Thursday, January 15, 2026

Starting Things and I Quilted This!

Bonjour and welcome! 😄 It's been raining, snowing, raining and snowing for the last week. I'm sure that the January cold will eventually come back but it is nice not bundling up to go outside! I've been busy with all kinds of things, but not much sewing. Oh well, there's always tomorrow 😉.

Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) 2026

I pulled out blocks that had never been put together - of course they were made in a Quilt-Along from a long, long time ago. Specifically, the Growing Up QAL with Alida in 2017.

Blocks from the Growing Up QAL from 2017

The blocks were supposed to be 12½" x 12½" but the New York Beauty style block was smaller so I ended up trimming them all. The four blocks measure 23½" square.

The blocks that I chose are block 5 - improv piecing, block 6 - Famous Jane Style block, block 7 - EPP, and block 11 - New York Beauty style block. If you want to read more about the Growing Up QAL, all the links are posted below.

A Quilter's Cove QAL

As I mentioned in my planning post, Kat of Scrapbox Quilts is hosting a QAL. We'll be making houses in the monthly colours of the 2026 RSC. This month it's blue! Kat has already made her lovely blue house block. I have no idea what I'll be making, except that it will be a blue house. Since my goals for 2026 are scrappy, small, playful and experimental - that's exactly what I'll be doing. 😁

If you want to join, just check out the colour of the month at soscrappy (see link below) and make one or more house blocks. The linking party will open the last Saturday of the month for 7 days. So come back between January 30^th and February 6^th to link up!

Cowboy Panel Quilting (SAHRR 2025)

I have started the stitching-in-the-ditch of the Cowboy panel quilt. I'm almost done! Then starts the fun part - FMQ. I used the walking foot with cotton thread - it worked wonderfully.

Proof of the work being done!

Here's the backing flannel fabric.

Backing flannel fabric

What I learned

It was so cool going through my blocks. I can't say that they are orphan blocks, they just haven't been put into a quilt yet!
I was pretty impressed with the sewing that I had done. At the time, I was doing a lot more blocks, so my block construction wasn't quite as wonky....also, I think that I cared more about accuracy back then, than I do now😊
I think that the SAHRR 2026 has lots of potential. I'm hoping to add some awesome fabric that will hopefully play well with the more sober solids.

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party. I'll be featuring the projects from last week's party that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. Thank you everyone who linked up. Feel free to grab the button.

Donnalee has been busy making a lot more Christmas placemats. Here are some of them waiting to be bound.

Donnalee's placemats, quilted and ready for binding

Gwyned Trefethen made this very lovely piece, Holiday Sparkle, for Project Quilting. She used her embroidery machine to stitch these ornaments to the fabric.

Holiday Sparkle by Gwyned

See the stippling on the back of Holiday Sparkle by Gwyned

It's now your turn! 😍

Friday, January 09, 2026

My plans, goals & dreams for 2026

Hi and welcome 😊 Although I'm hosting the Plans, goals & dreams linking party, I was not ready to even think about 2026 until it started. Time is now running out for the party - and I seem to be overwhelmed already! I'm probably going to over commit, but in the end, what ever gets done, gets done😉

Goals

I'm so glad that I took a couple of weeks to prepare my Best of 2025. This helped me reflect on what I did and what I want to keep doing. I realised that my favourite projects were the scrappy cuddle quilts, the hand-stitched mats, the coiled art pieces and hand-weaving on paper. All of these have the same thing in common - they're scrappy, small, as well as playful and experimental! Of course that doesn't mean that I won't make other things but if possible, I will choose to keep my projects scrappy, small, playful and experimental!

Plans

Now for a few details about what these might be.

UFOs

Like most quilter, I have lots of UFOs (Un Finished Objects). Quite a few are at the sandwich and FMQ stage. I really would like to do more FMQ this year and flimsies are perfect for this since they only require backing, sandwiching and then quilting. I have mentioned previously that sandwiching is one of my least favourite part of quilting - but when it leads to some FMQ, it's not as bad!😀

Since finishing up the Christmas Panel Quilt, I realised that I had missed FMQ and would like to keep my skills up.

I just washed the flannel backing for the Cowboy panel quilt. I'm hoping to start quilting it this week. This project is also my January OMG (One Monthly Goal), a party to which I will continue to participate in the hope that it will help me get things done!

Cowboy panel quilt - first in line to be quilted

I also have these cuties to FMQ.

Scrappy orange baby quilt

SAHRR 2023

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL flimsy

Baby Quilts

JJ has three friends who are going to be mothers soon! We have three baby quilts to make! We'll be using some of the fabric below as well as Kona solids.

Some of the fabric for the baby quilts

Challenges

SAHRR 2026

I would like to participate in the SAHRR 2026 this year, but it needs to be scrappy, small, playful and experimental! I'll look in my stash for a finished block and then work like the panel quilts, making only one of each week's block. Hopefully I can come up that will let me experiment with.

SAHRR 2026

Project Quilting Season 17

The first challenge of PQ 17.1 came out today. A clean state was interpreted as a blank page. I'll be participating to any of the challenges that interest me.😊

A blank page - to be filled up :-)

A Quilters' Cove QAL

I've decided to participate in A Quilters' Cove QAL with Kat of Scrapbox Quilter. We'll be making a quilt with houses based on the colours of the #Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm justifying this to myself that it will replace the Table Scraps Challenge that is no longer running. You'll be hearing more about this since I'll be hosting the linking party at the end of each month. BTW, January's colour is blue.

Look for the linking party at the
end of each month!

Bloomers SAL

I'm looking forward to finishing up my Bloomer's SAL.

Bloomers SAL - a little more work needed!

Declutter Challenge

I came upon the Declutter Challenge last week. I've been receiving and reading the posts - there are excellent ideas for decluttering. Unfortunately I'm not quite ready to tackle this - I need to start by putting things away before I can declutter. I plan on decluttering this year - anything I do will be better than nothing!

Hosted by Just Get It Done Quilts

Fibre Arts & New Techniques

Although I will be playing and experimenting with weaving on paper and coiling art, I would really like to learn more about watercolour painting. This isn't to make beautiful landscapes (I'll leave that to other artists) but to make interesting marks on paper to then embroider into them. I like embroidering on paper, but I believe that it becomes magical when it's done on designs that you've created yourself.

Handweaving on watercoloured paper

Coiling projects - Desert Landscape

There were made based on a workshop presented by Sam Owen in July 2023 with Textile.Artist.com Stitch Club. This Christmas, JJ got me a virtual course with Helen Wells, a British artists whose sketchbook practice I love. I just posted the results of the Creating Bold Botanicals course and I'm really looking forward to the Nurture and Nature course.

4" x 4" abstract watercolour and stitch

Echinacea flower

Playing with watercolour and stitching

I also have two wedding art quilts that I've been thinking a lot about. It's time to get them done!

Embroidery

In the Fall of 2024, I enrolled in a Fibre Arts Take Two course - Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods. I really enjoyed it but didn't finish any of the projects that I started. I'm really hoping to advance these projects this year. (that's pretty much what I said last year!)

These are two of the flower embroideries that I worked on

I also want to keep working on my not-so-daily stitching project, as well as my Narrative textile squirrel book I really didn't get much done in 2025. Maybe I'll be more successful this year.

Another square on the not-so-daily stitching project

Narrative textile squirrel book

As I was putting all of these WIP and UFO embroidery projects together, I discovered that I have many, many more unfinished embroidery projects. I hope that some of them will interest me enough to get back to them. I guess we'll all find out together!

I haven't made any new journals or hand-made books since 2024. I think that it's because as much as they are fun to make, I've given them away to almost everyone I know who would appreciate one. My son and DIL gave me an amazing package of Japanese paper scraps for Christmas. I will probably make more hand woven projects on paper with them....but who knows, I do have a huge stash of journal making supplies that either need to be used....or....decluttered! 😕

Dreams

I guess that I did put that in the title, so my dream is for a healthy, stable, happy 2026. I hope that your dreams for 2026 come true 😍

Goals for 2026

Linking parties

I'm linking up to several linking parties, including Plans, goals & dreams for 2026, I Quilted This!, Beauties Pageant, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down,

If you've subscribed to my post, I promise that the rest of the year won't be quite as busy. Thanks for following me on my journey - I really appreciate it!

Project Quilting 17.1 Challenge - A Clean Slate

Hi and welcome to the first challenge of Project Quilting for the year. The theme is a clean slate and should probably include some white.

Here is my thinking process - a clean slate reminded me of a blank page - nothing on it yet, full of possibilities. However for many artists, a blank page is not always a good thing. It can lead to tension and indecision - what to do? how to do it? where to start?

Filling the blank page

I was going through my email (to get rid of some of those 100s of unread email) and went down a rabbit hole of free motion quilting (FMQ). What's a blank stitching area? How to fill it? What to make?

Filling the blank page starts with some tentative white on white FMQ. This slowly opens up to a light pink - nothing too bold, just making marks. Eventually it leads to more colour. In this case, a light variegated thread that flourishes into bold feathers.

Filling the blank page

I was inspired by the book Free-Motion Framework by Jen Eskridge. I drew circles and triangles on white fabric with a FriXion pen. I then started filling the blank page. To be honest, I was going to do much more of the white-on-white but I couldn't see what I was stitching - so it became pink more quickly than I had planned 😉

Filling the blank page with thread

From a blank page

Thanks to both Kim and Trish for this interesting start to season 17. Looking forward to more challenges.

What I learned

It took me a while to go from a clean slate to a blank page. After that, it was a question of what to do on that blank page. As I mentioned an email from Jen Eskridge took me to her book and that was that!
I'm very happy to say that I used cotton thread and that my tension was fine. However, that was probably because I went slowly and my FMQ was small. It's when I expand to larger designs that I get tension problems.
It was a fun FMQ exercise and I've prepared a couple for blank pages to practice on. However no white-on-white is allowed!
Practicing every few months when a quilt is ready to FMQ isn't really enough if you want to get better. I'd like to work on that this year, at least a little bit.

Wednesday, January 07, 2026

Playing with watercolour and stitch

Bonjour and welcome 😊. I've taken some me-time to play with watercolours and stitching. It's been so much fun! I love watercolours, the way that they mix with each other to make something different. I have no interest in becoming a proficient painter, rather I want to make cool marks and blobs that I can stitch into (spoken like a true fibre artist😁)

Creating Bold Botanicals

I've been following Helen Wells, a very cool British artist, who exudes energy! She does wonderful work in her sketch books and loves to share and teach. Last winter I bought her virtual Creating Bold Botanicals course and I finally took a day this week to do it. It was wonderful!

My first Bold Botanicals sketch book

The sketchbook is a work in progress. I painted watercolour botanical shapes on 5 pages of sketching paper and then used lightly coloured card stock to paint various designs that end up being vases and such. I cut out funky vase shapes from the card stock pages and collaged them onto the botanical pages. I'm afraid I got carried away and didn't take any progress photos.

The front page of my accordion sketch book

The back page of my accordion sketch book

I couldn't wait to put the accordion book together. The book is rather wonky, just like its botanicals and vases! 😃Then I started stitching into the book. As you can imagine, that's my favourite part. Here are some details of the stitching. I mostly used the running stitch in various colours and thickness of thread. It'll be fun to experiment with various colours - some of the thread blends in but we also need colours that pop.

Stitching on paper - what fun!

Running stitch and chain stitch

Part of the accordion book

January's One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I've been playing a lot...mostly as a procrastination technique. I really want to get the Cowboy panel quilt finished. If I work hard, it can be finished by the end of January!!!

January's OMG

What I learned

As I stitch, I can examine what happens with the watercolour paints. The way that they blend and play with each other is so fun. I also used a bamboo stick to spread around the paint, like a pencil.
Helen suggested that we use thick sketching paper (instead of watercolour paper) - so that it's not intimidating or feels too precious. That was a great idea but I'm looking forward to using water colour paper because it's so much easier to stitch into.
I should have stitched some of the pages before turning them into an accordion book. Once attached to each other, they are awkward to stitch into. That's why I've worked more on the front and back pages.😊
I used a half inch fold to stick the pages together - I should have used one inch. It would have made for a sturdier book.
For Christmas, JJ got me another of Helen Wells' course - Nature and Nurture. I'm looking forward to sketching natural objects and then use watercolour paints.
A couple of years ago in the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club, we had a workshop with Sam Owen where we used water colours and then stitched onto them. I've wanted to explore this further - so this will be my chance.

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party. I'll be featuring the projects from last week's party that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. Thank you everyone who linked up.

Feel free to grab the button.

Last week Donnalee made more Christmas placemats for her and her husband. Apparently many more will be needed by next year!

Christmas placemat made by Donnalee

Deb, the Scrappy Quilter, made this gorgeous quilt through the Spring String sew along. Those lovely brown and blue fabrics really go well together.

Deb's first finished Spring String quilt

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps finished her RSC Color Wash Hexagons - what a great quilt.

Melva's RSC Color Wash Hexagons

It's now your turn!

Friday, January 02, 2026

Best of 2025

Welcome to the Best of 2025 post. The annual linking party is hosted by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. Thanks Cheryl!

I'm very ambivalent about what I accomplished this year, so I hope that you'll oblige me as I review and see how I did!😟As in the past years, I've placed my finishes in categories. These have changed through out the years to reflect what I've made. This year, the categories are quilts (which this year include baby and cuddle quilts, as well as wall hangings and runners), Practical Quilted/Sewn Objects (this includes my 2025 agenda, placemats, a pouch, cell phone holders and water bowl mats), Art Quilts and finally Hand-Stitched and Embroidered projects. The related links are within the post. It's a long post, so feel free to just look at the pictures 😁

Quilts

In my 2025 planning post, I wanted to FMQ 2 quilts. I had hoped to quilt some UFOs but instead I quilted the two quilts that I made in the 2025 SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin). These are the two panel quilts - a cowboy quilt and a Christmas panel quilt, that I worked on most of the year.

The Christmas panel quilt

Finished with a few hours to spare!

My Cowboy Panel quilt is a flimsy, that I will finish in the winter of 2026 🤠

A finished flimsy to be quilted soon!

Baby and Cuddle quilts

In 2025, I made and finished one baby quilt and a purple and a teal cuddle quilt. There were all made for the Table Scraps Challenge 2025. I also FMQ a community project baby quilt for our guild.

Scrappy baby and cuddle quilts

FMQ community project baby quilt for the guild

Wall Hangings and Runner

Snow Happens wall hanging is both an embroidery and a quilt. It was a slightly late Christmas quilt decoration for my DIL.

Snow Happens embroidered wall hanging

The Floral Fusion Wall Hanging was a SAL with Denise of The Quiltery. It started in the Fall of 2024 but I didn't finish it until early Summer this year. It now hangs on my youngest adult child's wall!

Floral Fusion wall hanging

I made this fun scrappy runner purely because I could and I wanted to! 😀

A scrappy runner for these two cuties who keep me company at the back of the car.

Practical Quilted/Sew Objects

This year, this grouping includes my 2025 agenda, placemats, a pouch, cell phone holders and water bowl mats.

For the last few years I've sewn a cover for my new agenda. This year, I made an Upcycled Traveller's Journal that would act as an agenda and a place to keep my project notes, and made a cover for the journal. It turned out to be a good idea. I mostly kept my notes up-to-date and only needed to remove the individual journal to work in. I didn't really use the calendar much but I will use the same system in 2026, and won't have to make another agenda cover.

Fabric cover for the Upcycled Traveller's Journal

Inside the Upcycled Traveller's Journal

The Ombre pouch was made for Project Quilting 2025.

Ombre pouch to carry my glasses and phone

I made Scrappy neutral placemats and cell phone holders as gifts to bring to Denmark on my visit.

Call phone holders - so practical!

Scrappy neutral placemats

Finally I made and quilted two water bowl mats for Poppy. One for her home and one for ours!

Poppy's water bowl mat at her home

Poppy's water bowl mat at our place

Art Quilts

Some of my art quilts this year were made for challenges - Project Quilting and/or from TextileArtist.org Stitch Club.

This art piece was made based on a TextileArtist.org workshop and it just happened to be the theme of the first Project Quilting challenge - Mythical Creatures.


My favourite art piece of the year - The Rabbit's Liver - A Korean Folktale

Project Quilting - Common blocks

Reclaiming Fallen Feathers

My other art quilts are not technically quilts but hand-stitched textile art pieces. I learned the technique in TextileArtist.org's workshop by artist Julia Wright. I've made three of these coiled pieces so far and there are more in the works.

Pink Turtlehead Flowers

Sunset Over Water

Desert Landscape

Hand-Stitched, Embroidered and Woven Projects

This Spring, I finished a Kawandi Style neutral mat for my niece.

Kawandi-style neutral mat

I participated in the annual Zen Stitching event and made a lovely scrappy hand-stitched needle case as well as a Mindful stitch sampler.

Needle Case

Mindful Stitch Sampler

This summer, based on artist Mirjam Gielen's branching video on Patreon, I started making the tree and its roots on a piece of eco-dyed linen fabric. I finished it and called it "Mercury Retrograde - Strong Roots Required!"

Mercury Retrograde - Strong Roots Required!

In October, I went back to my first love, weaving, and made a number of hand-woven pieces made on cardboard. Two of the pieces were also my Table Scraps Challenge since they incorporated, denim, quilted scraps and neutral colours!

Autumn Beauty

Earth Tones

In November, one of my favourite embroidery teachers, Mirjam Gielen, hosted a spiral challenge.

A few embroidered spirals

I almost forgot those cute Christmas scrappy mats that were November's Table Scraps Challenge finish.

Final finishes for the Table Scraps Challenge of 2025

Finally but not at all finished, is my Not-so-daily-stitching project. I'm afraid that it's not even been weekly but I did enjoy embroidering reminders of what I had done this year. Here are a couple of examples.

Joe-Pye weed as seen during our trip

Sunset over water

What I learned

The year was better than I expected. I did finish many smaller projects and on the whole, had fun making them 😊(which is what it's all about!)
The two panel quilts were a lot of work, and although I enjoyed making them, caused me stress because I wanted to get them finished! I'm going to try to avoid that in the upcoming year.
My true measure of the type of year I had is the number of posts that I published. At 63, this is not as good as the past few years, but I'm quite happy with it, considering the year I had.
I'm glad that I hosted the FM Mavericks linking party - that meant that I had to publish at least once a week. I changed the party name and button as of January 1st - I Quilted This!. It has the same objective - quilts that are quilted on a domestic machine or custom quilted on a longarm.
My favourite hand-stitching projects were the coiled pieces and the hand-woven pieces on paper/cardboard. They were so much fun to make and perfect for experimenting and playing.
My favourite quilting projects were the baby and cuddle quilts. They were as simple or as complex as I want to make them but always fun...they are also perfect for experimenting and playing.
I will really miss the Table Scraps Challenge that's been hosted by Joyful. Many of my finishes were as a result of that party, so I'll have to keep myself motivated to play with scraps - especially to make scrappy hand-stitched mats and cuddle quilts. Thanks Joyful for keeping us inspired. We will miss the party but you need to take care of yourself!
I think that I've found my 2026 words - playful experiments!

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, particularly the Best of 2025 as well as Quilting Jet Girl's #2025QuiltingCheckIn. Yvonne wanted to know how our year went - well, it was much better than I expected - so it was nice to see that! Thanks Yvonne.

You may want to check some out! Finished (or Not) Friday, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching,