2024: The Year in Review

Good morning, my friends. The day has come to say good-bye to 2024, and to ready ourselves for 2025. I remember when I was a kid and the year 2025 would have seemed too futuristic even to contemplate...and yet, here we are. It's only turning a page on a calendar, but somehow New Year's Day seems filled with anticipation. We're looking forward to heading to Alaska when the weather warms up some, and we will celebrate 50 years of marriage in May. 

As for today, there was a beautiful red sky this morning.

When the sky lightened up some, we had a pretty view of the mountains. You can see Mt. Rainier to the left of Mt. St. Helens, but it's partially hidden by a cloud.

We had grocery shopping to do yesterday. Mike needed to meet some guys doing work on our fifth wheel in the afternoon, and so we were up and out fairly early. It was busy, but not as busy as the days leading up to Christmas. Probably, I'll take it easy today. I'll be spending most of tomorrow in the kitchen. For the past several years, we've rung in the New Year with a ham dinner. It's not a big elaborate feast, but we're having the neighbors up, so I figure I'll serve them something better than the usual slop. 

Despite going grocery shopping, there was some time for slow-stitching in the morning, and I took the first stitches on the "Rosy Pink Bicycle."

After we'd had some lunch and Mike left for his meet-up, I made my way to the sewing room. As you know, I was considering starting on a baby quilt. There's really no hurry on that since the baby hasn't even been born yet. My personal experience with the loss of a newborn infant makes me a little reticent to tempt fate in that way. Probably I'll hold off for at least another week or two. 

Instead, I decided to follow the path set out by my whiteboard. Next up was to sew together the quilt blocks for Joy in the Ordinary. This was 2024's free quilt pattern from Jenny of Elefantz. It might not be free any more, but you can find it in her Etsy shop. By the way, she's doing a new one in 2025. I always enjoy her free stitcheries. You can find The Sewing Room fact sheet right here. 

So here are my completed blocks:

I wanted to sash them and give them a border or two. Perusing my fabric bins, I ended up with these fabrics...all long-time residents of my stash. The aqua hexi print could be a back. I had just over a yard of it, but it had a rather large hunk cut from one of the corners. The other two would be used on the top. 

That aqua batik was from the cut off edges of Wind in the Whiskers, finished several years ago.

Sometimes there's quite a bit of fabric left when a quilt is squared up. It always makes me feel smug when I can find a way to use it. In this case, I used it for some narrow sashings and a stop border.

And then, I added a floral border, and I had myself a finished quilt top. It ends up at 34 x 42 inches.

There was enough width of my backing fabric, but not enough length. And so I used these two fabrics to piece together a back for it. These fabrics fall under the heading, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." I like both these fabrics, but I've had a hard time using them. They seem like a good choice to represent something ordinary that brings me great joy.

And then I chose this pastel stripe for the binding strips.

Probably, I'll be quilting this one fairly soon, but I'm on to my list of WIP's now. Today, I'll get to work making Block 4 for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. This one is less complicated than the previous one, but these still take quite a bit of time.

So that pretty well covers yesterday's activities. Let's just see what was accomplished in a year's worth of quilt-making. There were 23 quilts finished during 2024, which is fewer than the 32 finished in 2023. My excuse is that we traveled for three months of the year, and so I only had about nine months of sewing to work with. A lot of 2024's quilts were small quilts and art quilts, and so it's not as impressive as it might sound.  

January started with 26 projects on my list of WIPs. December will still end with 23 on the list. Any time I can end the year with fewer than when I started seems like a victory. There are 3 sets of finished blocks, ready to be sewn into quilt tops, and there are 14 quilt tops sewn together, and awaiting quilting. For every set of finished quilt blocks removed from my list of WIPs, I start a new project, and so I have only myself to blame if I can never get my list of WIPs lower than about two dozen. And, honestly, is there a single one of us that won't run out life's clock with a few unfinished projects on the shelf? 

Here comes the parade of finishes for 2024:

Birdie Bungalows

pattern from HKNeedlework Designs

made for Project Quilting Season 15 prompt "Bird House"

started 1/7/24 and finished 1/10/24

24 x 15 inches

~~~

Dwell in Possibility

Embroidery pattern from Gingiber

15 x 15 inches

Started 5/25/23 and finished 1/15/24

~~~

French Roses

pattern by Heather French

hand tied and washed to rag

60 x 60 inches

started 11/2/21 and finished 1/18/24

~~~

 Sunset Sail

for Project Quilting 15.2 "Sky Color" prompt

14.5 x 16 inches

started and finished 1/21-22/24

~~~

Ring of Fire

Created for Project Quilting Season 15.3 “Inside Out” prompt

10 x 10 inches

Started and finished 2/6/24

~~~

Fall Flannel Four-Patch

Started 2/1/24 and finished 2/7/24

56 x 72 inches

~~~

Joined by Thread

design from Leanne Knell

hand embroidery

started 7/23/23 and finished 2/15/24

12 x 12 inches

~~~

Time Flies

Created for Project Quilting Season 15.4 “Hourglass” prompt

12 x 12 inches

Started and finished 2/18/24

~~~

Starburst

Created for a Free motion quilting 

video series by Angela Walters

started 1/3/24 and finished 2/21/24

52 x 42

~~~

Hanging the Christmas Lights

free pattern from Anni Downs at Hatched and Patched

12 x 12 inches

started 10/18/23 and finished 2/21/24

~~~

Bumble Sampler

pattern from Kathy Schmitz

started 11/22/23 and finished 2/22/24

15 x 17

~~~

Tin Cup Store

An art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group

“Vintage” prompt

Started 6/3/24 and finished 6/17/24

18 x 22 inches

~~~

Blackwork Baskets

Pattern by J. Michelle Watts Designs

53 x 53 inches

Started 12/21/21 and finished 6/25/24

~~~

Tiny Hearts

a stitch-along from Meg Hawkey for International Embroidery Month

started 2/1/24 and finished 6/27/24

13 x 15 inches

~~~

Catnip

From the Catnip panel by Moda fabrics

67 x 67 inches

started 4/16/22 and finished 7/20/24

~~~

New Mexico Kitchen

pattern by Pam Wolf  

started 3/27/20 and finished 8/31/24

52 x 66 inches

~~~

"Spices" Saffron Crocus

an art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group

started 8/9/24 and finished 10/1/24

~~~

Shop Hop 2.0

a memory quilt of quilt shops I've visited

started 5/23/20 and finished 10/26/24

67 x 67 inches

~~~

Beach Bums

pattern by JoAnn Hoffman

33 x 43 inches

started 10/9/24 and finished 11/17/24

~~~

"Mosaic"

challenge quilt for The Endeavourers Art Quilt Group

started 11/6/24 and finished 11/19/24

12 x 18 inches

Just a peek for now

Reveal will be 2/1/25

~~~

Color My World

free pattern from American Quilter's Society

42 x 42

started and finished 11/19-24/24

~~~

Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage

pattern by Meg Hawkey, Crabapple Hill Studios

hand embroidery started 11/16/20 and finished 12/22/24

67 x 73 inches

~~~

Phenology

pattern from DartmoorKin

started 8/23/24 and finished 12/29/24

16 x 16 inches

~~~

Okay, so it's getting very close to the hour when we bid adieu to 2024. Let's all meet back here at this time in 2025. Be careful out there tonight. Don't celebrate too hard. As for me, I'm still trying to decide what to wear to my living room tonight. Honestly, I might not even go.

Happy New Year's Eve, Everybody!