Sometimes, I want to be a bear. Hibernating during winter just feels right somehow!
For some reason, this winter, I have felt a bit more like hibernating than I have in the past. Even though we don’t have harsh winters and much snow at home, the colder, darker days just called to me to take things slower and stay home.
With the fall wrap up of the garden, and heading into winter and getting to stay inside, I have enjoyed spending quite a bit of time in my sewing room (aka, the little bedroom).
My local quilt shop has an annual UFO (unfinished objects) contest that I decided to do this year. You write down a list of 12 unfinished or not yet started projects that you want to finish this year, with an optional 5 extras and submit it to the quilt shop. They then choose a random number from the list to be finished each month and you either email in photos or can take the item into the shop to show its finished.
I wrote out my list of just random stuff I wanted to work on or finish with the first 3 on the list almost finished (needed long-arming) and submitted it to the shop. Here we are with February not even finished and I have 10 of my 12 items finished.
I guess that is one of the perks of hibernating – being able to focus on projects and stay in my sewing room.
Here are a few of the items:
This is a pattern I’ve now made 3 times and each of the quilts were gifted to my brothers & sisters-in-law. This gray one was the last one to go and was #3 of my UFO list as I started the year with it needing to be long-armed. It has now been sent to my brother and his wife so I can now show the photo. (The ones finished last year had one that was more yellow and the other was more green. I have enough of the material from the layer cake I purchased to make one more that would be pink)
This “Chandelier” pattern is one I have loved since the first time I saw it. It was fun to make it once and see how it went together. I’m looking forward to getting this one on the long arm to finish it.
The scraps of the Chandelier quilt were used for the Dresden pieces to make a spring table runner (pictured below). I hadn’t ever done something with rounded edges and had to figure out how to turn the edges under to sew it onto the square. Thank you YouTube for tutorial videos! I also tried doing some free-motion quilting on my sewing machine. While it was fun to try, I definitely need a LOT more practice to get better at it.
One of the items on my UFO list was to finish 3 insulated RV window covers. (We need a total of 9, but I thought I’d just put 3 on my UFO list). We plan to be using our trailer more often and in early spring, the weather can be chilly.
I finished the initial 3, then realized a 4th window was likely the same size and quickly finished the 4th cover. While these aren’t very pretty, they will help insulate around all the single-pane windows to keep the cold air out. Once they are in the windows, we’ll pull the blinds down and won’t really see much of them anyway.
Since I’ve started quilting, I’ve seen quilt a few “sew-a-long” or “block of the month” (BOM) projects. A pattern is released on a regular basis, and you make that one square before they release the next pattern. It gives you a lot of patterns to try all while building skills and leading to a finished sampler quilt at the end.
I decided to try the Riley Blake Designs BOM pattern this year. I was able to get all of the material cut and have everything organized by block for the whole quilt.
It has been fun to try new patterns and see how something seemingly complex can be really simple to put together. Some of the blocks, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out until I literally pieces the last bit.
Here are a few more of the projects from the UFO list that I’ve finished (or at least gotten to where they are ready for the long-arm) so far this winter:
As winter is wrapping up, I’m starting to look ahead to the garden. We’re only a few weeks away from the early, cold-weather stuff being able to get planted.
Plans for the garden in the next few weeks are to expand the existing rows. Amend the soil (we’ll go pick up some horse manure to spread over everything), and get new supports put up for a couple of things.
We will also be growing some flowers this year for my step-daughter’s wedding in August. I hope things will actually grow for us so she has a large variety to use for her special day!
Winter hibernating has been fun, relaxing and needed. As the days are getting a bit warmer, spring is coming and I look forward to what it brings with it this year!