instead, I folded the backing fabric up over the batting and sewed about 1/4" from the edge to hold it all together.  Next, I took the top border fabric and folded it under so that the fold laid on top of the 1/4" sewn edge.  I used a mending zigzag stitch to hold all of the layers together.  You might be able to see my stitching if you enlarge this picture:

Finn's quilt was made to fit inside his crate to make it comfy for him when my daughter is at work.

Here's Finn on Christmas Day, just after opening his quilt.

Right now, you are probably wondering what is on his head.  Santa put a Max (the dog from How the Grinch Stole Christmas) antler in Finn's stocking!  He wore it all day on Christmas Day and was cute as a button channelling his inner Max.

There was lots of excitement on Christmas Day with extended family around as well as his cousin, Skye.  Finn helped Skye open his gift from Finn.

By the end of the day, he was pooped!  Time for a nap on his new quilt!

I think he likes it!

The bow tie was also a gift from Santa and co-ordinated very well with his new quilt.

On Boxing Day, we took Finn for a walk on the nature trail.

Finn has kept us all laughing and smiling this Christmas!

Linking up with Finished or Not Friday. 

Two Trees

I must start off by saying I do not usually make the same quilt twice, but in this case, I made an exception.  You may recall a blogpost a few weeks ago about the London Friendship Guild sewing day at which I pieced this Bountiful Boughs wallhanging for myself.  I have taken two weeks off work for Christmas and I am spending much of my time in the sewing room, finishing off a few gifts and my Christmas tree wall hanging. 

I used a wavy stitch and my walking foot to quilt this project. The thread is a light green, about the colour of the binding. Here is an angled shot which shows off the nice texture from the quilting.

The backing is a fun Charlie Brown Christmas print that I bought several years ago in Elk Rapids, Michigan when I was at a Gwen Marston Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. It has been sitting on the shelf in my sewing project, waiting for just the right project to come along.

Watching the Peanuts Christmas special is a family tradition at our house.  My daughter even has her own Charlie Brown Christmas tree at her apartment.

Unknown to my friend, Christine, I cut out enough triangles for two Christmas tree wall hangings when she was here for our weekly sewing night in late November.  I had to piece her quilt on the sly and get it down off the design wall before she came for sewing night last week. It was folded up in a drawer when she arrived to sew.

We saw Christine and her husband this past weekend and I gave her the wallhanging.  She was very surprised, especially after I told her I had made two of them, one for her and one for me.  She hung it up in her front entrance as soon as she got home.

Christine's wall hanging has Christmas sock monkeys on the back.

There was enough sock monkey fabric left to make a special gift bag for Finn, the grand puppy, who is often described by my daughter as a monkey!

Here is the glamour shot of my Christmas Tree Wallhanging with my grandmother's treadle sewing machine in the foreground.

I am heading back to the sewing room now...three more gifts to make/finish!

I will link this post to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching this weekend because of all that hand stitching on the bindings of these two quilts.