Camden Road

Four years ago, shortly before the pandemic upended all our lives (has it really been four years since it all started?), I participated in the Camden Road Quilt Along that was organized by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs. Cheryl also designed this lovely pattern, and I had a good time piecing this quilt, after a good bit of angst with fabric selection.

And now it's finally time to quilt it. I'm always a bit surprised when I pull out a quilt top I haven't seen for a few years, because in my head it usually looks a little different. For this top, I was surprised how much the darker gray and the lighter gray contrasted, which was fun to piece, but presented a conundrum during quilting time.

And that of course is ... what color thread to I use? I definitely do not want to switch threads through this quilt, that's for sure. Well, from previous experience, the answer has to be a light gray thread. For some reason, lighter color threads look much better on darker fabric than the other way around.

These block-based quilts are my favorite to quilt because they're kind of mindless, zen-like experiences when I work on them. I really get to shut out the world, and even shut off my brain, and just get into a flow state.

For the quilting design, I alternated a tried and true swirly mix and a geometric design for the open spaces, and a dot-to-dot geometric design for the blocks.

And after 4 years, it's finished! I'm really happy with the end result, and the whole experience was just beautifully relaxing. I can't say that for every quilt, but it's definitely true for this one.

Superbloom

Last year, I started seriously getting into fan conventions, and I've attended a few and always had such a great time, but I quickly realized I wanted to make a new bag as my con bag. I wanted something that can hold my photo ops and souvenirs, and have outside pockets to quickly access event tickets and badges and the such.

With that goal in mind, I started scoping bag patterns, and quickly decided on Superbloom by Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness. It fulfilled my needs and also, there was a video workshop to follow along with. I simply cannot make bags without a video workshop, but Sara is my favorite teacher in this regard, and by following her video workshops, I've done things I did not think was possible.

My favorite feature of this bag is actually the rainbow zipper tape and the feather-shaped zipper pulls! I finally learned to use zippers by the yard, and I'm now totally addicted.

With each bag I make, I feel like I level up a bit. Superbloom has a recessed zipper which I've never done before, and I really like how practical it is.

There were challenging moments and choice words used during the final assembly process (as there usually was) and I had to make everything fit together which didn't seem like they went together, but when I saw the end result, it was worth it, and I now can't wait to go to my next convention with this beauty! Which will be ... in May. Still so far away!

Delicate Beauty

It's no secret that Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic is my all-time favorite fabric designer, so I had to start the year with a quilt that features both pattern and fabric designed by her: Delicate Beauty featuring Sphere. Sphere is a really old and out-of-print collection, as it was printed before I started quilting, but I managed to hoard some here and there over the last few years.

I especially love this pattern because of all the non-standard shapes. In fact I was quite intimidated by the pattern initially, but it was a lot easier to make than it looked, and I'm very pleased with the end result.

I had a lot of fun quilting this! I knew I wanted to showcase the space inside the triangles with some free-motion designs, but also knew I wanted a lot of straight line echoes.

The fabric strips were quilted with some wishbone designs, which is something that's relatively easy to execute on the diagonal.

I love this quilt, and it was the perfect one to start the year. I don't know how much quilting I will accomplish this year, but given that I have no desire to piece at the moment, hopefully it means I will be able to at least make a small dent in my pile of quilt tops. Hopefully.