2022 350 Blocks Challenge

 It looks like 2022 will finish with my largest number of blocks ever.  I certainly had a few spurts of wild creativity where I sewed much more than normal.  This month, I’m counting 64 blocks, 30 for 3 Bojagi panels and 34 box blocks.  That brings my total to 2185 for 2022.

Looking back at 2021, it was quite a tumultuous year.  2022 had its own challenges, but none of the medical issues of 2021.  Here’s to hoping 2023 is creatively productive!

For totals I had in years’ past, here are the numbers...

In 2021: 762

In 2020: 1431

In 2019: 1760

In 2018: 1677

In 2017: 1125

In 2016: 1007

In 2015: 1400

In 2014: 794

In 2013: 1057

In 2012, north of 180.  Between terrible morning sickness and moving drama, I lost count.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

End of Year Rainbow Scrap Challenge

 On the last day of the year, we are having a flurry of small disasters, so I have no idea which direction is up.  Let’s see if I can gather my thoughts.

I finished several rainbow quilts this year…

Triangles

Split Star (which I also finally gave away last week!)

the Valentine’s Quilt full of hearts

My Farm Quilt

Bees

Box Blocks

Oddments

Scrappy Bow ties

Flower Garden

I also finished the hexagons for my hand pieced hexagons and only have the large stars left to make.  Whew!

For 2023, I’m definitely making piles of blocks from my 2” strip box.  It won’t close anymore.  I have 34 blocks made already just from the “bricks” I already had cut.  I’ve started cutting from my teal/turquoise fabrics until I see what we start the new year with.

I would like to finish the hexagon star blocks and make decisions about layout and partial blocks.

Finally, the 2.5” box, despite all my work on it in 2021, is nearly full again.  I would like to use all the squares in 16 patch blocks.

There is also a possible contender.  Several years ago, I selected a box of unloved fabric and made something from the pieces each month.  We’ll see if I figure out how to do this in an easy manner.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

End of 2022 UFO List

1. Double wedding ring

2. Pillow

3. ABC appliqué 

4. Hand hexagons

5. Pink hexagons

6. Boxes

7. Bojagi

December 1: 7 projects

Started: 2

Finished: 2

December 31: 7 projects

I finished my flower garden quilt and the Bojagi panels for my cart.  I then started a new leader and ender project.  Spunky requested Bojagi panels for her loft bed.  I finished 3, but the last will certainly carry over to next year.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

End of 2022 Goals

 December is on its last legs, and I haven’t really thought about 2023.

1.  Scraps: trim, finish the brown hexagon rounds and start a large star, and process the remaining scrap bins (gulp).  Happily done!

2.  Finish the flower garden quilt.  Yes!

3.  Mending.  I do not enjoy mending, but I have a growing pile.  All done for another few months.

4.  Tie dye for a Christmas gift. Done.  Lovely, if I do say so myself.

5.  Maybe make a yellow stocking.  Started, but hit a road block.  I can’t find a tool I need, so I’ll wait until the replacement comes.

I’ll discuss January next week!

Finished Quilt: Flower Garden

Inspired by a picture from a music album, this quilt began with a chaos of flowers.  It’s definitely not a tidy, organized garden like I would usually make, with a variety of flowers and colors everywhere.

Special blocks were included, like the moon phases…

Important numbers…

Song titles, lyrics, and references.  That’s also why there’s a cat in the garden.

The Assistant swooped this quilt away the night I finished the binding, so it took me extra time to take pictures.  I’m quite pleased with the quilt.

The quilt is roughly 60” by 72”, wide enough for a bed but not so long that the blocks will disappear in the foot of the bed!  The Assistant did not receive tall genes, so it’s perfectly long enough for her.  The backing is a dark blue, not quite navy but darker than royal, also a reference to the original picture.

 from the room of Zana’s Ninis, katie z.

Stash Report Week #51 and 15 Minutes

 Merry Christmas!

It was a fantastic (quiet) day for us and I hope the same for you.

I finished the flower quilt, a bojagi panel and pulled a stack of fabric to donate.  There are pieces of fabric I never choose for various reasons, and it’s time for them to go.  I finally reached double my usage, despite having fabrics come in for a quilt idea… and they won’t work.  Alas.  I have no intentions of buying fabric in the next week, so I should be successful this year!

IN this week: 6 1/2 yards

OUT this week: 24 yards

IN YTD: 111 1/2 yards

OUT YTD: 227 1/4 yards

YTD Total: 116 3/4 yards OUT

I only stitched four days this week.  Lots of baking and disrupted schedules to throw me off.  I’m still at 345 days of 358 for the year.  Off to bed now.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Christmas Eve

We’ve survived the worst of the bitter cold, with windchills of -28 F and real temperatures down to -6 F.  The animals are all well and warm, and those of us who did the outside chores survived as well.  As temperatures should remain below freezing, it looks like we’ll have a white-ish Christmas.  The littles are quite tickled.

In the meantime, I have been working on the final bin of untamed scraps.  This red seems to go on forever, but my tidy piles are growing larger and the pile of bits smaller.  Don’t let the short piles deceive you; I’ve put away the piles every day this week!

This week, I have been consumed by Christmas baking.  I usually spread it over the entire month, but this year I had trouble finding the motivation.  Today, I’ve backed the buche de noel, macarons, meringues, and kolaches.  If I can find the time, I will make rosettes tonight before supper and have made the entire list!  DH is off delivering cookie plates to the neighbors as I write this.  There are a few presents still to wrap, but until dinner I think I’m going to tackle the red pile!

from the room of Zana’s Ninis, katie z.

Merry Christmas to you all, however you celebrate or don’t!

 

Stash Report Week #50 and 15 Minutes

 No stash changes, no thread changes.  I have one side left of binding as I write this, so the coming week will certainly have changes.

I faithfully hand stitched each day this week, keeping me at 341 days of 351 for 2022.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Slow Days

It’s been a long week filled with not much activity.  Last Saturday, I took my two oldest shopping (a rarity for us as usually we are busy at home), and someone’s perfume/body wash/something triggered a migraine.  I’ve been battling it all week, as it was exacerbated by extended family drama.  Sigh.  I spent more hours than I like to admit laying on the couch or bed listening to music instead of being up and about.  DH was also away for work for four days, so the extra school trips took some time as well.  I will blame my lack of replies to comments and visiting blogs on the migraine and try to do better this week!

Still, Spunky asked for some bojagi panels for her loft bed, so I was off to the races one pain-free evening.  We’ll be making four panels to fit the space, one each green, blue, purple, and pink.  I would like to make each one geometrically different.  The greens were already in strips, leftover from my Oddments quilt earlier this year, so they clearly wanted to be simply assembled.  I’m a little over half done.  On a side note, Vicki’s fabrics definitely bring the magic to these panels.  The textures and color variations are fantastic.  (Note to self, don’t buy anymore right now, as delightful as that would be.  You have stash goals to meet.)

The big accomplishment for the week was completing the quilting on my flower garden quilt.  Yesterday I attached the binding to the front, so this weekend I hope to sew it all down.
 

I did not finish trimming my heaping pile of red scraps, but I did work on them every day.  I will finish them by the end of the year, which cleans up the piles on the floor of my closet nicely.

My hexagons all have their brown rounds, so 2023 will definitely be devoted to finishing the large stars.  That means by this time next year, I’ll get to choose a layout! My 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge plans are slowly taking shape.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Stash Report Week #49 and 15 Minutes

 I missed a day hand stitching, bringing my total to 334 of 344 days.

I didn’t finish anything this week, nor did I purge any more fabric, so the stash remains unchanged.  The quilting on the flower garden quilt has begun, so there will be a finish in a week or so.  I did wrap up another spool for a total of 38.  I thought my total would be more in the mid 20s, but I did complete some thread-intensive projects.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Contemplation

 I have all the flowers in one piece!  I only muddled a few pieces in the process and think I only had to rip out one seam.  It’s already basted and the bobbins are wound, but the quilting itself is a matter for contemplation.  Clearly straight lines would be too tame and confining for a riot such as this flower garden, but I am not reliable for much beyond a meander.  I also don’t know how the seams will behave

I spent other sewing time pressing and cutting scraps.  I finished my monthly trimming and the smaller yellow box, so I’m faced now with a looming red pile.  At least I pressed and sorted them into general categories.

My 2” scrap box is another source of contemplation.  I think I have a fairly simple plan for their use for 2023, but as the box is full to bursting, I am wondering what the second project should be.  There are at least two large quilts lounging in this box.  The plans for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are fairly nonexistent this year!

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Finished Quilt: S’s Optical Illusion

The Assistant asked for quilts for her friends for Christmas.  One, Oddments, has been finished for a while, but I didn’t realize there was a second needed.  I asked for favorite colors, and the answers were ambiguous, so I had free reign on design, etc.  It occurred to me that I wanted to try an optical illusion again, only larger and with less contrast.

Finding the blue that was the same shade as the red was challenging, resulting in three different attempts.  This quilt required four panels of strips.  I cut all the strips right away to be sure I had enough of each fabric.

Cutting the first set of strips is always nerve-wracking, but it went well.

Once the first set of strips was sewn together, I was pleased that the colors worked 

I’ve developed quite the callouses from the basting this time around.

Quilting was 1/4 the amount I did on Jack in the Box.  It’s only quilted in one direction on the red, instead of both directions on both colors.  Less quilting means it took me less than a day to quilt it.

It looks small in the picture, but my two tallest kids have it hanging off the deck.  I’m almost sad to give it away, but I suspect I’m not done with optical illusions yet.  I learned even more from this one.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis, katie z.

 

Finished Quilt: Triangles

I finished another quilt based on music and album photography.  

I would say the fabric didn’t work for the concept; quite light colors, almost white but with a hint of color, are hard for me to find.

In the end, it’s a lovely lap quilt, finishing at roughly 45”x60”.  I’m a fan.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis, katie z.

 

Stash Report Week #48 and 15 Minutes

 While there were no large finishes this week, I did purge my stash a little and finished my current bojagi project.

IN this week: 0 yards

OUT this week: 4 3/4 yards

IN YTD: 105 yards

OUT YTD: 203 1/4 yards

YTD Total: 98 1/4 yards OUT

Unfortunately for hand stitching, I ignored it half the week.  I find when I have an easy goal, it becomes a little too easy to set aside the hand stitching.  So while I finished one round, I did not make the progress I hoped on the second and skipped my hand stitching for three days.  That brings my total to 328 out of 337 for the year.  It’s fine.  The year end is always crazy, and there are no deadlines for this quilt.  I’ve already been working on it for at least five years, and I estimate at least three more years of it.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

Floor Decorations

Absolutely improper floor decorations, but when one does not have a design wall, the floor becomes the gathering space for projects.

My flower garden is currently wind blown (we’ve had violent and shifting winds or two days, so wind blown is an appropriate description for everything around here).  Half of it is assembled and spread over my window seat while the other half is in various bits and pieces.  Assembly is going much more smoothly than I anticipated, so I’m excited to have all the flowers neatly together and pressed.

As my leader and ender in between flowers, I’m working on my last panel to cover my work cart.  There are a few bits of highly treasured fabric in this one, so it will be a great piece to enjoy.

I made good progress in the box of yellow scraps this week, but unfortunately did not finish.  Maybe today?  I suspect I’ll choose the flower garden over the scraps.

I’ve spent a little time pondering my Rainbow Scrap Challenge plans for next year, but I will admit I’m currently drawing a blank.  I certainly need to produce something from my 2” scrap box, as it is full to bursting.

Hopefully today I will also get pictures of my finished quilts and post them soon!

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

December UFO List

My lovely triangle quilt was finished this month along with a brand new optical illusion quilt.  I also started and finished a bojagi panel.  There’s another bojagi panel that needs one more row, so it will be an easy December finish.

1. Double wedding ring

2. Pillow

3. ABC appliqué 

4. Hand hexagons

5. Pink hexagons

6. Flower quilt

7. Blue bojagi panel

November 1: 7 projects

Started: 2

Finished: 2

November 30: 7 projects

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.

December Goals

 In November, I had full goals.

1. Quilt my friend’s quilt.  I have already done the stabilizing and quilting for the sashing.  20 blocks to go.  Done.  Due to illness, lingering in my van awaiting delivery. 

2. Scraps: trim and five rounds of hand pieced hexagons.  Done on the 30th!

3.  Process one or two bins of scraps.  I have one large bin and two small that I would like to finish before the end of the year.  Alas, only one.  Processing these scraps requires a million tiny decisions, so it may be a wish to finish both a large and a small bin in the coming month!

4. Finish the blocks for the flower quilt.  Done, and half assembled.

5. Piece the triangle quilt as a leader and ender.  Done!

6. Make a new optical illusion quilt, or make a decision on alternatives.  Splendidly complete, albeit without pictures yet.

December has crept up on me with a plethora of little, not necessarily quilting but definitely sewing related tasks.

1.  Scraps: trim, finish the brown hexagon rounds and start a large star, and process the remaining scrap bins (gulp).

2.  Finish the flower garden quilt.

3.  Mending.  I do not enjoy mending, but I have a growing pile.

4.  Tie dye for a Christmas gift.

5.  Maybe make a yellow stocking.

from the room of Zana’s Ninis,

katie z.