2022; A Year in Review

Hello Friends and Happy New Year!

I'd like to wish all of you the best going into 2023! I hope this coming year offers plenty of opportunities to learn, create, and embrace new experiences!

For myself, the new year has started in a somewhat unseasonal way. Last week, we had snowbanks piled over 4 feet high, but some warmer weather rolled in and now there's barely a flake to be seen. Though it's January now, it feels much more like Springtime.

And while I'm not fond of the cold, I do hope the rest of the Winter brings some snowier weather; the local plants and animals will benefit from it!

But that's enough speculation, for now, I'd like to look back at all the projects I started, continued, and completed throughout 2022!

2022 in Review

Looking back, this year has been a bit of a roller coaster; I've had lots of amazing things happen, including adopting Meara, but I've also had a few bad things happen, like the health issues I had last Spring that forced the blog onto an extended hiatus.

But regardless of what life sent my way, I was always able to find the time to sew!

Last year, I worked on a variety of different projects, mostly quilts but with a few garments thrown in too. And even through their most challenging parts, I enjoyed learning new techniques, trying new patterns, and experiencing the process of creating something new!

Quilt Along Projects

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, I love participating in quilt alongs! The ones I do most commonly are block of the month style projects, where a block pattern is released each month and the project is put together over an extended period of time. But there are other formats for quilt alongs as well, including weekly pattern releases and daily challenges.

This year, I worked on 5 different quilt along projects, most of which were BoMs!

National Quilt Museum 2021 BoM

Looking back towards the beginning of the year, I did some work on the National Quilt Museum's free BoM project from 2021!

Evidently, I didn't finish this quilt the year it was released, but I do still have every intention of completing this project! It uses a quilt as you go construction method that I think will be really great match for my creative preferences and introduced me to a variety of different piecing techniques that were a lot of fun to learn!

I was really enjoying this project, but every moment spent quilting one of those blocks, I felt guilty that I wasn't making progress on an older project that I'd been wanting to finish for many years. In March, I decided to put this project away until I'd finished some others, then come back to it sometime in the future with a clearer conscience.

Patterns for these blocks are available on the NQM website!

MQG Mystery Quilt

Another quilt along I worked on earlier this year was my guild's mystery BoM project!

This project was scheduled to follow the guild's calendar year; starting in September 2021 and ending in May 2022. I kept up with the block releases, working on this project alongside my Mom, but ended up making some changes to my own quilt.

I decided to change up the block locations, slightly alter some of the block patterns, and add some partial blocks around the edges as a border. However, this made my quilt a little larger than the original and resulted in me running out of background fabric.

Since this fabric is several years out of print, I couldn't just buy more. But I am working on another quilt that uses it for the backing, so once I've finished quilting that project, I can use the excess to finish this mystery quilt!

Though it hasn't been confirmed by my guild, I believe this pattern is the free Meadow Mystery Quilt by Meadow Mist Designs.

Summer Garden BoM

Both of the previous BoM projects were put on hold before my multi-month hiatus, but this next one was the first to get started once I returned to the blog!

In my new role as my guild's BoM convener, I designed the Summer Garden BoM quilt! And though this project was designed for my guild, I'm also running it as a free quilt along for all of you to join as well!

I made the original sample version of the Summer Garden quilt in August. It's a scrappy quilt with colours inspired by the wildflowers that grow in my yard throughout the summer months!

I pieced it to the point of being a finished quilt top, but haven't actually done any quilting. For now, it's being held onto by a friend who attends in person guild meetings so she can show it off there to those who are interested in the Summer Garden BoM, but I should get it back for the Summer when the guild year ends!

The second version of Summer Garden is the quilt along variation that I'm making as block instructions are released. It was inspired by the Queen of Hearts' garden from Alice in Wonderland and uses yardage rather than the scrappy approach used in the original.

To date, 3 block patterns have been released, leaving 4 still to come! I'm excited to continue working on this project and can't wait to see how each of your Summer Garden quilts come together too!

Summer Garden is an original design of mine, you can find free instructions on my blog starting with fabric requirements from September!

The $3.31 Quilt

Along with my guild's annual BoM project, I've also started the CQA members' mystery BoM project; The $3.31 Quilt!

While I didn't know what the pattern would look like at the beginning, I guessed it would feature Canadian animals drawn from those found on our coins, and so far, I seem to have been right!

There have been 3 blocks released so far, and of those, I've only made 2. The beaver and polar bear blocks were both a lot of fun to make, though as is my practice, I did make some changes to the patterns, and I'm really excited to add the caribou block!

Still to come should be the loon and maple leaf blocks, then I get to find out how they all go together!

This quilt was designed by John MacPhail as the CQA members' mystery quilt, while the pattern is not available to non-members, you can find more of his patterns on the Art East Quilting Co. website!

Chilhowie Mystery Quilt

The final quilt along project started late last year, it is the Chilhowie mystery quilt!

Unlike my other quilt along projects, this one releases on a weekly schedule and is set to finish within about 10 weeks. While the schedule is much faster paced, a lot of the block instructions are much simpler, calling for the creation of small units each week rather than full blocks.

I've been doing pretty well at keeping up with this faster schedule, and it has definitely helped to keep my enthusiasm peaked! However, with the changing of the year, I have fallen a little behind over the last week, so I do still have a little catching up to do. And I'm excited to get on with that, hopefully as soon as this evening!

I did give myself one little challenge for this project. Since it's a mystery quilt, I don't know what the finished project it meant to look like and can't plan changes to the blocks themselves, instead, I've made changes to the fabric requirements and will be using just 3 colours rather than the 4 from the instructions.

I'm excited to see how this changes the pattern!

Chilhowie was designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville, and the pattern will be available for free on her blog until the live quilt along wraps up sometime around the end of January or early February.

Additional Quilting Projects

With all those BoMs I'm working on, I've still managed to find time to work on a few additional quilts! These projects aren't being run on any predetermined schedule and mostly feature patterns I chose to explore for personal enjoyment rather than as a challenge.

In 2022, I worked on 2 additional quilts, both of which I'm excited to have seen progress on!

Simply Woven

The first of these additional projects is Simply Woven; a quilt that's been in progress since about 2012 that was started by my Grandma and given to me to finish. It's notorious around the blog for being a quilt that I desperately want to finish but seem to struggle to actually work on.

I made some progress on the quilting early in the year with my week of quilting Simply Woven, where I focused only on that project for a full week, but then didn't see much happen for most of the Summer and Autumn.

In December, I finally picked it back up again and decided to see if I could simplify some of the intricacies of the quilted motif. I think changing my mindset will help this to progress more quickly moving forward and am excited to see if that's how it works out!

The Simply Woven pattern was designed by Jessica Kelly of Sew Crafty Jess, it was originally posted on the Moda blog, and I believe it is now only available through the Wayback machine.

The Generations Quilt

The second of my additional projects is a collaboration between myself, my Mom, my Grandma, and my Great Grandmother.

Mom, Grandma, and I have been working together to make additional quilt blocks to add to those left behind by my Great Grandmother after her passing. We definitely have enough blocks to make quilts for each of ourselves and are working towards having enough to make quilts for a wider range of my extended family.

Over the past year, I've made lots of Dresden Plate and Six Pointed Star blocks for this project, and have come very close to my original goal of making 20 of each.

In December, I increased that goal to 30 of each. This will help to take some of the pressure off others who may not have as much time to work on their blocks, or who may work at a slower pace. It also means I'll have a wider variety of my own blocks to choose from when we get around to assembling quilt tops, which will be really helpful since my blocks are stylistically quite different from everyone else's.

It has been really exciting to see my collection of blocks for this project grow throughout the year, and I believe my final count for 2022 is 17 Dresden Plates and 19 Six Pointed Stars!

The patterns and templates used for the Generations Quilt are based on traditional patterns and were drafted off my Great Grandmother's exciting quilt blocks.

Garment Projects

Along with all the quilts I've been working on over the past year, I have 2 garment sewing projects!

Linen Shirt

The first of my garment projects is also my only completed project for the year; a historically inspired linen shirt!

The shirt roughly follows 18th century drafting and construction methods and was sewn completely by hand! I wasn't aiming for any particular degree of historical accuracy with this, I just wanted to make a simple project to get myself back into garment sewing.

I started the shirt early in the year and worked on it throughout the Winter and Spring until I eventually ran out of thread, then spent most of the Summer struggling to purchase more. When it finally did arrive, I was able to complete the last few seam finishes and sew on the buttons in late Autumn!

I had a lot of fun working on this project, when I was able to actually put in stitches, that is, and have been enjoying wearing the shirt on a regular basis! And though it's been finished for a few months now, I still haven't gotten any good pictures of the finished project.

Hopefully I'll find time to photograph it in the new year, please do remind me if it ends up taking too long!

The shirt pattern was drafted based on a combination of Bernadette Banner's and Ora Lin's 18th century shirt projects, both of which are available on YouTube.

Deep Frost Mage's Robe

The final project of 2022 is my deep frost mage's robe project!

This project bridges the gap between garment sewing and quilt making by using techniques from each. The individual panels of the pattern are quilted and appliqued before being assembled into a complete garment!

I've never made a quilted garment before, so this has been a fun adventure for me! It also meant that I dramatically underestimated the time it would take to complete since I conceptualized it as a garment and didn't take into account all the decorative and quilted steps that would be involved.

I'm still working my way through the pixelated applique motif, but one day, I know it will be a beautiful robe!

The pattern was drafted by me, inspired by techniques learned from the 18th century shirt, and the design was inspired by Tango Tek.

Looking back, I've worked on a lot of fun, beautiful, challenging, and exciting projects throughout the last year! And while I didn't finish many, the progress I have made brings me that much closer to finishing them in the future!

I can't wait to see what new progress, projects, and patterns 2023 brings my way!

Until Next Time Friends, Happy New Year!

~VA