First Finish for 2025

Happy New Year and I hope your holiday season has been filled with blessings!

Turns out my previous goal of adding posts more often slipped off the radar rather quickly. I see that my last post was in January 2024 and here it is January 2025. Such is life when you spend your time living it instead of spending hours documenting it. A lot has happened since I posted last. There were lots of trunk shows and classes, including a 10-day trip to teach/speak to two guilds and a shop in Ohio! I spent plenty of time in the sewing room and at the quilting machine, although not enough according to the quilt police in my own mind. I'm working on that one... There was wonderful family time with family in Kansas and in Mississippi, for which we are always grateful, and so much more. 

 

My sweet husband, Les, who as you know is also a quilter, designed and made this amazing Old World Santa quilt, finishing the top in 2019. In the process of making the quilt five years ago, Les had purchased two of the snowy chapel scene panels, stitched them together to make the wintry scene window and trimmed them to match the width of the hexie Santa panel layout. After I zigzag stitched them together and they were secure, we clipped out the excess fabric from the background panels to reduce bulk once it was ready to quilt. This is the piece we cut out.

Today's post is prompted by the fact that we have our first finish for 2025; although, it's been a journey getting here! As with most quilters, our own projects fall to the bottom of the pile when it comes to quilting--we take care of customers and commissions first, not to mention my classes and traveling for trunk shows & workshops. I also seem to get myself all worried about what type of quilting Les will want, thus continuing to procrastinate taking on his quilt tops. I need to turn off that darn quilt police in my mind and just get on with it! 

At our local quilt guild meeting recently, there was a call for holiday/Christmas quilts to be brought to the local arts center to be displayed for December. Les mumbled under his breath something about, "Maybe next year...", clearly commenting on his Santa quilt not yet being quilted. I went home from that meeting, pulled it out, promptly got it pinned and ready, and began quilting. It only took a few days and by our guild Christmas party, Les was able to show his quilted and trimmed Christmas quilt during show & share. There were still a couple more steps to be completed before it was done, but it was close! 

Last week he got out the fussy cut appliques he had saved from the extra fabric and placed them where he wanted them on the quilt and I went to work stitching those pieces down to complete the process. He then got busy binding and stitching the hanging sleeve down, finishing the last stitches on New Year's Day 2025. He immediately put it in the wash with some Synthropol to release any excess dye and a few color catchers to catch it, and when done we pinned it to the design wall, carefully measuring as we pinned to be sure it was as square as possible, and let it dry to block it. 

As we were pinning it to the design wall, I started spotting the various animals from the ark in the hexie blocks! The quilt had become an "I Spy" quilt without realizing it. 

We are excited to get it outside for a photo in the sunshine before we roll it up for the season. It will certainly be shared at trunk shows this year and will come out to hang this coming Christmas. 

Keep on stitching...

Liz