Goodbye 2023 and Hello 2024

It’s almost the middle of January and I am finally ready to say goodbye 2023 and ushering 2024 with my first Finally Finish of my LOVE 2024 wall quilt. Since we were at the GP House since Christmas Eve and not returning until January 4th, I wasn’t ready to post my 2023 tally which I will share later in this Post.

When I was preparing for our extended stay at the GP House, I decided to take an unexpected UFO which I found while working on another project for Country Threads 2023/24 Dirty Dozen UFO Challenge. I’m not sure if this was really an UFO since all I did was tie the pattern to some hand-dye fabrics with a backing fabric together and it laid underneath my big basting table which has eight shelves underneath full of fabrics, scraps, UFOs and fabric pulls. It’s been sitting on the shelf for almost ten years when I first intended to make this when my youngest son and his then wife purchased their first home. They painted each room of their house in different, bright colors so I thought this would be a perfect wall hanging. I never got around to making this and may have been a good thing since a divorce happened almost two years ago. After coming across this bundle, I thought it would be a good project to work on and made quite a few changes which I may not have not done if I made this earlier. First, instead of piecing the blocks using freezer paper templates for the letter blocks, I decided that my piecing would be more accurate if I made FPP for each letter even though it meant tracing the letters backward on a light box using newsprint plus doing this twenty-four times, six for each letter. Another change made was to use Shot and Pepper Cotton instead of the hand-dye fabrics since the colors were more vibrant.

I like FPP and this is the third project in 2023 which I used this technique and you think this would come easy for me but it doesn’t because I always forget there is a sequence and how I start is to fold all of the seam and cutting lines and the first patch should always be cut to size with a 1/4” seam allowance. This makes sewing the patches so much easier. I thought by writing this I would remember this for the next time.

I started these blocks on New Year’s Eve and all twenty-four blocks were finished by the time we left which was somewhat of a surprise since the darling granddaughter was with us ten out of the eleven days and usually in the same room as I was in. The distractions were minimal as long as I took a break to color with her. I should mention that for each set of letters, I used cool fabrics for three and warm fabrics for the other three to make sure the colors were balanced as well as planning on using two cool and two warm color letters for each word.  I did not plan for LOVE 2024 to be my first finish for the year but thought since I always like to start the New Year with a bright and colorful project plus I didn’t want to leave these blocks laying around for too long and decided to continue working on this after we came home since I had the momentum.

I made a slight change with the sashing by using only cornerstones in the center sashing. I’m pretty sure the color used was Kona Yarrow which is fun to say if you’re a Pirate wannabe. Another small change was to put the four larger border blocks in the corner instead in the middle of the top and bottom border.

And the last change made was the original backing chosen almost ten years ago (left) was replaced because I thought the colors were not bold enough as the top so I found a Libby Lehman Threadplay print which I am pretty sure is over ten years old

One of the things I noticed about the LOVE pattern was that Mary Etherington made this in 2013 and machine quilted it with straight lines which may have been “new” at that time, especially continuing it through the borders. Mary is one of the reasons why I started to  quilt with straight lines and was able to see you can do this with both modern and traditional quilts.

I machine-quilted with a Coats & Clark golden tan thread, 3/4” apart which went well except for the right side which looks a little wonky. I was ready to finally do a scrappy binding like the pattern but then remembered that I had Kaffe Fassett stripes so I used a fat quarter which was just enough. Because this stripe had warm tones, I did not use any gold or yellow squares in the border. LOVE 2024 measures 31”x44”. Sadly, the LOVE pattern is no longer available from Mary Etherington/Country Threads.

I have to mention two funny stories relating to this quilt, Green Bay Packers and Kaffe Fassett fabrics. The first story is living near Chicago and rooting for the Bears, while I was finishing the LOVE 2024 flimsy, the Bears were playing their  arch rival, the Packers whose Quarterback’s last name is Love. The Packers did win and I want to say that my LOVE quilt played no part in this. I did send an email to Quilt Sista Roseanne, Home Sewn By Us who is a diehard Packers fan. The second story is that earlier this year, someone contacted me after reading my Blog to see if I would be willing to sell her some of my Kaffe stripe scraps as she was making a jacket. Before I communicate with anyone I don’t know, I do some background digging on FB and found that she lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I replied I would be happy to send her some at no charge but would she have a problem with them being from a die-hard Chicago Bear Fan. Not at all she said and mentioned that perhaps we could meet at a Bears/Packer game which I promptly confessed that I’m really not a die-hard fan and was only joking. Her reply  was that in all the many years she lived in Green Bay, she has never attended a game. I was busted but did feel I should have reported her to the Packers. It’s fun meeting Blog Buddies, isn’t it.

I do like making blocks with letters which had me thinking of the possibility of making another version of LOVE 2024 but using other four letter words. I have to confess that I thought of this when I was saying or thinking a bad four letter word (depending if the darling granddaughter was around) beginning with S whenever I made a mistake which was often at the start. This had me thinking there are a lot of other nice four letters important to me this year and I chose four, if and when, I make another wall quilt which are LOVE, HOME, HOPE and VOTE. It would be easy to design the letters based on LOVE and I only need to draft them on my trusty graph paper.

Now for my 2023 Tally:

31 Finally Finishes:    19 Lap Size or Larger

                                    12 Baby/Wall/Runners

Flimsies                        3

One of these Flimsies I was planning on this to be my first finish for 2024 but now I will be getting it ready for quilting later.

I did not include in the count several place mats and a small wall hanging. If you’re interested in seeing the quilts you can click on this Link.

I didn’t  compile a Best Five or Top Nine list because I really am pleased with all of my finishes this year and for me 2023 sure felt like a long creative year. 

We expecting a big snowstorm tomorrow which will delay our trip to the GP House but I am so looking forward to what I call great sewing conditions. Happy Belated New Years!

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation/NTT