Happy New Year and what's next for this Blog

I seem to go it starts and stops when it comes to this blog.  The new year has given me the chance to see a time when I will have less volunteering and more time to focus on my own creative pursuits.  

Why Re-energize this Quilting blog Now?

I think many of us are craving something real. In a world where so much happens on a screen, quilting lets you slow down, work with your hands, and create something tangible. Plus, it’s sustainable. Using scraps and upcycling old fabric feels good when you’re trying to live a little greener.

Then there’s the community aspect. Social media has turned quilting into a global phenomenon. With hashtags like #Quilting and #QuiltLove, you can find inspiration and connect with other quilters from all over the world. It’s like being part of this big, colorful club where everyone’s cheering each other on.

My Quilting Journey

I didn’t set out to become a quilter. It kind of happened by accident. My first quilt? Let’s just say it wasn’t winning any awards—crooked seams and all. But I loved it. Each quilt I make tells its own little story: a baby blanket for my daughter, a photo memory quilt for my elders, a cozy throw for my couch on chilly nights. Quilting has become this beautiful way for me to express myself and connect with others.

One of the best parts? The people I’ve met along the way. Quilters are some of the kindest, most generous folks you’ll ever meet. Whether it’s at a local guild meeting, a quilt show, or just swapping tips online, there’s a real sense of community. It’s like we’re all part of this big, creative family.

The Future of My Quilting Blog

I’ve been thinking a lot about where to take this blog as quilting keeps growing and changing. There’s so much I want to share with you—not just about quilting techniques or patterns (though don’t worry, there will be plenty of that), but about the stories behind the quilts. Who made them? What inspired them? What do they mean to the people who use them?

I also want this space to be a hub for connection. Maybe that means hosting virtual quilt-alongs where we all work on the same pattern together or spotlighting quilters who are doing amazing things. I’m even toying with the idea of starting a podcast—imagine sitting down with a cup of tea and listening to quilters share their stories and tips.

And of course, I want to keep exploring how quilting fits into our modern lives. How can we use it to be more sustainable? How do we pass this craft on to the next generation? These are the kinds of conversations I’m excited to have with you.

Let’s Stitch This Together

Quilting has given me so much—a creative outlet, a way to connect with others, and a whole lot of joy. I hope this blog can be a place where you find all that and more. Whether you’re a seasoned quilter or someone who’s just curious about giving it a try, there’s room for you here. Let’s keep stitching, sharing, and celebrating this amazing craft together. I can’t wait to see what we create.

A Change of Pace

Sometimes, when I get behind on a Mystery project, such as Bonnie Hunter's Indigo Way, I find myself getting discouraged.  I know it is not some kind of race, but I have a tendency to be hard on myself for not keeping up.  This year, we've had some health challenges in the family and we've had to support our family with our time much more so than usual.

I decided, rather than getting discouraged on Indigo Way, I would switch gears to one of my UFO's to make some progress on that front.  My first One Block Wonder allowed me time to sew with my Featherweight - always a fun experience - and the larger pieces allowed me to see progress much faster.  I was able to get all of the hexagons assembled and now I just need to applique it to the center panel

I do have a question about covering the bear's buttocks on the left side of the panel.  My quilting besties suggested I pin it and let it stay on the wall until I felt confident one way or the other.  I have made a decision, but I'll share more on that another day.

Do you know what else happened?

I got my mojo back for Indigo Way!  Sometimes a change of pace is exactly what we need to get our quilting juices flowing again.

What do you do to get yourself back on track with your quilting?

Tip: 4 at a time Half-square base triangles

As part of the Bonnie Hunter mystery experience, I meet with a group of ladies who share tips and tricks to make assembly of these wonderful quilts a little faster.  This is not to say Bonnie's instructions are not fantastic, because they are.  I tend to do her mystery quilts with yardage as I have not convinced myself I have a large enough stash to go scrappy.  When you use yardage, these tricks can make assembly much faster.

When we first looked at Clue 4, we need half of the block to be half square triangles cut in half, or so I thought.  The challenge is half your triangles are dark on the right and light on the left and the other half is vice versa. 

My friends came to my rescue with a new way to tackle this.  Take the light square, draw the usual diagonals.  Pair it up with the other fabric needed, right sides together, then sew two seams with a jog in the middle. 

Cut apart on the two diagonals.

Press your seams and you're ready to move on.

My quilting friends never fail to amaze me with the tricks they share.  The journey for Indigo Way continues.

What happened now?

WARNING:  There are images and descriptions that some viewers may find disturbing.  Please feel free to pass this entry if you are easily made queasy.

About one year ago, a member of our guild was working on a Bonnie Hunter mystery when she accidentally sliced her finger with her rotary cutter.  She had a nightmare recovery, but she is back quilting prolifically today.

You can see where this is going...

Just after Christmas, as I was working on a Bonnie Hunter mystery and trimming blocks with a brand new ergonomic rotary cutter I had received days earlier.

My non-dominant (left) index finger wandered off the edge of the ruler as I was slicing.  I headed up the edge of the ruler and right into my finger.  At the time, it didn't hurt, but I immediately realized I'd done something foolish.  I ran to my washroom with a concerned husband following close behind.  After bleeding through two bunches of gauze, I told him I needed to go to the hospital to have it looked at.

After a 5+ hour wait in the local emergency room, a wonderful emergency doctor came in to check out what I had done.  It was just my luck that not one, but two, ambulances had come in with victims of car accidents.  When it was my turn, I was fortunate to be immediately seen by the doctor.  He first numbed the finger and THAT was the worst part of the whole experience.  Once frozen, he had me sit in front of a sink and run the finger under water that was between lukewarm and slightly cook for 5-10 minutes.  This is KEY.  If you ever cut yourself with a rotary cutter, and I certainly hope you do NOT, those blades have an oil coating and fibers from the cloth we cut.  Flushing out the wound is key to having a chance of healing well.  He got out his suture kit, I joked about "I'll be the judge of your stitching skills sir" and he proceeded to put me back together with 5 stitches and a splint to stabilize the finger for a week.

Immediately after the stitches were completed in the hospital

For those who are curious, NO, I did not bleed on any of the fabric.

Here's what it looked like after a week when the stitches were taken out.  Another week and I was panicky as the seam was opening up.  In reality it was only the top layer or two that died off, the stitches had done their job to hold the deeper cut together.

 

Here it is now!

You can see where I had hit my fingernail, though it has start to grow out since this happened. I do have some nerve damage on the side of the my finger, but the tip is not too bad.  I am very, very lucky and grateful for the medical services I received.

Needless to say, when I shared this with my quilting friends, there was a run on ordering gloves to protect hands while working with rotary cutters.  Whether you use a protective glove or not, please remember that quilting is not supposed to be a blood sport.  Use caution and know when to stop of you are tired or feeling at all unwell.  Don't follow my lead on this on, please!

Welcome 2024 and first completed Quilt of the New Year!

Here we are at the start of another journey around the sun.  This past year was not what I expected.  I had thought, "No new projects", going into the start of 2023.  I guess we need to consider that goal a fail, given I added 5, no 6 new projects this year - but is that really a "fail", or just a commitment to the joy of quilting?  I've updated my UFO tracker, if you are curious.  You can find it here:  UFO tracker

Even though we are only 4 days into the new year, I already have my first quilt completion.  I tried on New Year's Eve to make this a completion for 2023, but at 11:59 I put the quilt and my needle down and conceded that I was not going to get the binding completed.  Last night, I finished the binding and the labelling of "Summer Swag".  This quilt was based on a workshop our guild held with Krista Moser.  One of the great things from the COVID pandemic was the chance for guilds to engage virtual speakers and teachers from far away for their meetings and workshops.  We had Krista come and do both - speak and lead a workshop.  I can't say how much I enjoyed her energy and positivity.

My husband came with me to select the fabrics for this quilt and it was my first time using a paper pantograph with my longarm.  I don't know if it was the pantograph pattern that was selected, or my inexperience with the longarm, but it was not my favourite way to quilt.  The next one will be a custom quilt job, to be sure!

Here is the end result, and I'm quite proud of it.

So, here's to 2024, and striving for a low cost, high completion, fewer UFOs year.  I've also set myself a target to get more engaged with this blog and hope to capture my quilting journey as I progress forward.

Time passes but the quilt projects keep growing

It has been too long since I last wrote.  I've struggled to find the time to quilt and to blog and recently started to get back to quilting.  I've got new projects that have helped to reinspire my desire to quilt.  I think all quilters go through these cycles of passion for this craft and feeling the minutes and hours of life being consumed by the mundane, the necessary, and the distracting.

So let's chat about what's re-ignited my passion for quilting.  Our guild is blessed to have a wonderful quilt designer in our ranks.  She has generously created a design for all of us with a clue a month through our season. Unlike a mystery quilt, we know what the end result will be.

When I get these opportunities to support a fellow quilter, I take the chance to push my comfort zone and try something new.  In this case, I need three colours plus a background.  She showed both a light, white on white, background and a darker background.  I decide to approach things differently.   I decided to flip that on it's head.  I have a colourful background fabric and tone on tone's for the foreground fabrics.  I have no idea if this will work, but I take projects like this as an opportunity to try new things.  Like all projects, I took both a colour and a black & white photo of the fabrics to ensure I had a range of tones.   What do you think? (Note: one of these fabrics did NOT make the cut.Can you guess which one?

 

The next project is a One Block Wonder quilt.  It is the first one I've ever done.  Again, experiment time, I have a panel that is part of the Northcott "Northern Peaks" line as my centerpiece, but the actual OBW is being built from the coordinating fabric line.  This was a workshop held in person by our guild.  We were all amazed at the diversity of choices everyone had made.  Like the previous experiment, we'll see how this goes with great anticipation.

Finally, Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery has started and of course, I joined in once again.  This time, having just finished a blue, red, and white quilt, Ai wanted a change of colour scheme.  Brown and gold, here I come.

There is a fourth project I started this fall too, but I'll leave that for the next post.  

Needless to say, I'm surrounded by fabric these days and feeling such joy at the potential this fabric represents.  I'll have a big update for my UFO list but 2024 will be an epic year as I work to complete all of these projects.  I hope you will join me along the way.

Chilhowie is pieced

I think I need to admit that I'm a Bonnie Hunter enthusiast who has started several of the annual Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts, but if truth be told, I've only ever finished one - Frolic.

Today, I took a big step forward and worked on piecing the 2022-2023 mystery, "Chilhowie"

I had to start with finishing the assembly of the border strips.  I have a love/hate relationship with pieced borders.  It can feel like a never ending effort but at the same time, it produces an epic result.

Once I had the top fully assembled, it was time to snap a picture.  It was breezy outside but the sun was shining, so I wrestled to hang the quilt on my clothesline.  The wind was so gusty that I had to lie on the ground to take any picture and the quilt was never fully flat when I snapped the picture.  Still, the quilt top looked like stain glass against the sun.

I brought the quilt top back indoors and laid it out on my floor to snap a shot.  Not as bright, but here it is.

Thank you, Bonnie, for a wonderful challenge and learning experience.  I still have to quilt this beauty, but getting this far feels like such an accomplishment.

Now, which of the Quiltville mysteries to tackle finishing next?