PHD in 2024: End of the Year Wrap Up

It's always an adjustment to move from the previous year to the new year.  Mostly it's a mind reset, but it did take me the better part of the morning to reset my quilting tracking spreadsheet for the new year.  That first meant making sure all of the quilty stuff that went on in 2024 was captured. With that all done, it made pulling all the information for my end of the year PHD report easier. 

The year ended with six finishes, six projects moved to finished quilt tops, progress on the rest of the UFOs on the list and six new starts.  So I broke even in terms of finishes and starts for the year, there was no net change in my UFO numbers. But I finished double the number of quilts in 2024 than I did in 2023.  So I'll take that as successful year even though I didn't earn my PHD for the year.

The finishes this year ranged from some of the oldest on my UFO list to one of the new starts. 

First row: A Flutter (self designed), Blue Birds (self designed), Shadow Demon (self designed)

Second row: Rhododendron (Bonnie Hunter), Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl), String Lights (Meadow Mist Designs) 

The projects that became finished quilt tops also range from some of my oldest UFOs to one of this year's new starts.  

First row:  Chocolate Marshmallow (Seabreeze Quilts), Squared Away (So Scrappy), Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter)

Second row: Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs), Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter), Betty (Meadow Mist Designs)

There was good progress on a few other projects this year as well.  

Grandmother's Choice (renamed Kate's Choice) was supposed to be my quilt as you go project. It hadn't been touched in twelve years. I finished all the blocks, but didn't do much on the learning to quilt part of the project. There's always 2025 right?   

I didn't do as much on the Butterfly panel this year.  One butterfly and some of the fill in foliage got finished.  This is my travel project. It went on a few trips, but this year I was able to take quilts that needed to be bound on a number of trips away from home. So I still got a lot of hand work done, just not on this project.

Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) has been on the active list for the last couple of years. I make a few blocks each week.  This year all the orange blocks got finished. I only need to finish 3 more of the red blocks to be done with that color.  That should happen this month, then I'm left with all the cool colors to finish. 

The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap quilt (Kevin the Quilter) wasn't on my PHD list for 2024, but it became an active project when I needed something that would empty out my scrap bins a bit and be a good leaders and enders project.  I need over 200 of the blue 4 patches and over 100 of the yellow. There's ten 4 patches in each stack, so I'm a long way off from that.  So this will probably be my leaders and enders the rest of the year.  

Of the six new starts for 2024, one is a finished quilt (Shadow Demon), one is a finished quilt top (Betty), the remaining 4 are in various stages of completion.  

I hadn't planned on doing the guild BOM, but it was such a different design that I decided to go for it. I mostly kept up, except for December.  All the blocks are made, all that's left is assembly and cutting all the sashing and border strips.  This should make it to finished quilt top before the end of the first quarter this year.  

Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) was going along pretty well until December. I've made some progress on the last clue but, didn't get it done before the January clue came out this morning. This morning's clue includes the instructions for final assembly and I'm excited to see how my version comes together.  

Old Town kicked off in late November.  A month and a half later, I've finished clue 1. Made decent progress on clue 2, but am way behind on all the other clues. There is some of each clue finished, but not enough for more than one block I'm guessing.  We'll see what I can get done before Friday's clue comes out.  

The last new project wasn't planned for at all.  But when I agreed to take on the guild BOM this year, it meant I had to have the January block ready to show at the December guild meeting.  I've made this quilt before, but with the same background for all the blocks. This time I'm going scrappy on the background as well.  

That pretty much wraps up my 2024 in the sewing room. I'm hoping for a successful 2025.  Linking up with Miss P Designs USA for the 2024 PHD Wrap Up.  

July 2024 PHD Report

July wasn't nearly as busy as June, so there was a lot more time for playing in the sewing room.  Enough playing that there is finally an update to the PHD report. 

Just two finishes so far this year, but I'm doing better than last year when my first finish wasn't till September and the second finish wasn't till November.  

The finish for July was the 2023 Stay at Home Round Robin (Quilting Gail).  

I'm really happy with how this one turned out.  My Guy really likes it. That's a good thing because it's his new TV recliner quilt. He won't need it for a few months, but he'll enjoy it once the fall chill settles in sometime in October.  

A finish is always nice, but it takes good progress on the project list to move things in that direction. There was plenty of movement in the current active list. 

The oldest project on my works in progress list is Kate's Choice (previously known as Grandmother's Choice).  

Just two blocks needed to finish the 5 by 6 layout.  I had some thought of doing an inner ring with the lighter blocks. The layout needs a lot of work, but no point in getting serious about that till the last two blocks are finished.  Both are in process, I just didn't quite get the far before the end of the month.  

The teal blocks filled in a lot of holes in the top quarter of Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter).

The upper left quarter of the quilt is filled out, now to make some progress on the upper right quarter.  I'm going to need to be careful with the placement of the darkest blue and purple blocks.  But so far I'm happy with how this project is coming together. 

A new project got added to my works in progress list, The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap Quilt (Kevin the Quilter).

The SSSS quilt is the new leaders and enders project.  The mystery started in July of 2019, but I only worked on it for a month.  I've got 50 yellow 4 patches and 90 blue 4 patches.  I need almost 200 of each colorway for the final layout.  I wanted a project that would help empty out some of my scrap bins. Pulling out all the blue 2.5 strips made a big different in that bin. I don't use yellow a lot so not so many strips of it, but I have lots of yellow fat quarters to use for those strips. This will make a good leaders and enders project.  

The completed Rhododendron Mystery quilt top (Bonnie Hunter) has been hanging in the closet since April waiting for it's turn to be finished up.  

The back is pieced and prepped for quilting. The plan is to prep the Rhododendron quilt top this weekend and get it out to the quilter sometime next week. This will likely be my finished project for September.

Grad Girl requested a wedding quilt for a very good grad school friend. They met in undergrad at OSU and are craft buddies (at least they were before both got insanely busy with grad school).  After offering Grad Girl several options off my UFO list, she settled on Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl). 

The blocks were finished just over a year ago.  Diatom is on my quilt plan for this year, but I just hadn't gotten that far. I played around in EQ and decided to add sashing and borders to this project to increase the size a bit so it would be a better couple cuddle quilt.  I got as far as cutting the sashing strips, but that's it. The plan is to get this quilt assembled, a backing made and send it out for quilting in September in hopes Grad Girl will have it by Thanksgiving. We'll see if that works or not.  

Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter) has moved from being the leaders and enders project to having the blocks sewn together.  

As is typical, I'm not doing the borders the same as Bonnie's version. I had to make 8 more of the triangle in the square blocks plus four corner stones before I could start on the pieced border.  Indigo Way should be a pieced quilt top by the end of the month.  It may not get quilted this year, but I'll be happy just to have the quilt top finished before this year's mystery gets going.  

The 2024 SAHRR (Quilting Gail) came back from the quilter late last month. 

Trudy did a beautiful job with the quilting.  I've got the label designed, but not printed. The label is going to be a surprise, so I won't be posting about that till after Grad Girl has the quilt. I still need to make the binding. The plan is to get going on both those things this weekend.  This will be my August finish.  

I  finally got caught up with the Guild BOM.    

I'm not thrilled with the darker gray that I used for these blocks, but I'm too far along to fix it.  Hopefully it will look OK once all the blocks are made.  

All the progress this month shows up in the bar graph as a bit more color. 

Every category has a bit of progress over this last month. A new category was added to include the SSSS quilt that wasn't part of my original quilt plan for this year.  I expect one more finished quilt and at least two finished tops for August.  So look for longer bars in at least some of the categories next month. 

Linking up with P Designs USA for the July PHD Report.

Finish #2 for 2024

My handwork project during our 4th of July road trip was the binding for the 2023 Stay at Home Round Robin sponsored by Quilting Gail.  I finished the binding on Tuesday, but wasn't able to get photos till Sunday afternoon.  Here's the finished Blue Birds. 

This was my first time participating in the round robin. It was such fun and I'm really happy with how the final quilt turned out. All the blocks are made from my blue, green, purple and teal scraps. This quilt is destined to be My Guy's new TV recliner quilt.  He's been using one of my rejects, a QOV quilt that had major problems with a fabric that bleed badly when I washed it.  I'd made one for him a couple of years ago but Grad Girl begged to take that one to grad school. It really was too big for the recliner so My Guy let that one go.  (Grad Girl has threatened to take this quilt as well. Which is why this year's SAHRR has a black cat at the center and will be my next finish).  

Here's the label:

 

The bird on the left is a Mountain Blue Bird (the ones we have locally are Eastern Blue Birds).  The bird on the right is an Indigo Bunting, which are native to Oklahoma.  Most Saturdays in the spring and summer My Guy heads out to the blue bird trail just to the south of the research center to check the blue bird nests.  He photographs all types of birds on those expeditions.  So it's not surprising I picked Blue Birds as the name of this quilt.  

Trudy quilted large leafy vines over the quilt. 

It adds a very nice texture to the whole quilt.  The two birds in the center are fabric representations of a Indigo Bunting and a Blue Bird.   

The backing really fits the theme. 

Maybe the birds aren't blue, but there is plenty of teal and purple which show up on the front of the quilt.  

Finish #2 is definitely one of my favorites from the UFO list.  My Guy won't be needing this quilt for a few months. But it will be ready to go when late fall gets here.  

Linking up with the Monday Design Wall, Patchwork & Quilts. and Oh Scrap.