January Finish

At the beginning of the month I gave myself the goal of finishing my Compass Rose Table Runner from my quilt guild's fall workshop. I'm so glad I set this goal because it helped me focus on finishing this rather than starting a new project (which will be my goal for next month.) Since this table runner is a gift for someone who actually has a table built for more than two people I'm hanging it on the coat closet door for the moment. This was way too much work not to appreciate it for a little while before giving it away.

This table runner turned out to be a study in how many things I don't like can be used in a project and still have me love the end result. Going into the workshop I hated paper piecing (it has grown on me since learning some better techniques.) I also wasn't happy that the teacher told us to use batiks. After I purchased my fabrics she changed this, but I'd already made my purchase. Finally I'm not a huge fan of feather motifs in quilting. They're okay, but are a bit too traditional for my tastes. For some strange reason I ended up doing a feather in each point of the main star. I absolutely love how this table runner turned out. I'm not great at labels so I don't know if it's really modern, but I at least feel like my voice wasn't lost in the project.

New Year's Goals

I've never been fond of New Year's Resolutions, but I do like the idea of goals. (I know a goal and a resolution are basically the same thing, but goal has a better conotation for me.) Last year I made the goal of making 2 blocks a week for the Farmer's Wife quilt and getting a pattern published in a magazine. I finished 80 blocks for my Farmer's Wife quilt before losing steam in September. One of my goals for this year is to finish the last 30 blocks, but I haven't worked out the plan for how I'm going to accomplish this goal. The other big goal I had for 2014 was to get a pattern published in a magazine. It was a much bigger process than I expected with way more headaches that I thought there'd be, but I do have a quilt in Fons and Porters Easy Quilts Winter 2014!

My goal for 2015 is to get more organized. My mom gave me the book Hidden Treasures which focuses on the Fly Lady's cleaning system. I do okay with getting the house cleaned up, but I can never keep it clean. I'm hoping by adopting her techniques I'll develop the routines to keep my home clean.

I also want to get back into blogging. My goal is to make at least one quilting and one knitting post a week. One way I plan to accomplish this is by joining Lovely Year of Finishes over at Fiber of All Sorts.

In October I took a Judy Niemeyer paper piecing workshop. Last month I finally got my table runner finished and figured out a plan for the quilting. My goal for January is to quilt and bind this table runner.

Fall Workshop

Saturday was my quilt guild's fall workshop. We vary between having guild members teach us a new technique and having a professional teacher come in. We've held a couple of retreats at Canton Quilt Retreat and asked the owner, Catherine Erickson, to teach our retreat this time. She's a certified Judy Niemeyer teacher and we choose to make the Compass Rose Table Runner. I was a bit hesitant since I hate paper piecing and was even less pleased when I found out that we had to use batiks. (She later changed this, but I had already used my birthday discount in May to get batiks from my LQS.) Needless to say I wasn't very excited on Saturday morning, but I love hanging out with the ladies from my quilt guild so I decided to suck it up.

I have to admit Catherine has really changed my mind about paper piecing. The methods she taught (and the extremely well organized pattern by Judy Niemeyer) actually made it somewhat easy. It also was great that Catherine told us to hand all mistakes to us and she ripped them out for us. After the third time of handing her my fabric I watched how she used a rotary cutter to cut the offending stitches. I probably shouldn't write this since my husband will read it, but on Sunday I messed up my Supernova blocks and had to rip out a double line of stitching on 32 pieces. I tried using the rotary cutter method of seam ripping and it was pretty efficient. It will take some practice before I'm as fast as Catherine, but I'm confident I've mastered the technique enough to avoid ER visits.

I was surprised that in an all day workshop I didn't finish a single block.  It was very comforting to see that the other members of the class got just as far as I did so I wasn't really any slower than anyone else. I learned so much with the first block that I think the next ones will go a lot faster. 

I'm excited to see this table runner all put together. I think I've pulled off a somewhat modern block using batiks. They still aren't my favorite fabrics, but I do like how these are turning out.