The Best Of 2025

I 'm joining in with Cheryl for a Best of 2025 look back. I've done my five in a couple of ways.

1. The most viewed quilt was Jasper the Bear, finished in February, with 19.5k views!

It was such a fun, creative-brain-stretching, rewarding make, though the cause for it was a rather sad one. I loved the process of designing this on my design wall once I made the (Lorna's--Sew Fresh Quilts) bear section.

Good King Wenceslas

I had a pretty good month for finishing quilts, especially those of the USO (Un-Started Object) kind. This is number three, the sister to Santa's Power, which I made in December 2022. I bought this wonderful border print, 2.5 metres of it, close to 20 years ago, knowing I would somehow design a quilt with the same Ohio stars pattern as in the king's/Santa's coat.

And, there it sat, for the next many years until I pulled it out in 2022 and made Santa's Power. I loved how it turned out; I had even bought the trees print in the same line to use as backing, and even bound that quilt with it, using it up completely, hooray.

Gratitude and Glimmers #102

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of November. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Thanks for hosting these once again all year, LeeAnna.

From my mindfulness calendar for today:

It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

--David Steindl-Rast

1. I love sunrises and sunsets, but in winter with silhouetted trees, they’re something else. 

Sunrise

Nordic Forest

This happy little quilt went together in no time from start to finish. 

Rufus is the perfect colour of a model for this quilt!

I bought these six fat quarters and a yard of the red in the same line a year or two before Covid. Funny how we measure time now that way, and like how is it six years ago that we were hearing the terrifying stories coming out of China, and then Italy in lockdowns...

But on to brighter cheerier topics! The quilt store had a kit which I think was a cushion, made out of these fabrics, but they had sold out of the kits, so I picked up fat quarters and figured no worries, I could figure it out myself. Sadly, I did not write anything down, probably because I intended to make it right away. Which, clearly did not happen. 

Leftovers Get New Lives

Although I find the 'stitch and flip' method for adding squares to rectangles to make corner triangles quick, it produces leftover triangles. If the squares are less than 2 ½", I toss them. When the squares are 5", as were those in Suburbia, it means leftover HSTs that, when sewn back together, are 4", finishing at  3½", much too big to waste, and, get this: there were 65 of them!! What to do? Make a matching cushion, for starters!

When Brady was here in August, I had just finished making Suburbia. It is going to Jordan, Brianne's boyfriend, for Christmas. Brady always like to sew something when he's here, so I asked him what he thought of sewing the HSTs, which I'd sewn back together and squared up as I made the quilt, into a coordinating cushion cover. He thought that was a great idea, and started playing around with them to make his own design. I'd shown him several ideas that one can do with versatile light/dark HSTs, but he said, "No, Nana, I want to do my own thing."

Happy Christmas!

I debated for some time, well the entire time I was making this and starting this post, what to call this quilt. In the end, because the centre block is English Wedding Ring, I felt that I needed a nod to English Christmas, and there they say, 'Happy Christmas', not 'Merry Christmas' so that is the quilt's name. But, as is often the case with my quilts, there's a bit more to that name than just the English Christmastime greeting.

I was at first dismayed, but then pleased (almost always a silver lining) to see that we had a skiff of snow this morning. Perfect background for a new quilt!

St. Nicholas Mug Cosy and a Winner

A few days ago when I was perusing my Christmas fabric stash, I came across the remnants of this beautiful piece of Benartex fabric. I'd made two pillowcases with it, and still had quite a good length of the wonderful border print. Having recently made a few mug cosies to order and one to replace another that had sold, it struck me that the motif might be perfect for one.

Perfect! Both sides are identical.

I love the unusual Christmas palette here, which doesn't scream Christmas, but more of the legend of St. Nicholas.