The Year in Review

     Sew it was my New Year's Resolution to make twelve table runners this year. How am I doing? The year is officially 3/4th over, so I thought I'd take a minute and take stock... 

January: Fig Tree Burgoyne Tablerunner

I dove in and pulled this first thing from a Little Box of Figs subscription I had a couple of years ago. I love Fig Tree fabrics-- but the kits quite honestly were hit and miss-- mostly miss as this is the only one I made. It was fun to get a surprise in the mail four times a year, but honestly Fig Tree is now releasing their Little Box of Figs patterns after the fact, so you can decide if you like a thing first, and use your stash fabrics for it. I switched back to Fat Quartershop's Sew Sampler Box this year-- it's every month, and you get a bigger variety of designers over the course of a year. It's also very reasonable in cost.

Good news! This is actually quilted and just in need of binding! I want to have it for Christmas-- red is such a good color for Christmas-- if you like to leave your things up for quite a lot after the fact, red can take you right into Valentine's Day. That is my decor tip of the day!

February: Sew Sampler Box Fast and Flurrious

Well, that opens the door to talk about my Sew Sampler box project! This one was actually from last November-- clearly, I like my boxes to simmer for awhile. I LOVE this Cider fabric-- I LOVE most of what Basic Grey puts out. If you know me, you know I use their Grunge fabrics which are actually so scrumptious as a texture under machine embroidery. So each new fabric collection has three or four new Grunge colors, and I love seeing what they are. This collection had a new orange, a gold, and a fabulous denim color.

I managed to get a table runner and two pillows out of the honeybun that was in the box, and you can see EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY DONE, has been on my upstairs coffee table for months, and now the color scheme, fall, is appropriate for the first time this year-- YAY!

March: Double-wide Dresdens

This pattern was from another Sew Sampler box in 2018-- but at the time, I really didn't understand what it was. Then I saw pictures on Instagram of these dresdens, and in a rare moment of serendipity, instead of buying the template again, it not only dawned on me that I had it, but I was actually able to find it. 

You stitch an entire charm pack together-- then cut it all apart-- which was as satisfying a thing to me as ever was. Only a quilter understands. So all would be well that ends well, except we don't have an ending yet-- all four are stitched up, but still need to be sewn together and I want to make a scrappy piano key border out of an extra charm pack I have. So that's still on the list but I'd love to have this for Thanksgiving. We got a shot!

April: Scrappy Carrots

This was for San Francisco Stitch Co. Everyone loved this as evidenced in sales (thank you!) and I now have an acorn version in the works. Totally done-- EXCEPT-- I would go back and free motion swirls behind the carrots, only I am afraid of ruining it. More on that later.

May: Pears

I was so pleased with my Fig Tree pears, and I even pulled a pear pattern out of my hat. This is a gift, and THIS NEEDS TO GET FINISHED in time for Christmas. So here's another instance where I am afraid of ruining it. I have the longarm, and I hate to say it, but I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I should have spent the money. Longarm time is not happening in my life as much as it should. I clearly have too many obsessive hobbies. Do you know that I take a guitar lesson every week? My teacher, half my age, LECTURED me on the practice time I (am not) putting in each week. How humiliating was that! 

Where, where, can we find more time, people? Without any area suffering? Does my family need to eat?

These are the questions I ask myself frequently in the fall.

June: Thank You for your Service

So this one was a bit of a cheat--I had extra blocks made from a Quilt of Valor that I did with two friends. I cleverly arranged that we would complete it at my house, and so the extra blocks remained here. (Months later, I did ask if anyone else wanted them, to be fair.) So these got sewn together, I birthday--gifted it as a flimsy, joking that my recipient "would see it again at Christmas." (finished, hee, hee) Now that a bad joke is about to become true, I am promising myself this will get loaded to the longarm THIS WEEKEND. I think just some simple wave quilting would get it done-- does everything have to be SEW FANCY? No.

July: Three Blind Cats

Thank God-- it's a success story. This was stitched, quilted, and gifted months ago. YAY!

I even embroidered shut eyes on the cats but I guess I didn't get a picture of that. This went to a really sweet person who took in blind kitty cats-- since they could never see, they have never missed it, and I hear that they get on just fine. <3

August: Snickerdoodle

This was a big WIP from last year. I started last year on National Jelly Roll day and finished this year on National Jelly Roll day. That's a year of jelly-- I still don't like Jelly Rolls. There is too much squaring up of units-- like, just cut your dang strips from yardage to 2-1/2" wide and you will spare yourself the extra time these are supposed to save you. Lots of squished points and mismatched seams in this one. I'm perfectly happy to have it folded on a shelf until the next baby or new home is on the horizon. Let's consider it DONE for now. I'm DONE. I can tell you that. It's a hard thing for me to say I didn't enjoy working on a quilt, but there you have it.

September: Bats and Boos

This is Fat Quartershop's free Halloween stitch-a-long-- after week two, I couldn't resist. September is over, but it is not-- that middle block is photoshopped (I was testing colors) and I'd love to hand applique some pumpkin leaves. Pumpkin leaves are a really pretty shape if you've ever noticed. I'm hoping I can cut them out with my new Cricut-- yet another gadget I'm not sure is paying for itself-- though I did cut all the pieces for these blocks on it!

So here's the Checklist:

Burgoyne Binding

Dresdens

Quilting- Pears and Thank You for Your Service

Bats and Boos-- finish

That's actually not as bad as I thought-- and I'm going to tackle it. Technically I have three months of tablerunners to go, but frankly, the Snickerdoodle could have counted as FIVE table runners if you count the rows. It would be fun to go over my master list of projects and think about any others I'd like to finish this year.

So that's my table runner story! I'd highly recommend taking photos of your work on your phone as it comes along all year, or to write a little blog even just for yourself-- to keep things in perspective-- to enjoy the accomplishment-- to keep things moving along.

xoxo

Carol