Thursday, January 02, 2025

Best of 2024 and Free Motion Mavericks

It's that time of year again - reflecting on 2024 and then planning for 2025. Usually in my best of post, I sum up the whole year, but this year, since I have quarter posts of what I've done (and a fourth quarter post to come), I've decided to just highlight my favourites in each of my categories (quilts, challenges, journal making, art quilts, mindful stitching/embroidery and miscellaneous projects). I'm linking up to Meadow Mist Designs' Best of 2024 linking party. Thanks Cheryl!

Small Quilts this year

This year I didn't make any large quilts. I think that I was too overwhelmed by last year's many quilts. I did make a couple of larger quilt hangings and some cuddle quilts, mostly as part of the 2024 Table Scraps Challenge. They allowed me to play and then practice my FMQ. I also FMQ my friend's quilt.

Yellow Cuddle Quilt

This fall I made a table topper for a friend's retirement, based on his painted fence of Newfoundland Houses.

I just love this photo of our friend in front of his fence and
the table topper

Challenges

In 2024 I participated in challenges, particularly the first three of Project Quilting in the winter and then most of the Table Scraps Challenge year round. I really enjoy these challenges - they let me be as creative as I want to be, and range from very simple to complex.

My favourite was definitely my first Project Quilting piece, Home to feed. It was more complex and creative, and allowed me to experiment with Sulky Solvy water stabilizer to get ready for my later project, Spring Tulips 🌷.

Home to Feed, a Project Quilting piece

I also made a number of placemats for my family during the Table Scraps Challenge. I had started in 2023 and by the end of November, everyone had one!

Five placemats made during the 2023-24 Table Scraps Challenge

Art Quilts

I did make quite a few quilts just because I wanted to! It's hard to say which ones were my favourite, although Spring Tulips 🌷was very challenging and a favourite 😍. When you put that much work into a piece, it's either love or frustration! This one, thank goodness, was love!

Spring Tulips 🌷

The Outdoor Fibre Art Exhibit “Impermanence / Éphémère” kept me very busy in the Spring. I'm really happy with the pieces that I made. Some of them are still outside in my back yard 😀!

My pieces in the Outdoor Fibre Art Exhibition
Impermanence / Éphémère

There are a few others but one that I'm very happy with is my FM stitched portrait of hubby. It was made based on a class with TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club.

A FM stitched portrait

Mindful Stitching and Embroidery

Many embroidery projects were started this year, but few are finished! At the beginning of the year, I started a Daily Stitching project. It didn't take me long to realise that daily anything is not for me. So now it's an Almost Daily Stitching Project 2024-25 😉

Almost Daily Stitching 2024 (and now 2025)

I started a new course this fall - Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods. The course is offered through Fibre Arts Take 2. I have watched the full course and now have 2 pieces in progress.

Embroidery in progress

Needle punch piece - coming along

I also discovered the joy of Kawandi Style embroidery and love it. I made 2 small pieces and then made another with Christmas fabric. This last one I started by machine stitching all of the pieces down and then covering it with running stitches. This makes the process so much easier and faster, and still looks great!

Christmas Kawandi Style mat

I also experimented with stitching on both paper and metal. If you're curious, check out the links.

Journal Making

I made less journals than last year but still love making them when I do. It helped that I went over to my friend Connie's home in the fall and we made a few together (although I forgot to post about these)😞.

Scrappy Journal Challenge

I also made two fabric covers - one for my 2024 agenda and the other for my niece's school agenda. She loves neutral colours - it must be her Danish side 😁

My niece's school agenda cover

Miscellaneous Items

I made a few small projects just because 😊 These included a woven band for my holey jeans, many lovely Cathedral Window hot pads as gifts, fun fabric corner bookmarks and my favourite and most practical, mosquito proofing my swing. The latter brought me hours of enjoyment in the summer.

Mosquito proof swing

As I'm creating this post, I find it hard not to include everything so I will stop now 😍. If you're curious, you can check out my new 2024 Finishes page as well as my quarterly posts (1st quarter and then 2nd & 3rd quarters). My 4th quarter will be posted in a few days.

My intention for 2024 was to learn by playing, with mindfulness and gratitude. It looks like I achieved that with much learning and experimenting - and always with gratitude! Thanks again for taking the time to follow me on my journey!

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many linking parties, including Meadow Mist Design's Best of 2024 party. Thanks so much Cheryl for another great yearly party!

Monday Musings, Sew & Tell,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 513 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a week of getting things finished before the new year, and of reflection on 2024. Thanks to everyone who linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Gail from Quilting Gail was not going to make any last minute projects, until she took out her lovely nativity scene. It's hard to remember to make these small projects once the decorations are put away. So here is the simple but lovely tablemat made specifically for the nativity set!

A tablemat perfect for Gail's Nativity scene

Frédérique of Quilting, Patchwork, Appliqué posted her Best of 2024. There are many lovely domestic machine quilted projects. Here is one of my favourites!

Frédérique had a great time quilting her Patio quilt for François!

It's now your turn to show us what you're making or finishing on this first week of 2025!

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Updates and Happy New Year!

Hi and welcome! I hope that you had a good New Year's Eve and a great New Year's Day. It's been raining here so most of the snow has melted, but we did have a white Christmas and it's now snowing again! I didn't get much sewing or slow stitching during the holidays except for yesterday and today. It's great getting back to it 😊.

Snow Happens

I spent a few hours New Year's eve working on my Snow Happens Embroidery. It's slowly coming along. I'm hoping to finish it in a few days so that I can make a wall hanging. I haven't thought that out yet but there's still time left to get inspired.

Snow Happens - in progress

The first two snow people are almost finished. I'm waiting until I've finished all of the bodies before making the faces. Hopefully that will make it consistent.

The first two snow people - almost done!

I spent most of my time yesterday on the next three snow people. I thought that I would be bored with following a pattern but I'm really enjoying it. Only using shades of blue makes the colour decisions easier. I'm trying to be consistent but I'm sure that it won't really matter when it's all done.

The last three snow people

I had a great time stitching this snow lady's hair. It turns out that they were supposed to be ear muffs, but I couldn't really tell since part of the marking was erased. I started at the top making larger lazy daisies but then made them smaller and on top of each other. The effect is like curls. I love it! I would never have thought to do this before taking Fleur Woods' course. You can see the snow lady's finished hair and hat in the image above.

Stitching curly hair on the snow lady.

Updates on Joyful Embroidery Projects

I haven't worked on these embroideries in a while. Fibre Arts Take 2 is having a virtual show of the students' work but it needs to be submitted by January 9th. I'm not sure if I'll make that deadline and if I want to even try.

Embroidering over the fabric flowers

Work done so far

The next step is to make an arrangement with the flowers and other textiles. I have a few handkerchiefs and doilies that I'd like to include in the piece.

This next piece includes embroidery and punch needle work. I've included lines of white and off white at the top and bottom. I'll be filling these out more.

Punch needle and embroidery piece

Corner Book Marks

Last week I saw that Melva made corner book marks as gifts. I love them! I found a tutorial and they are easy though a little fiddly because are turned inside out after sewing, just like the pillow case finished quilts that I've experimented with recently. These are perfect for the December Table Scraps Challenge.

Two each of three sizes of corner book marks

Here they are looking wonderful in some of the books that I got for Christmas! The small ones will be perfect for paperback books.

Corner book marks in action

Poppy Sitting

Since Boxing Day we've been Poppy sitting. She's always a pleasure to have around (except when she needs to go outside at 7am). These are pictures that I sent to my son. 😍

Poppy looking for wildlife action in the back yard

Chilling out in the evening

Thanks so much for joining me on my journey this year. I think that I have a day or two to prepare my Best of 2024 post, so you'll see it soon.

What I learned

It turns out that embroidering on a pattern is not as painful as I expected. I think that part of it is that the end is in sight but the other thing is that I've played with stitches, using the fishbone stitch to make the small leaves.
Since taking my Joyful Embroidery course with Fleur Woods, I've experimented more with stitches. Doesn't the snow lady's hair look great with all of those curls?
I'd really like to join the class exhibition for Fleur Woods' course but I'm not sure that I can get one or both of the pieces done by then. The punch needle piece might be done in time but I would have to spend all of my time in the next week working on it....we'll see.
My favourite piece is the embroidered flowers but I don't want to rush it or make it smaller just to get it into the exhibition.
To get ready for my Best of 2024 post, I've started creating my 2024 Finishes page. It was interesting to see all the smaller projects that I've made. It looks like it was a year of learning and playing with smaller projects.

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