Happy New Year … a little late

Hello all. I took a break from the shop and quilting in general in January because my husband and I started remodeling our kitchen.

Right now we’re refinishing the cabinets which is a long, messy job, but the new stain is giving the almost 60-year-old built in cabinets new life. As we near the end of this phase of the project, it’s time to get back to quilting and blogging.

I plan to update the blog much more frequently this year. I’ve got a lot of fun projects planned, including one that will help the community. You’ll hear more about that in a few days.

In the meantime I wanted to share photos of the quilts I made for Christmas. The brown one you’ve seen before in various stages of completion. It was for my parents. And although it contains hundreds of triangles, I didn’t cut a single one for this project. Someday I’ll have to make a tutorial on how to make hourglass units and flying geese from squares.

The second one is and Illini quilt for my brother- and sister-in-law. My husband found this pattern at Sew Sassy in Urbana, Ill., while I was stocking up on Illini fabric, which can be kind of hard to find when you live on the border of Iowa. I liked it because although it is definitely an Illini quilt, it doesn’t contain one scrap of licensed Illini fabric.

If any of you get the pattern, buy a couple extra yards of backing fabric. I ran out when it came time to piece the back.

I’ve got one more belated Christmas present still in the works, but I need to get my dinning room table back before I can finish quilting it. Right now it’s filled with all the dishes and cookware that normally would be in the cabinets but have been removed for the refinishing process.