Gratitude and Glimmers #91

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. 

--Willie Nelson

1. I like this post Nine Things That Sewists do That No One Understands at Melly Sews written by her husband from the perspective of someone who doesn’t sew, but lives with a sewist. Numbers 8 and 9 I can especially relate to!

2. I know I've said it before, but I do love how Bella joins me every single morning for yoga.

A Second SAHRR and First SAHRR Update

For those who do follow me on Instagram, you may recall that I had a backup block as my potential centre block, the 2.5" strips blue and green heart block that was a test of one I'd seen floating around on the internet several years ago.

It became the inspiration for the second challenge of Project Quilting, which I named Winter Blues. I hated to put it back in my Lonely Blocks Club drawer. (I love that--it just came to me as I typed.) What if I did what I saw Kathleen of Kathleen McMusing is doing this year: make a quilt that is not a round robin, rather make a block or two each week following the prompt.

SAHRR Round 1

For this round we were to make a King's Crown block or any block that starts with the same letter as our name. I decided to do a Snowball block, and the original thinking was to put one in each of the four corners, and keep this round fairly quiet as the centre block is pretty busy. Let’s see how that worked out.

Yup. Not what I thought would happen. 

Winter Blues PQ 16.2

My quilt for the second challenge of Project Quilting is done. We were to make something that shows the visual effect of ombré, which is a colour shift in value or hue. As you know, my favourite colour is blue, and a couple of things came nicely together - a set of fat quarters sitting on a shelf and a random test block from a few years ago I'd pulled out as a possible candidate for the SAHRR. This is the result!

I first thought of calling it Twilight Hearts but as the design came together in fabric, and with talk of Blue Monday last week on the CBC Music programme I listen to, the name came to me: Winter Blues. January is a hard month for many of us in the northern hemisphere and I am no exception. Blue Monday, the third Monday in January, was actually designated by a UK travel company as the most depressing day of the year back in 2005, and the moniker has stuck. A couple of serendipitous connections made the name stick.

Jasper

Well this flimsy is sure a lovely surprise and a most satisfying result! You may recall Lorna’s Mod Bear Paw quilt that I started back in November. I had the bear section finished on November 19. The last update was November 25 where I had the lower section with the bear, bear paw blocks and trees mostly planned out, just not sewn together. At the end of that post I had said, What's next? Who knows?! I do know I will be adding in mountains, maybe in a log cabin style, a couple or more stars. For now, I'll sew all these parts together.

Well, the mountains (not log cabin style after all), sky and Aurora Borealis (no stars) are done and so is the quilt.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project 1

I really enjoyed making my Scrappy Stars in 2023, and last year had a glimmer (yup, one of those moments) when I thought I might be able to do a churn dash block using the same idea—crumbs and strips in the colour of the month to make the main components of the block. Once I had Cradled finished and blogged, I got out my graph paper, fired up my math brain, and created a 15" block.

I love it! I plan to make nine for a quilt which I intend to give to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre as I do each year for a child. The tutorial is below if you’d like to make this scrap-(sort of)-busting block.

PQ 16.1 - Cradled

I always look forward to the start of Project Quilting. It helps make January less unbearable. January has long been a hard month for me: spring and summer seem so far away and it is dark and cold. Letting my creativity bloom is a balm for my winter-weary soul. And let's just pause for a moment because seriously, winter in this furthest south part of Canada, Sandra, is pretty mild really. For example, I was looking for a photo last week and came across one of a wild crocus I'd taken on February 26 last year, so that's only six weeks away. I told the trees that same week on Lake Erie's shore at the end of the common path for lake access in my cul-de-sac to hold on, just six more weeks.

When Tricia of @quiltchicken put out the first prompt, Mythical Creatures, I was immediately excited. I have loved magic and witches my entire life, and fantasy is a genre I still love. I let that prompt percolate in my brain for Sunday and Monday, since I was deep into mountains and aurora borealis on my cousin's quilt, and found it difficult to just drop that train of thought/stitching.

A Look Ahead and A Look Back

The words came out of my mouth before my brain fully registered them, "Here's to 2025; we're a quarter of the way through this next century." Gulp. How time goes.

So here's a quick look back at 2024.

A look at my Quilts of 2024 page tells me I made 33 quilted projects. That isn't counting the countless (ha) makeup bags I made or three mug cozies. Eighteen of those were quilts, six were pillows, nine were either tote bags, placemats, or runners, and one was a garment, a pyjama top. A conservative estimate of makeup bags would be around 15-20.

Here are just a few.