Happy New Year

 I have been away from my blog...and blogging...for a long time, but I'm still alive and well. After mid-March, life got very busy, and I was already spending too much time on the computer. Still do, lol. My only New Year's resolution? Get back to blogging! Everything else will take care of itself!

The photo in the header is the last picture I took at camp before we shut it down for the winter. I know it's out of season, but I like the photo, so I'm putting it up for a little while.

I finished 12 quilts in 2024, some of which I blogged about in March or earlier. Most of them were either donated or gifted. This one, 'The Lady' was a pattern from Villa Rosa Designs that our quilt chapter used in a charity workshop. I thought my granddaughter would like it, so I gifted it to her and made a different charity quilt instead.

'Cabana' was the next charity quilt, which was donated to an organization here in Maine that assists trafficked women in our state. 'Cabana' was a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop and utilized one of their jolly bar precuts. A jolly bar measures 5" x 10", so it's like having two charm packs. This quilt was 62" square, so two charm packs... and a lot of background, make a decent sized lap quilt 

My 'Scrappy Spools' quilt was a pattern from Lori Holt and was the challenge for the chapter membership year that ended in August. Mine is a couple of rows smaller than the original because I wanted it to fit on one of the walls in my sewing room.

It rarely occurs to me to use a scrappy binding, even though I see photos of them all the time; but I did use it on this quilt, and I plan to do more scrappy bindings. I also plan to do more scrappy backings.

I love the little picture blocks Lori Holt does, so when Fat Quarter Shop announced another Vintage Christmas Quilt Along for 2025, I decided to dig out my book and fabric and start anew making those blocks. Their quilt along runs for a year, but I hope to get mine done sooner than that and move on to Farm Girl Vintage 2. I have about 8 blocks made at the moment.

'Kylie's Kites' was made with a couple of charm packs I wanted to use up in a November workshop with my quilt chapter. There were some striped charms, which I thought were somewhat distracting; so my solution was to add more stripes, lol. I thought the striped fabric in the border made the quilt. 

This was a pattern from Eleanor Burns, Quilt in a Day. I made this quilt in two weeks, which was a record for me, lol. 

The method used to create the kite pieces in the quilt above generated scraps, so I used the waste triangles to create these diamond blocks. I haven't decided what to do for a border yet, so it remains unquilted.

I put the half rectangle units together like a four patch and then twirled all the seams on the back, so it lies pretty flat. 

'Unicorn Love' was the last quilt I finished this year, and I finished it exactly one week before Christmas for my granddaughter. This was a kit exclusive to Shabby Fabrics, and there was a storage organizer and a pillowcase you could make to go with it. I forgot to get a picture of the quilt I made before I gifted it, so this photo is the cover quilt on the pattern. This was pretty quick to make, thankfully, since I was under the gun for time. 

I bought a ridiculous amount of fabric in 2024, mostly kits and fat quarter bundles; so even though I don't generally make New Year's resolutions, I am resolving to use up lots of fabric in 2025. 

Happy New Year!