Quilt Planning

I have been spending time in my sewing room this week, tidying and sorting fabrics.  I am enjoying spending my time in the evenings finishing the appliqué on my 'Down the Rabbit Hole Quilt' I hope to have the final borders ready for when my machine comes back from service; I would really like to finish this quilt top by the end of January 😀

One of my goals this year is to keep reducing the number of WIPs I have, I find it overwhelming to have too many quilts on the go at the same time, by the end of this year I hope to have only one hand appliqué, one hand quilting, one machine work, one EPP,  project in progress at a time. I will see how that goes!

I don't intend to start any of these quilts just yet, but they have been floating around in my head for some time, and I wanted to at least get my ideas down.  I had the chance to visit a quilt shop yesterday;  I shopped from my stash first and then filled in a couple of the gaps.  The main reason to visit was to find a background for this quilt:

Sarah Fielke 2018 BOM 'Simple Folk"

I want to start this quilt at the end of January (If I can finish the 2017 BOM first!)

Inspired by Swedish Dale Horses

I managed to find a FQ bundle of 'Nordic Stitches' by Wenche Wolff Halting for Moda in the Black Friday Sales

The white I had on hand was too stark for the appliqué background, but it is extra wide, so will work well for the back, I found this lovely white tone on tone by Andover, I think the hearts are perfect!

I am ready to go :)

Sarah is offering 2 BOMs this year and I have signed up for both 😁 'Simple Folk' will be my machine project and the other is purely hand work, I really need to improve my hand piecing, this one doesn't start until February but I might start later, will see how my WIPs are progressing!

Sarah Fielke 2018 BOM Grasshopper

I have another FQ bundle that I picked up in the sales that I think will work 'Blushing Peonies' by Robin Picken for Moda

I found the perfect background in my stash - Andover fabrics Linen Closet Bees

I wanted some more oranges and yellow in there too, so I shopped my stash and was surprised at how many fabrics I found that might work 🤭

Jen Kingwell Golden Days

Jen has a new template of the month for this year, I don't have details of the final size etc yet as it is not issued until March, here is Jen's work in progress photo

I have signed up for the templates only option with a local shop; I need to give my version some serious planning, I doubt I will start this one in 2018 as I will probably want to hand piece it too!  I have some Jen Kingwell fabrics that I have picked up for a good price in various sales over the last couple of years, I will definitely use them somehow in my Golden Days, I'm just not sure how yet :)

Ever Increasing Circles 

This final quilt has been in my head in various guises for several years, I love circle quilts😀


I bought Trish Harper's pattern 'Irish Circles'  several years ago, and I am in the process of collecting Sue Daley's 'Round we Go' template/patterns at the moment.  I knew I wanted to make a circle quilt of some description but not an exact copy of any of these.  I spent a lot of time playing with designs and I think I have finally settled on a medallion style setting.

I have some Dutch Chintz fabrics that I bought a few years ago and have been waiting for the right project to come along, I also found some more 🤭 in my stash that might play nicely

I am drawn to complicated, hand piecing, hand appliqué, hand quilting, and I don't know if my hands will allow me to hand piece/quilt etc as much as I would like this year, some of these may have to wait their turn for a few more years or become machine projects, as I said at the beginning the main thing is to reduce the number of quilts in progress before starting any more 🤣