Quilting is in my Blood

My January 2023 One Monthly Goal was to turn the Daisy Sashiko panel I finished in November (see 2nd pic below) into a pouch. Several months ago I purchased this Pouch Kit from BeBe Bold. I finished the pouch with just a couple days left in January. I ran into a snag earlier in the month because I had inadvertently cut some of the striped fabric across the width rather than down the length leaving me with not enough striped fabric for the lining. I did have more of the gold fabric with black flecks so I added a piece of it so the lining fabric was long enough and placed it at the bottom of the bag, so it’s not visible unless someone peeks inside the bag. I’ll be using this pouch to hold Sashiko supplies.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Jan 2023 One Monthly Goal Finish.

New Mexico is on the left, California is in the middle, and Washington is on the right.

In late 2021 I decided that I wanted to make three temperature quilts: one for my town in northern New Mexico, one for my stepdaughter who resides in a city in the Bay Area of California, and one for my stepson who lives in a city in the state of Washington. I decided to use the same Kona solids for each quilt to depict each temperature range to be able compare the different temperatures for each state. I used 2″x4″ finished flying geese in all three quilts, paper-piecing all the flying geese (daily when possible so not to get too far behind) using Lee@Freshly Pieced’ Perfect Flying Geese and keeping track of the date, state, and colors on the paper to keep me organized. I used Accuweather to track temperatures. I designated the large triangles (geese) for each day’s high temperature, and the small triangles (sky) represented the low temperatures. On January 1st, I pointed all the large triangles for all three states up, and then for subsequent days, the direction of the large triangles was determined whether the temperature increased (pointed up), stayed the same (still pointed up) or decreased (pointed down).

These are the Kona colors with associated temperature ranges: <0 Orchard Ice, 0-9 Violet, 10-14 Magenta, 15-19 Geranium, 20-24 Dark Violet, 25-29 Purple, 30-34 Noble Purple, 35-39 Surf, 40-44 Ocean, 45-49 Celestial, 50-54 Mediterranean, 55-59 Cyan, 60-64 Glacier, 65-69 Clover, 70-74 Kiwi, 75-79 Chartreuse, Citrus 80-84, Papaya 85-89, Torch 90-94, and Coral 95-99. There were no temperatures in 2022 for any of our cities in the 100s. I use Kona Charcoal to sew rectangles to the end of the columns for the months that don’t have 31 days. I only had one day the entire year where the high and low temps were in the same temperature range which was WA Jan 5th Surf 35-39.

Early in 2022, I decided that I wanted Rebecca of Rebecca Grace Quilting to do the quilting on all three temperature quilts, and I knew I wanted to use a Charcoal Minky backing, so in September I ordered seven yards of Shannon Minky Solid Cuddle in Charcoal and had it shipped to Rebecca who was nice enough to store it for me until she received my quilt tops about three weeks ago. I have to tell you that the back looks AMAZING. Here’s a pic that Rebecca took of my New Mexico temp quilt before she returned it to me:

The bobbin thread is grey and wonderfully highlights the quilting on the minky backing, but the thread that I am most excited about is the thread we chose for the front of all three quilts which was Glide Sprout:

At the top of this post I have photos of all three finished temperature quilts taken outside mid morning on 1/28/23 (click on the photos to enlarge them). The sun was shining brightly which tends to wash out the colors, but I definitely wanted to include some outside shots. I also took pics of all three quilts on my bed. Here is New Mexico:

Here is California:

And here is Washington:

Finally here is a close-up of some of the quilting on the Washington temperature quilt with the awesome Go With The Flow Quilting in Glide Sprout done by Rebecca (which shows up better on the Charcoal border above):

I had Spoonflower print up customized labels for all three quilts (for info about the process see this post here). Below is a pic of my New Mexico label sewn in:

I started binding the quilts on Jan 21st, the day after I got them back from Rebecca. I ended binding them all a little differently. For my New Mexico temp quilt, I machine stitched the binding on both sides and thought that some of my wobbly sewing showed up too much on the binding on the front of the quilt. For the Washington quilt, I sewed the binding to the back (because I thought I was going to machine stitch it down on the front like I did for NM but then changed my mind) and hand-stitched the binding to the front. For the California quilt, I machine sewed the binding on the front of the quilt and hand-stitched it to back which took a lot of time because hand-sewing with minky fabric is NOT fun! It’s difficult to get through the fluff to fabric underneath. If I use a minky backing in the future and want to hand-stitch the binding, I will definitely do it like I did for the Washington quilt–machine stitch on the back, hand-stitch on the front.

I wrote a lot of posts about these temperature quilts over the past year. If you want to read in more detail, please use the Search This Blog box and type in temperature, and more posts than you likely will want to read will be listed.

I am SO pleased with how these temperature quilts turned out, but I have to tell you all that making three temperature quilts at one time is CRAZY!!! But now that they’re finished, I’m glad I did!

Linking up to Stitching Cubby Hole: TGIFF.

I’ve been looking forward to participating in  SAHRR2023 since I finished up SAHRR2022 last year because it was so much fun customizing my design and stretching my piecing skills. See my Blue Dog quilt here and a similar one I made for my stepson, Drew, here.

For this year, I have decided to make a wall hanging using Alison glass fabrics and coordinating Kona solids. I decided to make my SAHRR2023 a color gradient project (Big Surprise I know!), so I started with one of my red-orange Alison Glass prints along with Kona Coral and Poppy. I used the center of Kitty Wilkins’s Fierce block which she designed for the 2019 Summer Sampler to help participants strengthen their tiny paper piecing skills. See the complete Fierce block made by Kate@SwimBikeQuilt here. My SAHRR2023 center measures 4.5”square.

Linking up to Quilting Gail: 2023 SAHRR 2023 Center Block Linky Party.

My January 2023 One Monthly Goal is to turn the Daisy Sashiko panel I finished a couple months ago into a pouch. Several months ago I purchased this Pouch Kit from BeBe Bold. This is a project that I really enjoyed stitching, my favorite Sashiko project ever.

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts: Jan 2023 One Monthly Goal.

Cheryl with Meadow Mist Designs hosts a yearly linky party to celebrate projects made in the past year. After much deliberation, I present to you my five favorite finishes of 2022. First up is my Wolf quilt that was completed on 1/4/22. The pattern was Wolf Abstractions by Violet Craft, and the quilt measured 60″ x 65″. This was the first quilt I had quilted by Rebecca Grace Quilting. Please read her post here that shares the details about all the extra time and effort Rebecca puts into her quilting.

My next favorite 2022 finish is a project I wanted to make for a few years and finally had the time this past summer to focus on it. It is called Murmuration, and it measures 62″ x 72″. The pattern is by Rebecca@Bryan House Quilts, and it was also quilted by Rebecca Grace Quilting. See details about this quilt here.

I have one more favorite finish that was also masterfully quilted by Rebecca Grace Quilting. It is my Offset Gradients quilt that measures 54″ x78″. Read more about this quilt here and here.

My last two 2022 favorites are small projects that I actually quilted myself. The herringbone placemats pictured below were a belated housewarming gift for my niece, Mary Frances. Read more about these placemats here and here.

Finally my last favorite finish for the year is a small rectangular 10″ x 15″ pillow with a center of Sashiko cats stitched with Weeks Variegated Caribbean Size 8 thread, and the bordering fabric was quilted with Aurafil Jade 50 wt thread (4093).

Linking up to Meadow Mist Designs: Best of 2022 Linky Party.