Thursday 29 December 2016

Best of 2016



Christmas is over for another year and, with the soundtrack of my very favourite Christmas movie Nativity! still playing in my head, it’s time for a review of 2016. Cheryl from Meadow Mist designs is holding a link up and, thankfully, she has provided a few prompts to follow, so here goes.

MOST POPULAR POST



My post with the most views was a tutorial I wrote on How to Hang a Quilt on an Outdoor Wall. Its popularity is due to it being featured in a newsletter from Debbie at A Quilter’s Table. If you don’t already get this newsletter, I highly recommend it. Debbie is generous in her round-ups and usually features variations of a quilt design that will have you rushing to add it to your already over-long to do list. Back issues are here if you want to see some samples. 

POST WITH THE MOST COMMENTS



The winner in this field was my stop on the 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Hop. Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on ANY of my posts. I truly appreciate and value every one of them.

THE RUNNER UP



The runner up in both the above categories was my stop in the Cloud 9 New Block Blog Hop. It got a lot of views and a lot of comments. It surprised me that people could see so much potential in it and a lot of the comments had ideas for making it in different colourways. I went on and used a couple of those suggestions to make some placemats just before Christmas. I learned a lot from doing this hop and from seeing what other people did as well. I would definitely like to do it again if I get the chance.

FAVOURITE FINISH



Always a tricky choice. Up until a little while ago that would have gone to the Union Jack quilt I made out of Jane Sassaman florals (here) but I thought maybe I should pick another one since I think I’ve showcased that particular quilt far too many times already. I was scanning through my quilt gallery and, genuinely, this is my new favourite – the Union Jack quilt made from batiks. It’s not finished and extremely similar but I love that large scale leaf batik and that dusky shade of blue of some of the leaves. Shame about the photo spot with its excess of shrubbery though.

FAVOURITE POST



Another difficult choice. There were two posts I really enjoyed writing and they were slightly off topic. One was the One Lovely Blog Award post. I had to come up with seven things about myself and I had to dig a fair way back into my past for something interesting but it was fun and I got some great feedback. The other was a post about my sewing space. One of my fellow 2016NQB hoppers and part of my critique group, Melva at Melva Loves Scraps, ran a link up for posts about our sewing studios and it was great to see everyone’s creative areas.

It will soon be 2017 – stay safe and have a Happy New Year!


Tuesday 20 December 2016

2017 The Plan




2016 was a year of challenges and growth for me in my quilting and blogging and I’m hoping to build on that for next year. Here’s what I’ve got planned so far.

I loved being part of the 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Hop this year and I’m hoping to build on the sense of community I got from that next year. To that end I’ve been accepted into two bees (or not two bees – sorry couldn’t resist J). I’m in Hive 1 for Stash Bee with a whole new bunch of people; and it seems that other members of the 2016NQB didn’t want to let go of the camaraderie either and we have started our own offshoot bee, Bee Inspired for next year. I’m really looking forward to the challenges these are sure to throw at me… I think.

I signed up for the Modern Quilt Guild mini swap and that project is due in February. This is my first ever swap and it’s something I’ve wanted to try for ages.



There has to be a Quilt Along somewhere in the mix and I’m planning on joining the Garden Snail Quilt Along on Instagram. I’ve already confessed my deep abiding love of snails and so this project has my name all over it, plus one block a week is something I can manage.

I’ve got some personal projects planned as well and a lot of them are minis which should make me look like I’ve accomplished a lot by this time next year. I’ve been doing a bit of designing on a doodle type scale of late and I want to make a few of them up so that’s what a lot of them will be.

I hesitate to put this down but (deep breath) I intend to open my own Craftsy shop. In my more confident moments I think there should be nothing to doing this. Still… a big step.

I’ve got a blogging routine going where I post about once a fortnight and that gives me enough time to play around with other things and is regular so the blog doesn’t get neglected. I’ve been hanging around the edges of Instagram for the last two years. This year I think I’m going to post more frequently there. They tell me it’s the platform of the quilting future present so I guess I should embrace it.

And if you’re posting on Instagram then you need a few photography skills and hopefully I’ll improve on that frontier as the year progresses as well. I recently discovered a blog which might interest a few of you, iPhone Photography School Blog. Who knew you could do all those things?


And that’s the list for now. I’m linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for her prizes ;-).

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Wednesday 7 December 2016

Facets Plus - Finished!



If you’ve been following the progress of this quilt looking at these photos is probably giving you a sense of deja-vu. But that’s what happens when you’re participating in a quilt-along, this one hosted by Amanda at This Mom Quilts.


Finally it is finished and happily installed on the spare room bed and it’s time for the celebratory happy dance.


And the final stages went really well. Even though I was anxious about the thought of quilting this it was smooth sailing. And speaking of smooth, the back is pucker-free as well – a first for me. I put it down to trying a different basting technique that I found on Campbell Soup Diary. I’m lucky enough to have a fairly large table in my sewing space and using clamps to keep the layers smooth worked a treat! I may also have basted more densely than in the past. All techniques I will use again.


Not having a pet to photogenically loll on my quilts I decided to use this very cute toy donkey. Originally he was named (by the toy company) ‘Dopey Donkey’ and came with a backpack full of tiny books with stories about how stupid he was. I thought this was very unkind so promptly binned them even though the backpack idea was kinda cute. Now, of course, he has no name such is the depth of my lack of imagination. If you’ve got any suggestions let me know.

Stats
Finished size is 70” by 80”.
You can find the pattern here