Saturday, January 26, 2019

Joy! Word of the year 2019

Every year I choose a word of the year. It's always a process for me to choose my word. I begin keeping lists in the fall of possible words for the following year. Sometimes my word is very clear to me. Other times, not so much. This year, the word Joy came to me at the very last possible minute!
I want to be very intentional about choosing to be joyful every single day this year. I finally got around to making my Joy quilt yesterday.

The colors are not quite right in this photo.... I chose fabrics that closely mirror the Kona color of the year (Splash!) and Pantones color of the year (Living Coral). I think they play very nicely together.

This is the year I WILL hang all of my word of the year quilts! I have nine now.... quite a collection! and they have been sitting in a stack for years. Enough of that!

Do you choose a word? What's your word for 2019?

Sunday, January 20, 2019

My finished Solid Seven bee quilt

 As promised, I have a completed bee quilt to share with you today! The ladies of the Solid Seven bee are so amazing. You can read more about them and our different prompts of 2018 here.
Back in November, I asked the gals to all make me Christmas trees, any pattern/tutorial, original improv trees, whatever they wanted. I did give them a color palette of teal/aqua, red, green and pink but beyond that I gave them very little guidance. Did they ever come through for me!

Such a great variety of trees came my way, all shapes and sizes. My local quilty friend Chris insisted that I needed a gnome in my forest (she was right). She was sweet to make me one. Piecing all of the blocks together was great fun. My friend Diann at Happy Quilts provided the awesome longarm quilting. I finished it all off with a faced binding, mostly because I really couldn't settle on a color to bind it in. I think this works perfectly. The finished quilt measures 58X60.

I can't wait for my next turn to select a bee prompt!

big thanks to my handsome quilt holder hubby!
Contributors to my awesome tree quilt are:
Happy Quilts

Check out their instagram accounts!

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Solid Seven bee 2018 blocks

Well here I am... one of my goals for 2019 is to write more regularly on my blog. I'm not off to a great start, aren't I? Ah well, lets look forward, shall we?

Today I'd like to share all of the blocks I made in 2018 for my beemates in the Solid Seven Bee. This group of ladies is amazing and their prompts always challenge me. We all "met" on instagram and we work strictly in high quality solids.

Our first prompt last year was from Nicole. She asked us to make collage blocks with at least one block representing something from our childhood. My childhood block was all about board games



Jessica was up next, with a request for improv doors. This was really fun, as I dug out my London door photos from our trip in 2012 and recreated three of them in fabric...
Kara wanted an ocean themed quilt..... I pieced together 3 fish for her...
Briawna asked for wonky log cabin blocks, Gees Bend style, to make a quilt for her husband
Ailish requested modern rainbows with improv curves. Mine were all different from each other...



Tracy's 80's blocks were a blast! She has recently pieced her quilt top & it is the bomb! Check it out on her instagram.

It was my turn in November and I had the gals make me all different Christmas trees. Stay tuned for a finished quilt soon


Laura had us made quarter log cabin blocks with "striped" and solid logs. Her quilt is going to be a riot of crazy color!
I'm working on my January blocks now. EA has asked us to think of a time when we felt seen/heard/loved and use this as inspiration. Here are my first 2 blocks for her. First a music note, because ever since I was a small child I felt heard when I sing or play an instrument.
My second block represents my sweet husband who has always made me feel seen/heard & loved! 

I need to come up with one more block and ship them off to her soon.

Check out our hashtag, #thesolidseven for more inspiration!