A Recap of my Quilting Year 2024

At the end of the each year, I make a post summarizing my year, and show the quilts I made during the year.  I am late this year, but I didn't want to skip this post.

I'm pretty sure that this was a record-breaking year for me, both in terms of quilting starts and quilting finishes. I started 17 quilts and finished 13.  While I didn't finish more than I started, I did finish more quilts than I usually do. I also made tremendous progress on a lot of quilts which are not listed here. Let me show you the quilts I finished.

There are videos for all of these quilts on my YouTube channel.

Haven of Harmony

The first quilt of the year was made for the Project Quilting challenge.  The Project Quilting challenges require that the quilt be made from start to finish within one week, so they tend to be very small projects. The theme for this month waws birdhouse. I wanted to make a quilt that was in the shape of a house based on a design inspiration, and although it would have been fine as a birdhouse by itself, I had a peacock fabric I just had to use to add to it.  This was really fun to take a country design and turn it into something much more exotic. You can read more about this quilt here: Haven of Harmony.

Rabbit's Reverie

Rabbit's Reverie is made for the Just Let Me Quilt blog hop challenge. This is a monthly blog hop challenge. The theme for this month is White Rabbit. I took a pair of embroidered pants and made this rabbit quilt. It was a lot of fun to find designs on fabric to add to the quilt and let the fabric choose what would be added.

Where Horses Dream Under Endless Sky

This quilt wound up getting a lot of names. It said Inktense Sky because of the pencils I used to color the sky. This was made for another Project Quilting challenge. The theme was to use a sky color, but not sky blue. I am really happy with how this turned out, especially how the horse looks, even though the house is much more casual than the horse. You can read more about this quilt here: Inktense Sky.

Raggedy Heart

 Pink Explosion is a quilt that I made for the blog hop. The blog hop does not require finished quilts, so I didn't limit myself to a small project. I was only able to make the quilt top, and did not get a chance to quilt it before the due date.

Raggedy Heart is made for the Project Quilting Challenge. The theme was raw edge, so I used strips from the Pink Explosion quilt, and used a ribbon to finish off the edges. 

While I was making the textured fabric, I made another texture using the same fabrics. I am calling this one Crumpled Heart. I am hoping to make a series of quilts with different textures. 

Red and White Hourglass Quilt

The Red and White Hourglass quilt was made for the Project Quilting challenge. The theme for the week was hourglass.  

I didn't post a full on picture of the quilt on the blog, and it is too dark now for me to try to take a new photo.

Web of Life

 

The Web of Life Quilt was made for the  Dust Off An Old Quilt Book Blog hop in March.  Since it doesn't require a quilt that has been started during the week, I started with a quilt I had already started but had stalled. I had used a gray background for my web, and I was not happy with it, so I removed the gray background, and used a white background.  I also added the applique.

Pajamas Doll Quilt

I have been wanting to make a quilt with the flannel fabric I have saved from my old pajamas, and this Project Quilting challenge made me bring them out or this project. The challenge was Wearables. It just had to have some connection to clothes. I like the soft, cozy look of this quilt, although the flannel is a little stretchier due to its age and harder to work with. I also cut up bigger squares and triangles for a bigger quilt, but I haven't done any work on them since. You can read more about it here. 

April Showers is another blog hop challenge.  I was able to finish all but the binding in time for the challenge and it has been bound, but apparently I haven't shown you the bound quilt on the blog.  The video does show it bound though.

Beach Picnic

Beach Picnic is made for the For the Birds blog hop challenge. I hadn't finished this quilt by the challenge date, but this challenge does not require a finished quilt, so I could make quilts that are a bit more complicated..  Even though I know the deadline and theme ahead of time, the Project Quilting challenges kept me from being able to devote as much time for the monthly challenges.  

Five Minute Quilt

In September, I asked AI to give me a video idea that could go viral.  It said to make a quilt in five minutes.  I didn't know if that was even possible, but I made an attempt. The results are mixed, so you will have to watch the video to decide whether I succeeded. You can read more about the Five Minute Quilt here.

Tropical Fish

I finished the Tropical Fish quilt in September. It has an applique center and a pieced border. I love the bright colors in this quilt. This is another quilt for the blog hop, where I was able to make a more complex quilt. I submitted the unfinished quilt, and finished it afterwards.

Bona Lisa

The last quilt finish of the year is Bona Lisa. I started it in October as a part of the Something Wicked blog hop. I technically didn't finish sewing down the hand sewing part of the label, but I am still counting it as a December finish.

I have started other quilts that are not a part of a challenge, but it doesn't look like I finished any of them.  Since the monthly blog hop challenge will not take place this year, hopefully I will be able to make more progress on my quilts and show finishes on quilts that have already been started.

Quilt Reveal: Ruby Buttons

 I managed to make this week's Project Quilting Challenge submission early. The deadline is Sunday at noon central, but here it is, Saturday evening, and I already have the quilt done.  It is also a proper quilt with lots of pieces, so not a small coaster.

The theme of this week's challenge is to make something that is the color of your birthstone, My birthstone is ruby, so it was easy idea for me to make a quilt for my red and white quilt collection.

I wanted to make a quilt with little red squares. I sewed them together in strip sets. They remind me of fabric covered buttons.

This quilt reminds me of the small squares in the Maximum Minimum quilt.

I quilted it with some straight lines, thinking of pinstripes, but looking at it, it looks more like button placards, which makes them look like buttons even more.

Although the other quilts for this challenge were made by birthing quilts, this quilt needed a binding. In order to make it quickly, I machine stitched the binding to the back, folded it over the front, and sewed it down using a serpentine stitch.

I am really happy that I get to submit this quilt on Saturday and not have to worry about whether I will finish it before the deadline.

Quilt Reveal: To Wash Or Not To Wash

 

The Project Quilting Challenge for the week is Common Blocks. The rule is to make a quilt with three common quilt blocks.  There is also a quote "No one owns the copyright on a 16-patch block, or an Ohio star."

You have no idea how happy this challenge made me.  I was working on a tutorial about whether you should pre-wash your fabric before making a quilt. I was thinking about making three nine patch blocks - one with all pre-washed fabrics, one with no pre-washed fabrics, and one with a mixture of both.  I was debating making three different quilts, but wondering if I could get away with putting them all in one quilt, separated by sashing. 

I wanted to keep as much similar as possible, so the experiment could focus only on whether the fabric was pre-washed.  I used fabric from the same layer cake, so that the manufacturer, the cotton, even the dye would all be the same.  I wanted to make the same block for all three blocks so that the comparison would be the same.

So when this project is announced, I read the post thoroughly.  Although I think there is an implication that the three blocks should be different, there wasn't anything that specifically said that. I didn't ask.  This challenge gives me permission, nay, it requires me to put them all three blocks in one quilt. Challenge accepted.

Making this quilt was fun. It took some added time to prewash the fabrics. I got impatient and pressed them dry, but they were small so it didn't take long, and these fabrics are not likely to shrink any more for sure. Strip piecing made the job easier, although with 10" squares, there wasn't much time savings involved with that. 

I also didn't plan the right set up for recording the process for the video, since I was using the same space for pressing and cutting, so I had to keep putting up and taking down the ironing board.

I had another, much busier, border fabric planned, so I added the peach sashing to highlight the three blocks, but eventually I decided to switch out the busy border. I did think about switching the peach with the green, but that would involve ripping out seams, and with the weekly deadline, I decided not to risk it.

I took the quilt outside to take a good photograph. The lighting is better outside than inside.

I thought I would ask Zoey to be in the picture, so I told her to come to me, but when she did, she jumped on the quilt.

And got mud on it.  It is a good thing I was planning on washing the quilt to complete the experiment.