BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Quilting 2012 - What are your quilting goals?

Spot On hpiner, it's a great time to buy fabric, especially christmas fabric for next years gifts.

Cheerio for now

Oh Phyllis, this quilt sounds WONDERFUL. Please keep us posted with it's progress and we'd love to see a photo when it's completed.

Lovely to hear from you
Cheerio for now

In the past I have had to do all my sewing in my dining room, which of course meant I needed to put a project away whenever that room was needed. However, we recently moved into a house that has a space for me to set up as a sewing room.

For 2012, I plan to set up that room (for now that space is an unfinished basement without electricity) and then to finish all the projects I have started. My resolution may be to not start a new project.

Hi, I'm new to the forum so not sure how it all works but it looks like fun. My goal for 2012 is to get a crazy quilt made from my mom's clothes. I have fooled around with ideas and think I know what I am doing. Her clothes were mainly thin dressy type of poly tops and then the poly slacks. I want to use my machines fancy stitches but am wondering if I should use just one color. Her colors in clothing was kind of all over the map. Should I try to use one main color in each block? I think that I will likely have to do sashing as well. Any help would be very welcomed.

Sewshort: I have a couple friends that have been making crazy quilts using a variety of colours and their fancy machine stitches...First off, they look wonderful! So, I am sure yours will too! They have chosen to select thread colour close to the fabric colour of each fabric piece, resulting in multi-coloured "embroidery". However they have used bali's so their fabrics are not patterned. If much the clothing is patterned, the multi-coloured embroidery might not work as well. Another option would be to choose one unifying colour. Sometimes a colour like a deep blue, red or lime green can work.

I agree Judie. That is what I have been trying to do. I find it allows me to feed my fabric addition without guilt!

I also have recently given myself permission to turn a WIP or UFO into something other than what originally intended. I finished a large twin quilt from a planned Queen quilt. Even changed the design a bit so it would go together faster! Sampler block-of-the-month blocks in Christmas fabrics were made into a few table runners for gifts. And yes, I even have permission to give away partially finished items (or fabric I can't envision myself ever using) to my guild or to friends!

Good on you Granny H, you'll be so much happier once you have a sewing space of your own. I have been spoilt over the years, having my own space, but it really does make a difference with your productivity. Not having to put away each time makes a big difference. The sewing room I have at present is pretty big, which means I get into a HUGE mess very frequently. But the good news is, that it is downstairs, no one gets to see it but me (and my special friends).
Cheerio for now

Ho Sewshort, welcome to our forum. We have lots of fun here. Piecemaker has offered you very good advice re your crazy quilt. I would be tempted not to add too many more colours, so her idea of a dark blue is a good one. With the polyester fabrics, don't forget to stabilize them on an iron on vilene or something similar. It will stop the fabric from puckering as you sew on the seams.

Keep us posted with your progress, and always feel you can pop on the forum and ask for advice. I can tell you this forum has an abundance of generous knowledgable quilters, that are available 24/7 to help other quilters.

Cheerio for now

Hey Piecemaker, I loooooove your attitude to fabric. I think sometimes quilters can get a little anal about keeping fabric, ufo's etc. I had a bone marrow transplant in 2005, and decided that I wasn't going to have any "chains" around my soul, so went through all my UFOS, and believe me there were dozens of them. I looked at each one, and figured how I had learnt from each experience, kept the ones I wanted to complete and chucked the rest, after salvaging everything that was usable. It was the best thing I ever did. I now realise that I'm not going to finish everything I start, but I learn something from everything I set out to finish! It's a complete mind set change, but boy, am I ever feeling lighter for having made that mind shift.

First thanks to all for the advice on my crazy quilt goal for this year. I do like the idea of a dark blue as Mom did like blue. Second I agree with Judie...why should we keep things hanging on our minds if we really don't want to do them. I recently had one of those unwanted ufo's so I put each partially finished appliqued and pieced block into a journal with notes about each technique that I had tried. I had enjoyed doing them but didn't really want to finish the whole quilt top. Have a Happy and Pieceful New Year!!!