Happy New Year 2025! My Pity Party Has Concluded; Back to the Pretty Quilts...

 Alright you guys — wanna know how many personal quilts, or personal sewing projects of ANY kind, I finished in 2024?  ZERO.  But 2025 is a brand-new year full of fresh possibilities and lots of pent-up creative energy.  I quilted a quilt for myself yesterday!

42 x 45 Untitled, from Maria Shell Improv Workshop

It’s just a small baby quilt, a way to use up one of the improvisationally pieced striped units I made in my Zoom workshop with Maria Shell back in September, along with some smaller yardage pieces from my stash.  The irregularity of wonky improv piecing looks very child-friendly to me, and that inspired me to use an allover quilting design (Color B2B by Anne Bright) that I’ve owned for several years but was never able to talk a client into using on a quilt.  

Color B2B Quilting Design by Anne Bright with YLI 40 Tex Cotton Thread in Rio de Janeiro

I love how it turned out!  I chose YLI 40 Tex Cotton Thread in variegated Rio de Janeiro after carefully checking that every shade in this rainbow thread was a match to fabrics I used in my pieced stripe unit.  I wanted something with an equal amount of contrast against both the lime green and the cherry red fabrics and I’m very happy with how it turned out even though cotton thread is a linty beast to work with!  My lint brush got to see lots of action.  

I used up the remainder of a 60” bolt of Quilters Dream Bamboo batting, too — MORE stash reduction!

My Design Wall With My Completed Workshop Units

You can read more about the Zoom workshop with Maria Shell and see the composition I originally created in this blog post from September.  Why didn't I go through with that?  Well, I liked it, but I felt like I was just regurgitating what I'd seen in the teacher's portfolio and in the slide show of prior students' work.  It didn't feel authentic to me, and I didn't feel motivated to sew the additional units I would have needed to finish the piece that way.  The improv pieced strip units hung out on my design wall for quite awhile as I felt that I SHOULD follow through (completing the workshop assignment) and have a finished project to show for the workshop... 

I decided that I will like my improv units better if I separate them out into different projects with lots of "negative space" for quilting designs, so that's what I did for this baby quilt.  The other pieced units are packed away for some other day.  Or forever.  Just keepin' it real, folks.  ;-)

42 x 45 Pieced Quilt Top with Kaffe Fassett Backing Fabric From My Stash

I had some yardage leftover of a Kaffe Fassett print with all the right colors, so that was a Win-Win choice for the backing.  The 42" x 45" quilt size was determined by the length of that pieced stripe unit, the size of the lime green and cherry red Kona solid stash fabric, and the size of the Kaffe Fassett print I wanted to use for the backing.  So it's a baby quilt for an as-yet-undetermined baby, or maybe I'll donate it if I find a group that collects baby quilt donations in Southwest Florida.

YLI 40 Tex Cotton Rio de Janeiro Thread on Cherry Red

This was a slow stitching but fun quilting design, and I am very pleased to have gotten roughly the same level of contrast and visibility of the quilting design on both background colors, thanks to my variegated thread choice.  The lighter shades blend in on the lime green but stand out against the red, and the same thing happened with darker shades standing out against the lime green but blending more on the red.

YLI 40 Tex Rio de Janeiro Thread on Lime Green

Ah, the cuteness and the happy colors!  Speaking of colors, they are way off in the next photo, must have gotten a yellow cast reflecting off the wall paint or something.  Definitely need to repaint the long arm studio a nice neutral for better photos in the future, but the to-do list is long and the days are short!

I think I'm going to use leftover strips of the backing fabric for binding.  Even though the Kona Solid fabrics in the quilt top are on the heavy/stiff side and there is a lot of seam allowance bulk through that inserted pieced stripe, the quilt is still going to be soft and cuddly due to the sateen Kaffe Fassett backing print and Quilters Dream Bamboo blend batting.

I know my last blog post in October was a downer, but life goes on and there have been good times as well as bad.  My mom was just here for a week from Christmas to New Years and we had beautiful weather at the Naples Zoo.

Me and Mom at the Naples Zoo

I enjoyed having both boys under my roof for Christmas break and seeing them together.  They don't like it when I write about them on the Internet though, so don't tell them they got a cameo...

Son the Younger and Son the Elder, Whom I Don't Post On the Internet Anymore

I don't know, sometimes these crazy newfangled computers just suck photos of your adult sons right off your phone and blast them onto your blog site without your permission, like gremlins!  That's my story and I'm sticking to it: Selective technology confusion that only affects computers NOT attached to sewing machines.  Ahem.

Bernie and Me at Sur La Table Paella Cooking Class

Bernie and I had fun at a paella cooking class date at Sur la Table back in November.  And I got to spend time with my mom and with my older sister Susan (now living in Austin, Texas) when I was in Charlotte to see my mom later that month.

Susan, Mom and Rebecca

Susan is fancier than I am.  We met up at the airport -- look at her pretty hair and makeup for a travel day!  When I travel, I bathe, chug my morning latte and just roll out the door.  Because I am always late and I don't want to miss my plane!

Susan and Rebecca

His Highness the Dog is doing well, too.  He got a new orange frisbee recently that he loves, but he will only occasionally run after the frisbee -- he likes to play Catch instead of Fetch, where you throw it towards him instead of away from him.

Samwise With Frisbee

This means "Throw it again, Mom!"

The Unbearable Cuteness of the Spoiled Rotten Rottweiler

After I got the workshop fragments down off my design wall, I was able to pin my Jingle quilt up for display during the holiday season.

Jingle Returns to the Design Wall for Christmas

It was fun to revisit this quilt every time I passed it in the hallway, but it was not an easy task to get it pinned up there straight and level.  I really need to add a hanging sleeve and come up with a better way to display it before next Christmas.

This Took Me So Many Hours...

And that's all you get from me today, because that's quite enough!  There is a lot more going on that I will share next time, mostly good for the time being and that's a great way to start the New Year, don't you think?  Look at the fortune cookie I got with my Chinese takeout tonight:

If that's not a Sign from the Universe to get back to my sewing projects, I don't know what is!  I'm linking up with my favorite linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework