Best of 2022--End of Year Review

The end of another year is upon us, making this the perfect time for Cheryl's Best of 2022 Linky Party at Meadow Mist Designs, a chance to link up our top blog posts from the past year. Cheryl suggested some ways to choose our best posts such as most views, most comments, best tutorials, and favorite finishes. I'm going to include several of those suggestions. Each listing has a link back to my original blog post.

1. Most views: Rainbow LeMoyne Row Quilt. 

The blocks for this quilt were left over from a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project in 2014. I joined them into a quilt top last December, started quilting in January, 2022, and finished the quilt in early August.

Rainbow LeMoyne Row Quilt

37.5" x 42.75"

2a. Most comments (tie): Charm Baskets

Charm Baskets was one of my 2022 projects for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, based on the pattern by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts. The finished size of each block is 4", and I made 15 - 25 blocks each month in the assigned RSC color, ending up with over 200 blocks total. 215 of those blocks were arranged in a wash of color, then joined together into this delightful quilt top.

Charm Baskets quilt top

52.75" x 69"

2b. Most comments (tie): Rainbow Accordion

The Rainbow Accordion quilt was my first entry in the Project Quilting Challenge, Season 13, hosted by Kim Lapacek at Persimon Dreams. The challenge involves making a project in a week to fit the assigned theme. The theme for this quilt was "All the Colors." I love the 3-D look of it.

Rainbow Accordion

21" x 29"

3. Oldest UFO: Snail's Trail

This project dates back to 2001, and it feels so good to finally have this little quilt top together. The blocks are tiny (3.5" finished size) and were foundation pieced.

Snail's Trail quilt top

31" square

4. Learning something new: Artful Improv

I joined two quilt guilds this year, and have been fortunate to take multiple quilt workshops through them. One of the most interesting (and most challenging) was the Artful Improv class with Cindy Grisdela in October. This project was way outside my comfort zone, but I was happy with the result and look forward to more improv play.

Artful Improv

26" x 31" 

5. Favorite finish: Boston Fiesta

This was another old UFO, started in 2005. The piecing was completed in 2015, but it was another few years before it got quilted. Then it hung around waiting for a binding, which finally happened this spring in order to enter it into a quilt show.

Boston Fiesta

60" x 74"

6. A new goal: more FMQ on Juki

I've been wanting to get serious about finishing more quilts myself, and this summer I took the first step by purchasing a new machine. I bought a Juki J-150QVP, a straight-stitch industrial machine that can also switch over to free-motion quilting. It has a very large throat space between the needle and the machine, plus there is an extension table behind the machine which is wonderful for supporting a quilt during FMQ. I'm still getting used to the machine, and even needed to have one problem fixed recently, but I'm so happy to have upgraded my machine for FMQ.

Juki J-150QVP

Those are some of my quilting highlights from the past year. I'm still thinking about plans and goals for 2023, and I look forward to sharing many projects in the coming year. 

Linking up with:

Best of 2022 Linky Party at Meadow Mist Designs

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy New Year to all!

Julie in GA

Stash Report and Stitching Time 6/5/2022--A Big Addition!

My stash report today is going to be a little different than most weeks. I used a small amount of fabric, 3/8 yard, for the binding on the pink baby quilt I shared a couple days ago in THIS POST. No new fabric this week.

2022 STASH TOTALS

Used last week:              .375 yards

Used year to date:       34.375 yards

Added last week:              0.0 yards

Added year to date:         39.0 yards

Net added in 2022     4.625 yards

The difference this week is in the addition. Instead of adding more fabric to my stash, I added a new sewing machine! Ever since I started quilting in the mid-1990's, my primary machine has been a Singer 201 straight-stitch machine. For a long time I've been wishing for a machine with a larger space between the needle and the machine to make free-motion quilting easier, and now I have it! This is the machine I got, the Juki J-150QVP (photo from the Juki website.) I realized after purchasing this machine that I've never bought a brand new sewing machine before; they have all been used and mostly quite old.

Juki J-150QVP

There's going to be quite a big learning curve for me with this machine. It's an industrial straight-stitch machine that can also switch over to free-motion quilting. I'm very familiar with regular Juki industrial machines and love using them, but I am not used to having the touchscreen controls. It's going to take awhile for me to play with the different settings and watch many instructional videos before I am truly comfortable with it, but I'm looking forward to many hours spent quilting on it in the near future. I have a closet half full of quilt tops waiting to be quilted!

Kate's 15 Minutes to Stitch Challenge at Life in Pieces has us tracking how many days each week we get in at least 15 minutes of stitching time. I haven't done a lot of stitching this week, but I did spend some time on quilting-related activities (like shopping for a new machine!) every day.

15 Minute Challenge for 2022: 

5/29 - 6/4             7 of 7 days

2022 Total      152 of 155 days

Check out more stash reports at quiltpaintcreate and join the 15 Minutes to Stitch challenge at Life in Pieces. 

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA