Best of 2021 Linky Party

As the year is coming to a close, Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs is again hosting the annual 'Best of...' Linky Party.

I decided to feature my favourite finishes for the year. Just going through my blog I was quite amazed of how many finishes I had. Definitely better than the year before...hope this continues in 2022. There were lots of favourites, in fact anything I work on seems to become a favourite and it was really hard to choose.

However, starting in the beginning of 2021, here are some of my favourite finishes

1. The Stretched Star quilt

I made this pattern for my Etsy shop and this was the beginning of a very intensive period of time where I worked on increasing my inventory. I loved making this quilt...it contains my favourite block, the Duck Track block, and has lots of empty space to fill with quilting designs. I used a small star ruler, putting some stars just randomly onto the quilt and then going around the border making a continuous star pattern. This was lots of fun.

2. The Maple Leaf Table Runner

This was on my list to do for a very long time and I finally managed to put it together this year. Would like to make it again...comes together very quickly and looks great with an overall woodgrain design.

3. The Wooden Blocks quilt

An experiment in bold colours, also for my Etsy shop. A super easy fun quilt to make.

4. The Cassowary

I did an online course with textile artist, Sofie Standing, learning about thread painting. That was an adventure and a half...sometimes I was really not sure whether I would be able to do this but in the end it all came together and the bird looks great! Lots of very anxious moments with this project.

5. A Year of Stars with Natalia Bonner

This was a year long quilt along that I finished (the quilting) some time in June/July. I put the binding on just recently to finish it off. This quiltalong was all about ruler work and was immensely enjoyable. Went a bit overboard with the background quilting in the sashings and border, but looks fantastic!

Hoping that 2022 will be as productive as this year...I think the key for me this year was that I worked to a definite plan and a structure to follow. That seems to work for me really well. If I just leave things open I tend to trail off into the sunset often starting several things at once, depending on when inspiration strikes.

Linking up to Meadow Mist Designs for the Best of 2021 Linky Party.

Karin

Last Finishes for the Year

Managed to finish off two more UFOs before the year comes to a close. Nothing too exciting but very happy to have completed this.

Natalia Bonner's 9 Patchalong quilt

This is from 2020...had finished the quilting and then just put it away. Even had the binding cut up. The binding has been sitting in my sewing room on one of the cupboards ready to go...since September 2020. Can you believe it?

Was actually really interesting to look back on this one. I had forgotten already what we did on this.

Looks great and is a really good visual of all the different designs to look back on.

Then saw the border...cannot even remember doing this. What a great idea to use the wiggly lines to split up the border width. Looks really effective, definitely something I would use again.

After this I also finished my Snowmen table runner. This was the first one I did and I completely mucked up the quilting on it. So did some unpicking and just went with some Ribbon Candy in the sashing after having soaked the entire area to get rid of the marks from the stitching. That worked really well and it turned out quite respectable in the end. Left the stars in the border, even though I did not like them, but you can hardly see them anyway. Ended up giving it to my daughter for her dining table. Have one more lot of Snowmen left to make into another table runner which will be another project for next year.

Would be great if I could say that this was it, but there is another UFO lurking in the cupboard waiting for a binding to do done. That will also be on the list for next year!

Also joined Bethanne Nemesh' Breaking Boundaries class which will begin in February. This is about improvisational piecing and background fillers and was the first class I looked at before I actually signed up for the Feather class (currently on a Christmas break to be continued in January). There is the option of piecing a number of quilts together before the classes start in February, so I made a start on this with some curved piecing. 

That was good fun. Can't wait to see what's next.

Karin

A Year of Stars with Natalia Bonner - The Wandering Star

Here is the last star for the year

...and finally, the whole quilt. Posted this already on Instagram and FB but for the sake of having the whole year on here, I am repeating it.

A photo outside to highlight the quilting...and yep, there is a lot of quilting on that one. I am not a 100% sure which sashing or border design we were supposed to be doing...in the end I just chose the ones that appealed to me from the many YouTube videos that Natalia has put up on the net. The stacked curl design and pebbles in the sashing made the quilt a bit stiff, but it goes with the density in the blocks. I am sure it will soften with time.

And another photo inside

It is an absolutely lovely quilt and while I finished this a long time ago because I could not wait month by month for the designs, I am really glad that I did participate in it. Natalia has so many ideas about block designs which was really nice to explore. I am sure you have heard by now that she will be running 'A Year of Blocks' in 2022. Highly recommended...you can learn so much from her.

I still need to finish off the binding on my 9 Patchalong quilt as well. Hoping to do this in the next week or so. Will be great to have these quilts around to look at when thinking about block designs.

Karin

Last Charity Quilt for the Year

I am in finishing mode...

Here is the last of the charity quilts for the Orange Tree Quilters Group.

Beautiful little quilt. Really like the colouring of this one. Decided to do an allover floral design by Christina Maraccini from her book 'Machine Quilting Solutions'.

Not too bad...the design was easy enough to execute, there is a lot of scope to just fill in spaces with either swirls or more leaves. Just had to watch the scale of things a bit and did go a bit more dense in one of the corners but then corrected myself again and continued pretty consistently.

Really suits it, I think.

Karin

Practicing and Learning

It has been a full on few weeks. I have literally been quilting non-stop, finishing some projects, quilting some charity quilts (one more to go) and doing the online workshop with Bethanne Nemesh.

Must say that Bethanne's workshop is fantastic...very structured and organised and very intense which I love, of course.

I have been practicing on and off as time allowed. Here are some of the things that I have stitched out over the last two weeks.

More of the curls

A couple of wreaths

Love this last one (no idea why the colour is different...it's the same fabric taken at the same moment) and planning to do it again a bit more pronounced and neater around the outside.

And then today I stitched out an Amish feather spray which looks incredibly involved but was not too bad at all. My only issue was making my feathers a bit larger than usual to fill up the enormous space I had around me. Was really pleased with it though as this is stitched freehand and on a practice piece which I am always a bit more sloppy on. Would feel very comfortable stitching this out on a quilt.

This is only a small selection of the practice that I have done. I did practice a number of other things but that is just more of the same. So happy to be back to feather quilting and being able to straighten out some bad habits and learn some of the finer points of quilting feathers.

This month will be wholecloth quilting...I think there is a wall hanging we can do and then there is my design I finally and definitely want to stitch out. Given that Christmas is around the corner this will probably take me right through to January. Very exciting and very motivating...not sure how I will fit all this in as there are a number of other little things that need finishing.

Karin

The Heart Quilt

Finished another one of the charity quilts from the Orange Tree Quilters group. On this quilt I tried the new Amanda Murphy heart rulers. The rulers come in a pack of three, offering two size options. I went for the smaller set which has a 2.5in, 3.5in and 4.5in heart. Was determined to get all 3 sizes of hearts on the quilt.

Love the shape of these hearts and was keen to try this out.

First quilted some hearts in the middle with the 3.5in heart

Very easy to stitch out with just marking the center lines of the square. Beautifully shaped.

I then quilted a bit of a scallop around the center of the quilt and put a little heart in each corner. As I still had two borders left, I decided to quilt the biggest, 4.5in heart across the two borders placing them not in a column but next to each other. This was a bit more involved, but easy to do with these rulers...quilted one side first, then up the other side and backtracking across the top of the hearts. Like other rulers from the Amanda Murphy range, she has got lines on there where you can align your previous, just stitched shape on. This made backtracking over the lines a breeze and also ensured that you hit the right point on the bottom of the heart. This was truly an effortless stitch out and once I had worked out how many hearts I wanted in the border and looked at my available space the actual stitching of the hearts was very fast.

Design-wise one could have done much more with this of course, but I always have to be mindful not to over-quilt these charity quilts, so that they remain nice and soft. The corner did work out nicely by linking the corner heart with the heart on each side (more or less, had a bit of a gap, but on that patterned fabric that was negligible) 

Really enjoyed doing this little quilt which gave me a good workout on those heart rulers. The accuracy you can achieve with these is truly outstanding. I don't think think I once missed a backtrack or did not arrive at the point of the heart.

Karin

Feather Online Course with Bethanne Nemesh

The online course with Bethanne Nemesh has started. Had our first session and it was fabulous...very organised, structured and very intense. My head was somewhat spinning afterwards and I was thinking ...OMG, this is just the first lesson! The level of detail was outstanding and it was helpful for the beginner and more advanced quilter alike. Absolutely loved the detailed explanations, hints and tricks to improve my feathering. I did not watch the live session as that would have meant getting up in the middle of the night and to my delight when I watched in on FB the next day, it displayed quite alright. Bethanne also puts the session on another more stable platform where you can watch it in sections at your leisure. Had a look at that today and like it, as it breaks it up into manageable chunks, just right if you want to re-look at something in more detail.

Then came practice in my own time. Did a couple of hours yesterday and today, really taking my time and preserving my shoulder which has been playing up a bit again of late. Also taking this to practice my machine speed on the Bernina Q20, as I want to do another Whole Cloth over December. With all the quilting in the last few months (and actually since I have had this machine) I have spent little time on focussing on speed, as I was doing mainly ruler work or sweeping meandering which you do with a bit more speed. Over the last 2 days I found a really comfortable speed to work with and also decided not to do the feathers in regulation, but rather stay in manual. Found the rhythm and speed where I could just concentrate on getting some of the other elements right.

This is going to be very helpful, I am so glad that I enrolled in this as I got a few things to work on.

My practice so far...rows of feathers

  ...and branching out into more elaborate arrangements

You probably wonder what on earth does she need to focus on?...I am a self taught quilter and learned feathers over time. They do look alright but doing it the one way that I know how to also means I find it incredibly hard to deviate from it. For example I have never used the bump back feather very much but learnt to backtrack over the entire length of my feather with some precision (I have almost made this a sport). This is great, but not always the best feather to use. At times then I have mixed the two, sometimes doing my way and throwing in a bump back feather...not very satisfying as you get out of rhythm really bad and I am not that good at the bump back feathers. Muscle memory is a great thing, but can also work against you as I have found out over time. It is incredibly hard to force yourself to deviate from the way you have always done it. I definitely need to loosen up and challenge my muscle memory. This is going to be so interesting! Already when I was doing the practice I noticed that I did not enjoy the bump back feathers that much...seemed like an incredibly laborious chore...as soon as I switched over to my way, I was in my element, happy to continue and enjoying the stitching. There is that real unconscious sabotage going on. Today I did mainly the bump back feather and actually started to enjoy myself a bit...it flowed all a bit easier and looked quite good.

There is already some other detail I am noticing that I need to concentrate on...this is going to be so helpful and challenging and as it runs for the next 4 months I am sure it will iron out some of those issues that I have identified for myself and other things that I do not know yet.

Also, really happy to get back to the feathers...it's been too long.

Karin