New Year's resolution 2009: reflections

Remember this post? In the beginning of January, Rose and I made a promise to ourselves and each other that for 2009 we were going to make what we love! We figured the UFO's weren't going anywhere, but we solemnly promised we wouldn't add anymore UFO's to the list. 2009 has been all about finishing whatever we wanted to start! So how has this been going? During this year I have started seven quilts (wow, is it really that many?):

1. The Sugar Camp Quilt
For me, this was the reason for the resolution in the first place; a deliberation whether to focus on WISPs and UFOs, or start something new. I hate to admit it, but this one is still at the "flimsy without border" stage - however I do still have hopes to finish it before the year is over! A little discipline!?!

2. Red & White Swap sampler
Wohoo! It was a lot of fun working on this one! The girls had done a fabulous job on the blocks! And I had a ball testing out my collection of quilt stencils and trying out different shapes in free motion quilting. The sign-up for this swap was in Dec. 2008, so not really sure if it should count… but the blocks weren’t sewn and swapped till January 2009, so I’ll let it ;o) FINISHED May 8th!!

3. Nanny Sharon's Picnic Quilt
A Threadbare Creations pattern I totally fell in love with when Rose published it back in October last year. It was a quick, easy and fun quilt to make! FINISHED May 24th!! Just in time for picnic season (it now have some tomato sauce and strawberry stains - shows it has been used *lol* - need a wash!)

4. Mini Bear's Paw
A reaction from doing those large quilts, I decided to make a mini - in four days ;o) FINISHED May 27th!

5. Sol's birthday quilt
This was started at DJ class with Hanne in March. This sampler was an experiment with blocks of different sizes - the smallest 4.5" and the largest12". FINISHED ehh... in time for her birthday July 29th!

6. Sister’s Choice jelly roll quilt
My oldest jelly roll was cut up in September - it was slow progress on this project, I was a bit un-inspired and I was spending my stitching time doing DJ blocks and working on some old WISPs. But this week I made the decision to get it done! I brought the binding to quilt guild last night, and I hand stitched quite a bit. Coming home I figured I was on a roll, so I spent a couple more hours on the sofa with needle and thread. And behold, it's FINISHED December 9th!



It has fleece on the back:



Not sure how much I enjoyed quilting fleece... So it's not very heavily quilted :o)

7. Carolina Christmas
This mystery was started in late November, and we are up to clue 5... I still have a little ways to go on step 4... I'm going to give myself a bit of leeway on this one - it is a huge quilt, and it has lots and lots of piecing... if I can get it finished in January I'll be happy!

Looking at my list of finishes I see I have been quite productive over this year, sewing smaller things in between these quilts. And if I can get the Sugar Camp Quilt finished by the new year - I will give myself a pat on the back and say "good girl" ;o)

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

How come I can't quilt straight lines???

I do have a finish to show, but please be patient with me and let me pout a bit? Because this is a serious question! I have tried so many times, but keep on stretching either the top or the backing out of place. I have tried with my walking foot, and without my walking foot... what do I do wrong?? Rose has quilted straight lines in the sashing on Nanny Sharon's Picnic quilt, and I really love the effect, and wanted to give it a try. It started out ok:

...but once I started to put in more than the two lines, it stretched and it puckerd, and didn't look good at all! (...and in my frustration I forgot to take another pic!) I spent hours late Friday night picking out stitches! I ended up doing some swirly meandering:

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I really love the effect of it! ...but it's not what I planned...

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Here's a close-up of the quilting in the appliqué blocks:

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...and in the "plain" four patch blocks I used a roll of "Blocks Made Easy" pattern #202:

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The back while quilting was in progress:

I got up a quarter passed five yesterday, and quilted most of the day, the stippling in the borders took a lot of time. I finished stitching down the binding a couple of minutes passed midnight, and, ta-da:

So happy to have it finished for summer and picnic season!! I wanted to take a pic outside in the back yard this morning, so hopefully the colours would show up more correctly, but we had more rain again last night and everything is soaking wet (typical!). If it dries up during the day, I might replace this pic :o)

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

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PS! I promised to give my verdict on the Lickety Grip; I used it the whole time I quilted this quilt. My feeling is that it's wonderful as long as you don't have to take too much of the weight of the quilt. But it's not really strong enough to give a good grip in the centre of a large quilt - I wouldn't use it on anything larger than this one.

Nanny Sharon's Picnic Quilt

My dear friend and very talented designer Rose published the pattern for Nanny Sharon’s Picnic Quilt back in October. And for a long time I have wanted to make it – I fell in love with the simple beauty of it. Last week I spent a lot of evenings frog stitching on a project I can’t blog (at least not for about a year), and after the frustration I felt I needed to do something I could master well yesterday, so I pulled some fabrics and this is the result:

The centre was done before bedtime last night, and the borders attached tonight. I just love how it turned out! I have used the same fabrics as Rose on the borders and half of the squares in the blocks – Cotton Blossom by Moda – but I only had one charm pack, so I added a pack of Dandelion Girl. The over-all impression of my version is a bit lighter and slightly more yellow and softer than Rose’s, but I’m very happy with it!

The quilting will have to wait a bit – I’m all out of batting at the moment, but more is on the way. I do have a plan for how I want to quilt it, though :o)

The pattern is written so clearly so you really can’t go wrong, and would be wonderful for a beginner quilter, but it is great even for those more experienced – a quick quilt that will be perfect for a present, no matter what fabrics you pick. Have a look at Pauline’s funky version – cool, hum? :o)


Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida