2016 - My quilting year in review

I like to review my progress against my goals at the end of each year. Way back in January I blogged about my quilting priorities for 2016 (you can read that list here).  Although I reviewed my progress back in July, I still like to do an annual review and remind myself of what I have finished during the year.

This is going to be quite a long blog post, so you might need to grab a coffee if you intend to look at every photo and read every word.  I like to use my blog as a personal record, and well as a way of sharing my quilting with others, so I totally understand if you just scroll through and look at the pretty pictures.

First I'll work through what was on my list in January:

1.  Mediterranean Hexagons / Tropical Hexagons. I attended a Kaffe Fassett class at the end of January 2016 and started to make Mediterranean Hexagons from the Quilts in Morocco book.  I've completed the top, and intend to hand quilt it in 2017.

2.  la passacaglia I finished it!!!! I consider this my major achievement of 2016.  It's all English Paper Pieced and hand quilted.  You can find all the details here on this tab.

3.  My Small World.  I made this quilt in January when I could spread out all my scraps and see everything at once.  I hand quilted this one too.

4.  Possum Magic quilt.  I started hand quilting this, but stopped to quilt la passacaglia.  I hope to get back to it soon. This was a round robin quilt made with quilters in Australia and New Zealand.

5.  Women of the Bible quilt. I've pieced a back for this quilt, but haven't had it quilted yet. These were free patterns from a quilt shop which has now closed down.

6.  Spinning Stripes v2.  I made my second Spinning Stripes mini quilt. I learnt to do this in a class with Shirley Mooney.

7. Oh! Christmas Tree.  Another finished quilt.  This pattern is by Wendy Williams and you can find it here.  I loved making this quilt, probably due to the bright colours I used and the hand stitching and hand quilting. It's wool felt applique.

8.  Smitten.  I haven't even started this yet.  Probably because I think it looks best in soft colours, but I'm not sure that's really my style.  I'm still thinking about it.

9.  Trip around the World from Kaffe Fassett Heritage Quilts book.  I bought a carry bag with this design on the outside.  Does that count as progress?

10.  Glitter.  This is a pattern by Jen Kingwell.  Again, I haven't started this pattern.  I think I need to improve my hand piecing techniques first. I now see that Jen will be teaching Glitter at our national symposium in October, so maybe I should enrol in that class and start with the expert.

11.  Ballet avec Kaffe Fassett.  This is from Willyne Hammerstein's second book.  I now own the book, and the paper pieces and templates.  I have some ideas of the colours and fabrics I will use.  Maybe I'll start this in 2017.

Photo from Millefiori Quilts 2 by Willyne Hammerstein

12.  Stacks of Colour  Finished - but not very exciting, hence no photo..

13.  Felt quilt. I still get this book out and look at the photos.  I do intend to do something along these lines one day. I follow Gillian Travis blog, so continue to be inspired by her designs.

So that was the 13 quilts on my list for 2016.  I finished 5 of them, and have 3 ready for quilting.  Four are on the back burner (Smitten, Glitter, Trip around the World and Felt quilt), and one, Ballet avec Kaffe Fassett, is going onto my 2017 list. So that was quite a successful year.

In addition to those quilts, these are all extras that I completed in 2016:

2.1 Honeycomb Spin. I made this in a class with Anna Hicks in Wellington, New Zealand.

2.2 Modern Hexie Rainbow. I used the online tutorial by Modern Handcraft. 

2.3 La passacaglia mini quilt. This was a left over rosette that I turned into a mini quilt.

2.4 Jen Kingwell pillows. These are from Jen's book, Quilt Lovely.

2.5 Zebra mini quilt.  This 20" pattern is by Tartan Kiwi.

2.6 Inner City quilt.  I made this as a class sample for my English Paper Piecing classes at Wellington Sewing Centre.  I'll be teaching this class again in 2017 if you're interested.

2.7 Tumbling Blocks. Another class sample for my class at Wellington Sewing Centre. I hand quilted both of these quilts.

2.8. Sew Together bags.  I finally made myself some Sew Together bags.  They really are useful, and I should have made one years ago.

2.9 Batik Bliss. I won the Block of the Month at our guild, and I decided to try something different so I trimmed the blocks to different sizes and then joined them up.  This still needs to be quilted.

Wow - that seems like a lot now that I write it all down. I think I've had a productive year.  How about you? Did you get much quilting done in 2016? Feel free to tell me what you've achieved this year in the comments below, and even put a link to a blog post if you've done a summary like this.

My next post will be a review of my embroidery list - it won't be very long because I haven't done a lot of embroidery in 2016.

In early January I'll post my quilting and embroidery lists for 2017.