2024 Recap

With 2025 coming up in a few days, I thought I’d do a little recap of 2024. It was a busy year, much busier than I meant for it to be. At the beginning of every year, I always say that I’m going to slow down. This year, I even put some steps in place to actually do this. The goal was to book it for the first half of the year and take the second half of the year to slow down and let myself enjoy my favorite parts of my quilty business. Unfortunately, this did not work out, and I ended up just doing everything like I always do. This is a problem that I always have, one that I am working on and hoping to actually fix at some point. Not being a work-aholic/unstable over achiever has made it onto my New Year’s resolution list for the last three or four years, and it’s going on the list again this year. We will see how I do =).

So now for the recap. Of Course, I made a whole bunch of T-Shirt quilts, but not as many as last year. I didn’t schedule as many for 2024 because I needed to make room for a fabulous opportunity I had this year. I was selected to be a 2024 Ambassador for Benartex Fabrics!!! To say that this was a dream come true would be an understatement. I can’t say enough good things about the Benartex Ambassadorship. Everyone I worked with was amazing, I got to play with a whole bunch of gorgeous fabrics, and I got a lot more of my designs out there this year than I usually do. So, for this post, I want to show you some of the things I made with these gorgeous fabrics and tell you a little bit about each project.

Warning! This post has LOTS of pictures of quilts as well as lots of links to some of the posts, tutorials, and products that I made with these quilts. I guess that’s not surprising since I’m recapping a super busy year!

Quarterly Projects

Quarter 1

This is my Dublin Fancy Quilt with the bonus project Sound Waves Baby Quilt. You can get both patterns HERE, or a stand alone pattern for the bonus project HERE. That beautiful fabric I used was all Whispering Lilies by Jackie Robinson. I wrote this pattern a while ago, but I ended up redoing it using some upgraded drawing software for the diagrams and made the colors in the pattern match the colors of this newer quilt in those lovely purples and golds. I had a special label made for this quilt. I always get my labels custom made from Meander & Make. I sent her a graphic that I drew with the pattern, and she was able to use it in the design for that fabulous label you see in the picture below. This kicked off a little obsession that I couldn’t shake. I ended up having labels made with my pattern graphics for 4 of my designs this year. If you have the patterns for any of those quilts and want to have your own label made, she did make a listing for that. You can order those HERE (affiliate link).

Quarter 2

This one is Towers and Tumbles. I used Color & Light by Anna Nyman for the foreground, Superior Solids in Petal for the background, and pieces from Chalk Texture for the binding and backing.

I decided to make this one a FREE pattern as a thank you to my newsletter subscribers. You can join that list and get this pattern sent right to your inbox by filling out THIS FORM. I do FREE stuff a lot and also send out exclusive early buying opportunites with a discount for my subscribers. So, you should really join if you haven’t already. I’d love to have you!

This one was my spin on a classic easy pattern. The pieces are big, and the blocks are big. It’s actually just the same block rotated to make the design. So, it goes together quick, especially for a fairly large quilt at 80″ x 80″. I had a lot of fun with the quilting on this one with three different quilting designs, making the quilting reflect the front of the quilt.

Quarter 3

This is the cover quilt for my Bonnie’s Time Chain pattern. I used High Tides by Nicole DeCamp for the foreground and backing in that quilt. This pattern was part of my effort to name a pattern after both of my grandmothers and two of my great grandmothers who also made quits. Bonnie was the grandmother that I got to spend the most time with. We got to work on a few quilts together. One of those quilts was a Half Square Triangle Hour Glass quilt. So, I decided to make a pattern with hour glasses and name it after her. Another cool thing about this quilt is that it uses my hour glass method/the easiest hour glass method EVER (in my opinion of course). You won’t have to make Half Square Triangles first, and you won’t have to draw any lines. You can read about this method and a little about all the quilts I named after my grandmothers in THIS POST.

Quarter 4

For my Quarter 4 project, I actually made 2 quilts, a two color yardage version, and a layer cake version. Those quilts were both made from my Forkledoodle pattern. I used Upwords by Kimberly Einmo to make them.

This design is one that I accidentally stumbled on over a year ago. I’d been working on T-Shirt quilts all day and into the evening and was a little fried from it. I’d been playing with different types of blocks for a while. So, I pulled out something I’d been working on. I looked at it and wondered what would happen if I do this? Well, this is what happens. I know these quilts look like they might be sort of hard, but I promise they are SEW much easier than they look. You’ll probably laugh when you find out how they really go together.

You can check out my post about this pattern HERE.

FOUR Cut Loose Press Patterns!

Cut Loose Press is a division of Checker Distributors. They offer patterns that print on the front and back of one page. Quilt shops can also carry the printed pattern cards. These are complete patterns that you can get for just $3.99! I like working with them because it gives me the opportunity to offer you some super affordable patterns. When I submitted my first design to them for consideration, I didn’t really know what to expect. Just about every pattern designer has heard at least a few “no’s” before they start hearing “yes” every now and then, or maybe that’s just me… So, I wasn’t sure if they would accept my design. I was SEW excited when they got back with me just a few days later to say that they had accepted my design! You can check out all of my Cut Loose Press patterns HERE.

Here’s some pictures with a little about each quilt.

This was that first design I submitted to Cut Loose Press. I call this one Almost Time. I used Marbleized from Benartex Better Basics to make that one. It comes in lots of pretty colors. I took that picture on one of the few days that we had snow. It’s not much snow, but that’s usually the best I can do in Alabama.

I call this one Franken-Patches. I used Begins With Mum by Quilt in a Day. This is another one of those patterns that is SEW much easier than it looks that you’ll probably laugh when you find out how it really goes together. I have to admit, I like things that look harder than they are/are easier than they look. Those are probably the easiest Half Square Triangles you’ll ever make. This was also one of the designs where I had a label made specifically for it. You can get one HERE (there’s that affiliate link again).

I call this one Nine Carat Quilt. I used On Dragonfly Wings by Ann Lauer for this one. I couldn’t resist adding one piece from Marbleized because I thought it played so well with that gorgeous fabric line. Can you guess which piece is from the different line? Something a little special about this one is that I made some YouTube tutorials while I was making this quilt. That doesn’t sound that impressive, but using YouTube more was a big step for me. I was always a little self conscious in front of the camera, and I still am, but it’s been fun and has definitely improved my confidence. You can check out the video I made for Mathcing up the prints in your quilt backing and Free Motion Quilting Stipples.

I call this one Crosshairs Quilt. This is my last pattern for 2024. I love how bright and fun this one is and how all the negative space makes the design stand out. I used fabrics from multiple lines in this one. The foreground, and backing are a combination of New Worlds and Newer Worlds by Rob Appell. The background is from On Dragonfly Wings by Ann Lauer, and the binding is from Marbleized.

Quilt Alongs

I hosted two quilt alongs this year! I had a lot of fun with these. They were a great opportunity to interact with my quilt alongers while also getting to play with pretty fabrics. The quilt alongs are finished, but I have the links to all the posts from previous quilt alongs on my Quilt Alongs page.

The first quilt along this year was for Dublin Fancy, and the second one was for Partial Dreams. I already talked about Dublin Fancy at the beginnig of the post, so I won’t repeat myself on that one. Partial Dreams was the first FREE pattern I made available to my newsletter subscribers. I was super excited to get to make that one again and use the fabulous Dazzle Dots by Christa Watson. I love how bright and happy this quilt looks in that fabric. Partial Dreams was another one of the designs that I had a specific label made for. You can get that label HERE (affiliate link).

I used this version of Partial Dreams to make YouTube tutorials for Quilting Double C’s and Adding a corner label with an exposed hand stitch.

My First Block of the Month!

This was a big step for me! I had a lot of fun with my first block of the month. One of the best things about it is that I got to work with the little SnuggleBug a lot for this one. I posted fun animations for all of the blocks, and the little SnuggleBug made all of them. All I did was pick the songs to go with the reels. This is my Ninja Star Sampler block of the month. I used Marbleized from Benartex Better Basics, and I think it’s PERFECT for my Ninja Stars! I decided to quilt this one in swirls to symbolize the spinning motion of ninja stars.

Just a little about how this idea came to me… I was drawing something else. I always get my best ideas when I’m working on something else… Anyway, the design I was making accidently formed a ninja star in the center. I happened to be watching Naruto with the little SnuggleBug while I was drawing this. So, I decided to put that original design on hold for a while and just draw ninja star blocks instead. Don’t knock watching cartoons with your kids until you try it! It’s definitely more fun than adulting, and you never know where you might find some inspiration! That other design was cool too so I do hope to get back to it at some point.

I had a quilt on dispaly at Bernina University!

My Sew Diamond quilt got to be part of Benartex’s Be Sew Fabulous display at Bernina University in June! I was definitely on my best behaviour when I made this one, and of course I had to get a custom label made for this design.

I got to design some patterns for some of the Benartex fabric lines!

Rella’s Diamonds is a FREE pattern that I wrote for Benartex for Gratitude and Grace by Pat Sloan. I love this fabric line and was SEW excited that my design was selected for this. The pattern was based on an old quilt top my mom has that was made by my great grandmother, Rella. I have a blog post about this if you’d like to read more. I also made a bunch of YouTube tutorials to help you make this one. You can see that playlist HERE. By the time this article posts, this quilt will have been gifted away. I decided to give it to my mom for Christmas since her grandmother/my great grandmother was a big inspiration for this quilt pattern. Stay tuned because I have more FREE patterns coming for you next year for some more gorgeous Benartex fabric lines.

AND that’s not even all of them!

I have more quilts made from the beautiful Benartex fabrics I got to play with this year, but I’ll hold off until sometime next year to show you those. Some are for Quilting magazines so I can’t show them until the magazine issue comes out. Some are for fabric lines that aren’t available yet, so I’ll wait until later to make a full post on those. I owe SEW much thanks to Benartex for the opportunity to be one of their ambassadors this year!

That’s all I’ve got for today

As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog!

I hope you enjoyed it.

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Happy quilting!