A Restful and Productive Holiday and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😊 I had a restful but also productive holiday alone in the bush. It was just what I needed to recharge. Here's what I worked on.

New Stitching Projects

While at the cottage, I went to a nearby park on the river. It was so beautiful. The sun was shining, the river sparkling with sunlight and the reflection of the forest from the other side. I found the perfect place to sit, photograph and sketch. I just wanted to capture the gleaming sun, colourful reflections and the wave patterns around the rocks.

This is my first piece. The rocks are made from coiled fabric to make them 3D. In the picture below it's set on a blank canvas. I covered the canvas with two coats of watercolour ground and then painted it with watercolours.

First piece stitched but not finished

Here's a closeup of the wave patterns around the rocks. I used organza to show the reflection of the sun on the water.

Closeup of the patterns of the waves around the rocks

This is the watercolour painted canvas. I'll be attaching the piece to it so the top, bottom and sides will show.

Painted canvas with watercolour 

Sketch of the rocks and the wave patterns

Here are three photos that I based the sketch on.

Water, waves, plants and sunlight 

Water, waves and sunlight 

Water, waves, plants and sunlight - 2

I'm working on a second version of the sketch - this time using the stitching to show the reflection more than the fabric. I hope to be sharing that with you soon.

Advancing projects

The first project I finished was my grandmother's (Mémère's) placemat. I only had a little bit to stitch so it was perfect to finish it and then use it during the week.

Mémère's placemat - all stitched up!

I also finished my watercolour stitching project. I added a bit of fabric to it, wove a bit and then added collage from a paper napkin. I call it Summer Tea Time. I'll be framing it and giving it to my younger brother since he likes it 😀

Summer Tea Time

Here is the morning view from the cottage. There are lots of trees and the temperature was cool, so I would move my chair to follow the sun.

Morning view at the cottage

I took over the table (and most of the living room) for my art 😀

What I learned

• I was alone for most of the week and I was totally fine with that.
• I did have my phone, so I could take breaks to listen to music or audiobooks and talk to JJ.
• I went a little crazy making art the first day but slowly got into a routine.
• I would get up late (my usual routine), have coffee outside and then start stitching. After lunch I would drive out to take pictures or go for a short walk. I would then come back, have supper and keep stitching until it was time to rest and listen to an audiobook.
• I took many pictures and have lots of ideas for more small pieces.
• I'm very thankful to my brother and nephew for letting me have the cottage - it was exactly what I needed. I really hope to do it again next year.
• To use watercolour paint on canvas, the canvas needs a couple of coats of watercolour ground. That was one of the first thing I did when I got to the cottage. I now have three canvases ready to add watercolour so that I can mount my pieces on them.
• Saturday I'll be posting the linking party for A Quilter's Cove QAL. Make sure to come by to see September's purple houses!

Related links

• Stitching and watercolour on Free Motion Mavericks, August 03, 2023
• Projects in Progress and I Quilted This!, May 27, 2026

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want to check some out, after you've linked up below 😁 Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Sew & Tell, Slow Sunday Stitching, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Musings, 

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it! 

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button. 

Thanks so much for keeping the party going without me while I was gone!

Gretchen of Gretchen's Little Corner is busy quilting baby quilts and here is her second one quilted and bound! What a lovey quilt, simple but beautiful!

Gretchen's second baby quilt

Gail of Quilting Gail rescued a placemat that she had started years ago. The placemat has appliqués from Missouri Star Christmas templates. Gail backed it with a cute bee fabric so that it can be used year round. It'll be part of her guild's Meals on Wheels donations at Christmas.

Gail's Christmas placemat

The back of Gail's Christmas placemat

Gwyned Trefethen quilted two of her Cats in the Attic blocks from the Rainbow Challenge. She's doing some very intricate FMQ and embroidery. It's really stunning.

Gwyned's orange cat

Gwyned's pink cat

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting made two lovely snowmen runners. They are so cute!

Vicki's round snowmen topper

Vicki's snowmen runner

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished quilting last year's small purple quilt. She quilted it with straight lines diagonally crosshatched. What a cute finish!

Kat's small purple quilt

It's now your turn 😍

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

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,