2015 Wrap Up -- Determination

WHEW! Happy New Year, friends! What a difference a year makes. Last January I was reeling from my breast cancer diagnosis ("Cruella") in December, learned that I carry the BRCA2 mutation, and was preparing for the first of four (!) surgeries. That time feels both far away and not so long ago.

I've been writing and re-writing my thoughts about 2015, and I haven't quite found the words to express what I'm feeling. I thought I'd be rushing to the new year, but as happy as I am to be closing the cancer chapter of my life, my feelings about the year are overall pretty positive. Seems strange, but it's true. I'm grateful to have learned so much about myself, and to have experienced the support and friendship of so many. SO many. I feel grateful and lucky.

Last year I chose "determination" as my word and I was certainly determined. I planned to make six quilts and finished 14. All while working a full-time job, parenting two small kids, and undergoing cancer treatment. (I made 12 in 2014 and didn't expect to beat that, but turns out sewing is excellent therapy.)

I planned to recap my 2015 goals and sewing to do list, but that seems boring so instead I'll tell you about some of my favorite finishes.

1. Greatest Hits: an improv scrap quilt of Anna Maria Horner prints, with a few Tula Pink prints thrown in. I struggled with this quilt -- couldn't figure out how to make it work. Usually I would force it to get to the finish, but this time I let it sit until I could see how it was meant to be. Finished in December 2015 and gifted to Caroline. One of three projects for the Q4 Finish Along.

2. Husband of the Year: a quilt for the Husband. My best work to date. Blogged. Also one of my goals for Q4 of the Finish Along.

3. Plus Quilt 4: a baby quilt for Maude. I loved the ease of pulling fabrics in the same color. This was no-pressure sewing at its best! See also my Cotton + Steel plus quilt and a quilt for T.

4. Unicorn Quilt for Jane: This was my first finish of the year, and it's one of my favorites. I'm so proud of how it came together. Blogged.

How about you? What was your word for 2015? Did it ring true? Here's to your health and happiness in a new year!


Linking up with the 2015 Finish Along hosted by Adrienne at On the Windy Side.

Q4 Finish Along

It's the last quarter of 2015! Hallelujah. I cannot wait to kick this year to the curb.

Last year I finished 12 quilts and I'm on track to at least match that this year.

Here's my Finish Along list for Q4:

1. AMH Greatest Hits: I am finally going to get this done! After lots of heartburn I finished a top and just need to get it quilted and bound. Woot!

2. Husband of the Year (Doe): this one is quilted and ready to be bound!

3. Wanderer Placemats: first and possibly only holiday gift I'll make this year.

That's it. I got so much done in Q3 that I have only these projects in the works right now. In fact, not only did I get three finishes from my official list done, I managed to whip up two additional baby quilts. Go me!

I do have quite a few fabric piles by my machine, but I haven't landed on a design for any of them yet.

A. Lizzy House Natural History -- to be a quilt for M! He wants to add in robots. I can't decide if I'll stick to the blues and greens or use all of the colors in this line. Hmm...

B. Christmas quilt! I've got some of Tinsel by Cotton + Steel, as well as a few Anna Maria Horner prints that are destined to be a holiday quilt.

C. The Anna Maria Horner king quilt. I'll probably end up going with big squares for this one. I've been hoarding prints from a variety of her lines to make a giant quilt for our bed.

I'm looking for patterns appropriate for large-scale designs/big blocks.  Any ideas?

Linking up to the 2015 Finish Along hosted by On the Windy Side.

Back to Square One

Uuuuuuuuugh. I have been making a lot of mistakes lately.

First there's the non-progress on my Anna Maria Horner Greatest Hits scrap quilt. Back in February I picked up some gray-ish/taupe-ish fabric for sashing. I cut it up and sashed the quilt. And then it sat. For months. (It is still sitting.) I never got around to adding the top and bottom sashing and finally realized why: because it is UGLY. Not only is the gray/taupe solid a bad color choice, the width of the sashing is all wrong -- way too wide. So now I need to rip it out and start over. This time I'm tempted to just sew the scrap columns together without sashing... Or, sash it with Kona Snow, 2 1/2 inches wide? Another color? I'm open to ideas; what do you think?

Before I ruined it with ugly sashing. 

OK, so then I managed to finish the Priory Square quilt top using the Boxed In pattern from the book Beyond Borders by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. It looks fantastic. However... there were a lot of piecing errors, and most of them due to my laziness with regards to a 1/4 inch seam. Amateur hour, I know. Fortunately, I was able to square the quilt up and the solid sashing throughout hides my mistakes.

All the pretty boxes!

I wish I could say I learned my lesson with that quilt. Nope. I moved on to expand the Cotton + Steel plus quilt I started many moons ago. I took the perfect square and added columns. And when I tried sewing the new columns to the old square, the seams didn't line up. Not even close. Yep. Now, I do use a guide and while my seams may not always be perfect scant 1/4 inches, usually things DO line up. However, in this case, I used my new machine (Kim Gordon) to piece the new columns... and I had used my old machine (Kitty) to piece the original square. Different machines, different guides. I just wasn't thinking.

The original baby-sized square with pretty seams.

I got verrrrrry familiar with my seam ripper this past week. I wanted to forge ahead with the project and disregard the mistakes. I tried to get comfortable with that path. But--and I think this is a sign of growth--I couldn't do it. So I ripped out the entire new section, but I kept the original square and will finish it off into a baby quilt. Which is what it was originally going to be anyway. And, because I can't get this color story out of my head and I don't want all of those squares to go to waste, I not only retrimmed the new section, I cut out the squares to remake the old section. Once I get it all stitched up I'll still only be halfway done with the new, larger quilt, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

Whew. I wish I could say those were the only mistakes I've made, but there have been others. "Learning opportunities." Uh huh. I'm learning a lot. Hey, I'm happy to report that in between making errors learning opportunities I finally took the time to figure out the needle positions for a perfect 1/4 seam on Kim Gordon. (Side bar: isn't it annoying that a 1/4 inch foot doesn't make a 1/4 seam without some adjusting?!) SUCCESS!

On that note, here's my Quarter 3 Finish List. I've got the DCMQG sewing retreat in August and hope to get some quality stitching, so here's hoping there are a few finishes!

Priory Square quilt (above) -- piecing done; needs to be basted and quilted
Cotton + Steel (baby) plus quilt -- time to baste and quilt that baby!
Cotton + Steel plus quilt (the re-do) -- piecing in progress
AMH greatest hits scrap quilt -- let's not talk about it.

Project Piles:
Natural History twin quilt for M -- pattern picked
AMH mixed up king quilt
Doe strip quilt

Linking up to On the Windy Side for the 2015 Finish Along Q3!

Sewing and other things

It's been a while! Time for an update. I've managed to sew a fair amount over the past month, but I've not taken any good photos. Do bad photos hold you back? I have serious angst about my poor photography, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I know, right now I can cut myself some slack (hello, chemotherapy, people!), but eventually I have got to do something about the bad photos. But I digress.

BABIES are coming!

Storytime Squares Baby Quilt

I've sewn three quilt tops for babies in less than a month. I finally finished quilting the first one (above), and I am really proud of it. I densely quilted straight-ish (cough, cough) lines and while it took FOREVER, it gave the quilt such an amazing texture. And it got even better after I washed it. I paired some adorable animal prints by Creative Thursday (Za Za Zoo line) with some Anna Maria Horner florals (a few from Pretty Potent and one Honor Roll print). I love them together! The recipient has done some work in Africa and I noticed both elephants and giraffes on her registry, so I think this will be a hit.

This was my first time sewing the Storytime Squares quilt by Made by Rae and I liked it well enough to make it again. It was more time consuming than my standbys, but when I'm not in a rush to meet a deadline that's okay. Would I do the dense quilting again? As much as I love the result, the time commitment is really daunting. So probably not any time soon.

Aren't these zebras adorable?

Do you have go-to baby quilt patterns? I love the charms baby quilt pattern by Elizabeth Hartman who blogs at Oh, Fransson! Her blog is currently under construction but you can see other quilts using the pattern here. I have made close to a dozen baby quilts using this pattern. It's quick, easy, and looks great. For the next baby quilt I pulled out the Za Za Zoo prints in blues and yellows and added in my favorite Michael Miller dot and a Lizzy House pearl bracelet. This quilt is for my cousin who is expecting her first baby, a boy.

Eek, this top needs a pressing!

I used some of the leftovers to make two bibs and backed them with flannel from my first son's receiving blankets. (A friend recently told me the bibs I made are "the best bibs" they have. I'm not sure what makes them great, but if you're looking for a simple pattern try this one by Rachel Measham-Pywell for Sew Mama Sew.)

Wouldn't this zebra print make some awesome baby pants?

Did I mention that I won the Creative Thursday fabric I used for those two quilts? A little over a year ago Marisa hosted a giveaway on her blog and my number came up on the random generator! Hooray! In addition to this adorable fat quarter bundle, she sent me an original painting, two books and a few other cute things. What an awesome prize. It took me a long time to figure out how to use the fabric, but once I divided the prints by color I was able to formulate a plan.

The third baby quilt is a simple strip quilt for a friend who loves yellow and doesn't know the gender of her baby. I don't have a lot of yellow, so I bought a Cotton + Steel basic to pair with the cute moon bunnies print in the Mochi line by Rashida Coleman Hale. I added in some white and another Cotton + Steel print. It's not a "wow" quilt, but I think she'll like the simplicity -- and the yellow. Plus, I put together a Divided Basket by Anna @Noodlehead with more yellow and more bunnies and some Essex linen in denim. I love the result! Have you sewn this pattern yet? Because it is one of the best patterns out there. Don't take my word for it; give it a try!

Bunny Divided Basket (you can see the strip quilt in the background)

All of the baby gifts are due in April, so I've really got to get quilting. The finished Storytime Squares quilt will be gifted tomorrow at a surprise baby shower for my coworker. I won't be there (chemo #3 -- see this post) but I'm really excited to hear how it is received. Making a quilt for a coworker I don't know well feels a little presumptuous and perhaps too generous? But I love making baby quilts and I know she'll appreciate the gesture.

And I'm just realizing that I am missing all three of the showers because chemo. Oh well. There will be many other opportunities to celebrate these babies!

And that's it. That's the sum total of my sewing lately. This first quarter of 2015 I completed just two out of five projects on my Finish-A-Long list. I missed the deadline to link them up, but I'll go ahead and claim them here anyway!

Q1 Finishes:

1. Scrappy, wonky star pillow

2. The Unicorn Quilt

Q1 Unfinishes: 

1. Anna Maria Horner Greatest Hits scrappy coin quilt.

2. Priory Square Quilt for someone dear.

3. Echino bird mini quilt. 

I got a little off track at the beginning of the quarter and started a Cotton + Steel plus quilt, but I'm glad I followed my inspiration because it is a project I really love. And while I really should have anticipated the baby quilts (I'd have had a third finish!), I've now gotten a jump on two entries for Quarter Two. Go me!

Q2 Finish-A-Long List:

1. ZaZa Zoo charm square baby quilt for baby boy.

2. Cotton + Steel strip quilt for a friend's baby.
3. Anna Maria Horner greatest hits scrappy coin quilt -- I need to square it up and add the top and bottom borders, and then quilt this baby.
4. Cotton + Steel plus quilt -- Finishing this is a stretch, as I've got only one quarter done, and most likely I'll only get another quarter done by the end of June.
5. Priory Square quilt -- the fabric is collecting dust while I waffle over what design to use. So this is a BIG stretch.
6. Echino bird mini quilt. I made some progress in Q1 and just need to decide on how to finish it. So maybe?

#determination #2015

Hello, new year. This year I will celebrate my 40th birthday and 15th wedding anniversary. I have been looking forward to this year and to a big party and a big trip (Venice? Hawaii? Disney with the family?). And a fancy new sewing machine! Cruella's entrance in the final month of 2014 certainly put a damper on things. It has made 2015 seem less like a year for celebrating.  

That said, 2014 was mostly a good year for me. I stretched in my work and figured out what I DONT want to do, landed a fabulous new job that so far is what I DO want to do, made lots of time for sewing and sewed some pretty beautiful things, loved (and was loved by) my guys, and enjoyed being happy. I found peace and balance.

I want those celebrations this year. I want the peace and balance I just found. I will not let Cruella upend my world.

So: happy New Year! Let's do this.

2015 Goals:

1. Kick cruella's arse.

2. Celebrate the heck out of my birthday, anniversary, and achieving goal 1.

3. Live, love, laugh. 

2015 sewing to do list:

1. Tote bag for S's birthday (and a matching change purse?)

2. Finish the unicorn quilt for J

3. Finish the AMH scrap quilt

4. Priory Square quilt for K

5. Quilt for KK (Lizzy house cats? Cotton and Steel kitties?)

6. Baby quilt for B

7. Divided basket for B

8. Divided basket for me!

9. Try 6 new quilt blocks

10. Make a quilt for charity