January Cornucopia

 

That was such a great January (right? I hope it was!) again it has passed us by in a post-holiday whirl. But along the way I added to my cornucopia of links for the month. All the things I've enjoyed online, reading, seeing, listening, etc.

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How about using EQ8 to draft your own Snowflake design, kind of like the paper folding and cutting idea that we've all done. This is a great video illustrating how to do it.

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In case you're missing seeing music videos on MTV (honestly when's the last time any of us turned on MTV?), here's an interesting site, that is always running all those music videos, interspersed with ads from back in the day for Blockbuster, etc. The first video I caught was Depeche Mode so I was happy.

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Really interesting essay about Arizona that coins the term "thermochauvinism" which makes thinking about heating Minneapolis vs. cooling Phoenix so much clearer.

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On the one year anniversary of the horrific firestorm in LA, this article by David Wallace-Wells is worth a read, Which City Burns Next?

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I continue to enjoy Christa Quilts free-motion quilting design videos, they're short, well-filmed, and have very clear instructions. Super useful and inspiring.

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I like the Etsy color of the year, and the newly introduced, texture of the year. Both are 👍👍👍

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Great article about Craftivism in the US from The Guardian. Yarn-bombing, knit-in's, hat designs, etc.

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American Patchwork & Quilting magazine has a really interesting block-of-the-month  going on with a free quilt design which is available in an EQ8 format so you can re-color it before you start sewing. This started in October 2025 and is running through June 2026 so there are 6 blocks available for downloading.

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I found this photo illustrated tutorial on a disappearing 4-Patch from Boersma's to likely be very useful

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I was really pleased to see Transmissions Quilts mentioned in the Oliso newsletter. This looks like such a great collaborative and supportive project to get involved with and support.

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This interview with Isabel Allende is so wonderful, and not just because it was at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) She's one of my favorite authors and it was great to hear from her about creating art in authoritarian times.

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The annual list of transgender Girl Scouts to support is up, go pick one (or more) to buy your cookies from this year.

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Listening to: 

• Burn Order - Rachel Maddow's newest story/6 episode podcast about Japanese Internment camps in the 1940's  
•  What's The Plan? a podcast from the founders of Indivisible.

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Returning to Choices

 

Today I worked on finishing up the free motion quilting on May You Ever Return. Almost there, but I had to make some thread choices.

The different blues and greens in this fabric was hard to match.

As usual one of my Studio Assistants made sure I was "Making Good Choices."

Getting there.

This is my favorite X so far.

I was tired of free motion quilting, so switched over to get to some zig-zagging on the shapes who's edges hadn't been stitched down.

The words are supposed to be not really legible at a glance.

Almost done with the quilting and zig-zagging. (Just the lower left) and I'm really pleased with how it's looking so far.

Lots of Quilting Lines

 

A lot more free motion quilting got done on May You Ever Return yesterday. I'm very focused in on it, but I'll admit that I keep struggling to stop myself from switching over to work on other things like the Patchwork Palooza on my design wall or the Lupine Mystery.

After an initial alarmed response at all the noise near her napping spot, one of my studio assistants kept an eagle eye on my process.

The quilting is getting pretty dense in some spots. While I was quilting, I pinned back some of the un-anchored shapes in order to just have the lines go under where they'll end up being zig-zagged down. This will help with "floating" the shapes above the densely quilted surface in a consistent way across the whole surface.

No decision made on the number of X's, and I see some hand-embroidery/stitching in my future. Also, this quilt is getting the facing treatment as opposed to a binding. Countdown to the UFO Challenge due date of 2/7. That's just ten days, two of which will be traveling to Spokane and back again. Maybe if I get it to the finishing point of sewing the facings down it will come along with me, but I'm not counting on that.

How Many X's

 

Doing a lot of blue on blue free motion quilting. Still deciding on whether to add more X's or not. As there are already three orange ones, that likely means adding two more. On re-reading, my notes are a little unclear, so I'm going with what I see in front of me right now.

I've gotten all of the smaller pieces sewn down in their centers, so the majority of straight pins are now gone. I'm using safety pins to hold down most of the rest. That makes the quilt sandwich so much nicer to handle while free motion quilting.

Time for a thread color change.

Eleven days to go until the UFO Challenge deadline at Sew Day. Will I make it? 

Almost Out of Words

 

I concentrated on getting the words left to be stitched done yesterday on May You Ever Return. This is the before picture, mostly for my reference so that I can put it back in the correct position after I did the stitching. I switched over to a free motion foot and dropped the feed dogs so I could do the smaller cursive writing.

Here's the after stitching picture. I used a small width zig zag stitch. The smaller shapes have single words, intentionally written small and hidden. See the picture below for a before picture. So, I've stitched the words in a blue that camouflages them pretty well. And it's also done in a straight stitch, no more zig zag. I stitched them in place instead of taking each off and then repositioning.

There's going to be several more thread color changes needed.

And then...a mini disaster! A broken needle! That big pin was caught underneath in a folded-over seam. I thought I'd uncovered all of those, but apparently not. All the parts of the needle were found, and it was definitely  time for a needle change anyways.

Here's how it's looking so far. Looking more finished day by day.

And only one more section with words left to do. Then it's mostly free-motion quilting left to do which is a lot easier.

Stitching the Words

 

The UFO challenge deadline approach-eth, (in 13 days). so I'm working on finishing this quilt. There are a lot of words written in pen on the pieces that still need to be appliquéd. So I'm just stitching over the writing in a zig-zag before I'll be attaching them to the quilt.

I really like the look of this after being zig-zag stitched. This was two passes of stitching. It takes a lot of extra time, but I think it is worth to do it separately from the quilting. Was it a bit weird stitching out the word, "Me"? Honestly, yes, a little strange, but I reminded myself that it's just part of the song lyric that I'm working with. And this quilt is my reaction to both the music and those words in the lyric.

A lot of actual quilting has gotten done now. 

Using some decorative stitches on the not-so-skinny-strips.

Still a long way to go to finish, but I have a plan that will hopefully work out. At the very least, I'm feeling this quilt again, now that I've been working with it. And that's a Good Thing™👸

Returning to UFO-ing

Starting in on trying to get May You Ever Return completed before the next Sew Day for the BAMQG UFO Challenge.

I did some more digging and found my notes (yay!) and have more of a plan. First up is working with the words that I've already written in pen. I found some colors of rayon thread that would work, zig-zagging some of them.

Turns out that this was the first thing that's been stitched down to the entire quilt sandwich. It was all holding together so well that I thought a lot of the stitching was all the way through. Whoops! A lot of the top is pieced together, or just top-stitched, but it wasn't anchored (except by straight pins) to the batting/backing. That meant I spent time pinning it down through all the layers with safety pins. Much better, I don't think it's going to fall apart all the time.

Some of the words are quite small, but I made my zig-zag teeny tiny and sewed very slowly.

There's a lot of layers and a lot of colors. I'm remembering why I really like this project.

I trimmed off the excess backing fabric and pinned it back up on the design wall after all that. Onwards!

Cumulative Finish

After trimming the finished quilt to size, it was time for adding on the binding to the piece I've made for the Stretching Art & Tradition exhibit.

And then I decided to go over the couched-on spiral of cotton Baker's Twine as I'd missed too many places. That took a while! But it was worth it, now it won't get caught on anything.

There it is...Cumulative Spiral. One of my first quilt finishes for 2026, hurrah!

A close-up of the binding (I used the same Navy blue as I did for the background of Patchwork Palooza) and the now-secured spiral.  Now it's time to sew on the sleeve and label and send it off to the show organizer tomorrow!


 

Off The Couch(ing)

Well, I lost at "bobbin chicken" and had to stop my couching efforts to wind myself a new one.

It's going pretty well now that I've gotten the hang of it. Very different than free-motion quilting. Also, I'm using a small zig-zag stitch as well.

Getting closer to the top.

And...done! Now to trim to the exact size, 24" w x 36"h and add some binding. 

 

Returning to May You Ever Return

 

The BAMQ UFO challenge has started in January, and the number chosen for us to work on this month was #12 on our lists. For my list, this was my very hardest one, which is finishing this quilt, May You Ever Return. This was started in the excellent class/workshop, Word for Word, that I took with Rosalie Dace along with friend Jaye when we made the pilgrimage up to Sisters, Oregon for Quilter's Affair in 2018. 

It took me a while to even get my hands on the box it was stashed in, and I have as yet been able to find the class notes. (shoot!) So...as you can see this "almost a quilt" is in quite the state at the moment, a little smashed up and un-ironed. It's in an in-between place, I know I was making moves, there were decisions being made about it, placement of pieces, additions and subtractions, etc. That's what I need the notes for.  Seeing it pinned up on the design wall is definitely helping it come back into focus.

Or maybe I just need to listen to the song that it's based on a bunch of times to get me back in the headspace to access my ideas about it all. This quilt has the lyrics to a verse of a Neko Case song, Pitch or Honey, sprinkled around the piece, in an unexpected order. Not at all intended to be easily legible. Just like the song I guess.

Clean & Crazy

Oldest and newest seen together on my workroom chair before heading to the BAMQ meeting today. The assignment was to bring one of our oldest quilts, what fun that was seeing everyone's beginning. Mine is called Crazy Baskets, made in 1999 out of P&B Textiles fabric, with a small border of some of my first SetaColor painted fabric. On top is the most recent finish, Clean Cloud.
 

Still Couching.

 

I'm still working on the "Cumulative Spiral" couching effort for my Stretching Art & Tradition quilt. It's fiddly and kind of close-up. I decided not to mark or pin or glue, but I still am working to a sort of plan/design. The thread vs. the baker's twine that I'm using is playing well together visually. But the baker's twine is sometimes getting stuck on the needle, and on the thread above the needle. So that's a little annoying, but I'm sticking with it and trying to go slow enough to notice when there's a problem developing.

I

Every now and then I have to stand up and see what it is that I've couched. I'd say "So far, so good", I'm almost up to the top, which means I'm almost done. Noticing how much I truly love stitching on my hand-dyed fabrics, it's somehow still quite a thrill. That means I really do need to keep on dyeing. (note the e in the word)

Black and White Couching Spirals

 

After all that quilting, it was time for some quilt trimming.

I have a design drawn out that needs to be added to this quilt, so I decided to try some couching.

I'm using a black and white  two-ply twisted cotton baker's twine. This first part in the lower right hand corner is the most fiddly part.

I'm using a black and white twisted 2-ply rayon thread (Wonderful D-Twist) to do the couching. Last seen being used last year, on my Stretching Art & Tradition 25 quilt

This is working out pretty well so far. It shows up just enough, like a sketch.