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.  

Gingerbread Quilt Shop

I've just realised that I never blogged about my Gingerbread Quilt Shop.  I finished it back in March but must have been too busy to blog about it.  This is another building in the Gingerbread Village designed by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada.  Aren't these patterns just exquisite!

The quilt shop took me three months to stitch and finish. I loved stitching the quilts onto the walls of the quilt shop.  The beads and buttons really add to the character of this village, so I always buy the accessory kits when I buy the patterns.  That way I get the same floss colours, and all the cute buttons.

All the details about my village, plus where to buy the patterns and fabric, on the Gingerbread Village tab at the top of my blog.  Or you can just click here.

I always add my name and date to the bottom of each cottage.

My Gingerbread Village

It's December and time to get out my Gingerbread Village again.  I love this collage showing how it's gradually grown over the past three years. In 2014 I had only made 4 buildings, and now I've got 6.

The Needlework Shop isn't going to be finished for Christmas 2016, but hopefully it will be ready for next Christmas.  I did finish the Quilt Shop this year, and I'm very happy with it.

You can read all about my Gingerbread Village on this tab on my blog and see close up photos of each of the buildings.  The patterns are beautifully designed by Thea Dueck of The Victoria Sampler in Canada.  If you're interested in these designs I recommend you sign up to Thea's newsletters because sometimes she offers Christmas specials.  

I'm off to put out my decorations now. Merry Christmas everyone. 

Work, work, work

This past month I've been extremely busy with work, and there's been hardly any time for sewing (or anything else for that matter). I know many of you have full time jobs and feel this way every week, but most of the year I just work a few hours each day, and I usually find time to fit in some sewing.

Last week we had our annual work conference and dinner.  I had to arrange everything for 135 guests and it was stressful! My boss was very appreciative of my efforts, and presented me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers at the dinner.

Of course being a quilter I found inspiration in the hotel carpet:

The day after our conference we had our annual Christmas party at Capital Quilters.  I got to hang my Oh! Christmas Tree quilt on the line.

The weather is starting to improve as we head towards summer in the southern hemisphere.  My flowering cherry trees are looking good.

In October 2017 we are having our national Quilt Symposium in Christchurch.  I'm looking forward to attending classes with overseas tutors - Jen Kingwell, Luke Haynes, Jacquie Gering etc.

I'm also working on two quilts that I hope will be accepted for the exhibition.  These quilts have to be original designs, and that's a challenge for me.  I prefer to use existing patterns with my own fabrics, but I'm trying something new here.  I won't be sharing any work in progress photos of these quilts, but they are my main focus at the moment.  They have to be finished by June 2017, so I will share photos later in the year. Until then you will just have to guess what they might look like!

My last piece of news is that my Mum's quilt has been chosen by QuiltMania to hang in their la passacaglia exhibition at Nantes in France, in April 2017.  It's wonderful news for her and I'm really thrilled for her.  If you're going to Pour l'amour du Fil be sure to keep an eye out for it.

Oh Christmas Tree

I'm very happy to say that I've finished one of my 2016 goals - the "Oh Christmas Tree" quilt designed by Wendy Williams. I've spent the last two months hand quilting it and I just love the soft texture it has, due the hand quilting and wool batting.

I do love Wendy's designs, and I really enjoyed using the wool felt again in this quilt. I decided to make my quilt bright and summery, because Christmas is in summer time in New Zealand.

Here's some close ups of the flowers on the tree.

When it came to the wonky star border I knew I wanted to go bright, so I chose a selection of bright prints from my stash.

Here's some close ups of the hand quilting.  I used Aurifil 12wt for the stars on the background fabric because I love how soft and silky it is. I always use a hoop when I'm hand quilting.

If you're looking for this pattern you can buy it from Material Obsession in Sydney, Australia here, or you can find it in QuiltMania's Simply Moderne magazine, issue 3.  However, if you're going to to use QuiltMania's pattern, please be aware that there's a mistake with their triangle template.  It says the seam allowances are included in the template, but they are not. You can read more about the impact of that error here on Elizabeth's blog.

In fact I strongly recommend you read through all the relevant posts on Elizabeth's blog, because she ran a quilt a long for this quilt during 2016, and provided a huge amount of background information.

The finished size of this quilt is 55" x 62", and I will use it as a wall hanging at Christmas time.

Garden photos from Auckland

I couldn't help noticing how green everything was in Auckland last weekend.  They do have a lot of rain each year, and that combined with the warmth and humidity makes the Auckland climate sub tropical.

Cabbage tree on the left - Cordyline australis

I took a few photos of the plants in mum's garden to share with you.  But first I just had to get out the green quilt we made together and take another photo of it against the green backdrop of the park.

You can read more about this quilt here.

Now onto the plants.  This is just some of the interesting things that grow well in Auckland.  I don't know the names to everything, but will add labels where I can.

Clivia

Orchids - which grow outdoors in a pot, in a sheltered area.

The view over the fence to the reserve next door.

It won't be that green when we go back for Christmas, but it certainly looked nice at the start of November.

Earthquakes in New Zealand

You might have heard that New Zealand experienced a very large 7.5M earthquake this morning (14 November).  We certainly felt it here in Wellington, but we are all fine, and our house is fine too.  Many people have already contacted me on Instagram and Facebook, and I'm grateful to have such kind friends from all over the world.

The big earthquake occurred at 12.02am (two minutes past midnight) so we were all asleep when it started, but were soon woken by the rolling motion of the earthquake.  It was bad enough that we leapt out of bed and sheltered in the doorways.  Nothing fell down in our house, but there was a lot of noise and it was hard to stay standing.

We immediately turned on the radio for information, and were told that it was centered about 300kms from our house - so we knew it was big and other people would have suffered damage to their homes.

Now we know that at least 2 people have died, and there has been a lot of damage to roads and railways in the top half of the South Island.

It was very hard to go back to sleep because we were shaken, and we kept feeling aftershocks throughout the night.  School and work have been cancelled because building need to be inspected for safety.  So I'm at home with my husband and son, and we are safe, but still feeling the occassional aftershock.

You can look at these websites if you'd like more information:
www.stuff.co.nz
www.nzhearld.co.nz
www.radionz.co.nz