A Look Back...

Happy New Year my Creative Crew! 

Wow what a year it has been! There has been much to celebrate and much heartache for my family this year. I am looking forward to the New Year in the hopes that there will be a little more celebrating and a little less heart aching.  

As I looked back at my quilt projects this year, I picked a few of my all time favorites to share with you. The first one was a pattern that I found in my APQ magazine. The pattern is called "Peaks and Valleys" by Tula Pink. I loved the jagged edges to the chevron and the quilting done on her quilt by Angela Walters is stunningly beautiful. I instantly fell in love with the pattern and aspired to do some intense quilting to finish the piece. The pattern was challenging for me, but I manage to finish the piecing. At the October Sewing Retreat my family attends, I quilted and bound it. I chose to do some orange peel in the white background and figure 8s in the greens and blues. I used a variegated thread that had some vibrant pink throughout. This was tied together with a pink and green two toned binding.

My finished "Peaks and Valleys"

Two toned "Magic" binding

Quilting

The second project that I completed was a quilt for my brother and his wife. They have been married over 15 years and their original quilt her mother made them was starting to show the love. In order to keep cherishing it, they decided to retire the quilt to be admired. For Christmas this year, I made them a quilt. I chose to do a shadow box quilt by Mountain Peek Creations. It was a fast pattern to complete, but what made this quilt stand out to me was the quilting. I took it up to Jukebox Quilts in Ft. Collins, CO and rented one of their computerized longarm quilting machines. It was amazing! The staff there was so helpful, and it was such a relief to walk out of there 6 hours later with a perfectly quilted queen size quilt. All I had left to do was bind it. My brother and his wife LOVED the quilt...I do have to say that I was saddened to see it go, but I know that it will be well loved in it's new home!

Check out the video of the his quilt being quilted! I am still amazed at the engineering and programing behind this machine. ( Now if only someone could figure out how to make a bobbin never run out, they'd truly be a hero to the sewing community!)

My winning Row by Row Quilt

It seems like this was the year of the Christmas Quilt! My parents were redecorating their house. My Mom's friend Jean was a huge help and basically redecorated their entire house- top to bottom for $2,800. I wish that I had the skill, patience, and thrift to be able to completely redecorate a house in two weeks no less!









Anyway, my parents' room had changed and what better opportunity to give a gift than that. I used my winning fat quarters from the Row by Row Experience to piece yet another Tula Pink quilt called "Abacus". ( I must like her stuff!) You can download the pattern for free here. I also took this quilt and had it quilted on a longarm in Ft. Collins.

Aside from quilting, I do dabble in little projects here and there. I make little bags, baby slippers, taggies and burp clothes for infants, etc. The project that has been the most rewarding this year was my son's Halloween Costume. He was the most indecisive two year old I've every met. I kid you not, he was changing his mind every two hours. I was resigned to buying his costume this year (shudder), until he decided that he wanted to be a dinosaur monster two days before Halloween. I thought- I can do this. I already have all of the materials! It will only take me an hour or so to sew the top and it will be done. He loved it and still wears it as a sweat shirt.

There were many more projects here and there- but these were my favorite accomplishments this year! What were some of your favorite projects from 2015?

Back of "Dinosaur Monster"