Rainbow Farmer's Wife {End of RSC 2016}

It is fitting that today is the last day of 2016, and I just finished the quilt top of my 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge project, my scrappy 1920s Farmer's Wife. Before Christmas, I showed my rows partially completed, and I trimmed up the quilt top last night!

Here's my finished top before I trimmed it:

At 67 x 88, it just barely fits into my kitchen. This is a pretty decent twin size, so I don't plan on adding a border. I don't know if I want to quilt this one myself or not, but my goal was to get the top done before the end of the year, and I accomplished that! Hooray!

Last night I got the top trimmed and here it is "in the wild" aka on the dead grass of our apartment complex, which just has to do for the time being.

I was pleasantly surprised by two things in putting this quilt top together. First, I was impressed with how well the colors end up blending from one another in the quilt. I think it helps that I didn't just do lines of each color - I tried to "interlock" each color with the next to make the color changes less abrupt.

Second, I am wildly happy with how nicely all of the different prints, and styles of prints, are playing together. there are a few larger scale prints that stick out more than the rest, but overall, I don't find it to be too busy nor too gaudy. I think the simple grey setting is a huge factor in keeping it from being too much.

Sharing at the last Scrap Happy Saturday of the year! Hopefully by next Saturday I'll have my plan for the RSC 2017!

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Best of 2016 at Little Bunny Quilts

It's that time to get nostalgic about how fast the year has gone, what we accomplished, and what lies ahead! It also means that it's time for Meadow Mist Designs' annual Best of 2016 link-up!

I've decided to share my five most popular posts (based on pageviews) but these are probably also my five favorite finished projects from this year!

#1 -- Candy Shop Quilt
This is probably my favorite Moda Bake Shop project to date!

#2 -- Groovy Wishes Quilt
This is my version of the 2014 Wishes quilt along from the Fat Quarter Shop! I love the bright colors on the dark grey background as well as the fun pieced backing.

#3 -- Sparkle Tree Skirt and Table Runner
These were made for Benartex's Sew in Love with Fabric blog for two Christmas themed hops and I just love this fabric so much!

#4 -- Dragonfly Midnight Mystery Quilt
This is my finished version of the 2015-2016 Meadow Mist Designs Midnight Mystery quilt. I love this color scheme, despite it being far out of my normal comfort zone!

#5 -- Wallflowers Row Quilt
This is my finished 2015 Quilter's Choice Row Quilt, made with Allison Harris's Wallflowers Line. I love all of the different blocks and fabrics! You can get the pattern on Craftsy for free!

Those are my five most popular/five favorite finishes from this year! Hop on over to Meadow Mist Designs to see what other people have chosen as their favorites!

Farmer's Wife {In Rows}

The first thing I've been working on from my December WIP-busting list is my Farmer's Wife quilt that I have been working on as a part of the 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

I decided to lay out my blocks in a rainbow ombre fashion (that's the best way that I can describe it!) starting with brown at the upper left corner, then progressing through orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, purple, red, and finally pink in the lower right corner.

Originally, I had planned to use my neutral sashing and triangle fabric with cornerstones, but ultimately decided against it because it was going to be a lot more work. Sure, it would definitely look neat-o, but I think the blocks will "float" more without cornerstones.

I decided to use 1 inch finished sashing for this quilt since the blocks are 6 inches finished. I worked on two rows at a time to get the blocks, sashing strips, and setting triangles into rows.

My goal today is to get the top all together and figure out if it needs borders or not. Sharing at Scrap Happy Saturday!

2017 Goal Setting Party with Quilting Jetgirl

Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl his hosting her annual new year goal setting party! I've decided to join in the fun this year.

Here are my quilting goals broken down:

1. Busting my WIP list.

As I posted previously, I'm feeling very overwhelmed by my current number of works in progress (WIPs). I'd like to focus most of my efforts on finishing my WIPs this year, but I am not going to completely prohibit myself from starting a new project because I know there will be QALs that I will want to participate in next year as well as new projects I will "need" to start.

So I'm going to implement a "three for one" system. Three completely finished projects off of the WIP list means I get to start a project of my choosing. My ultimate goal would be to get my WIP list under 10 by the end of the year, including any new projects I might start.

2. Continuing to expand my FMQ skills

This is going to be accomplished in conjunction with #1! I have quite a few nearly-completed WIPs that are small enough for me to feel confident in quilting myself. I'd like to work on more filler motifs, but also work on more decorative FMQ as well.

3. Producing one tutorial per month

Between my own QAL, producing quilts for Moda Bake Shop, and tutorials for Benartex, I had 13 tutorials published which is a huge undertaking! Unfortunately last year a few of these were clustered very close together which was rather difficult, so I'd really like to spread these out a little bit more which should make the process more manageable.

4. Hosting a new QAL

This is already in the works, and different from what I have done before! If I expand it out to my ideal plan, it would fulfill my goal of one tutorial a month! Stay tuned for more details. :)

5. Participate in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again in 2017

I loved participating in the RSC this year. I made a noticable dent in my scrap bins and I am so happy with my Farmer's Wife quilt! I am not planning to make 111 different blocks next year (thanks but no thanks!) and I think I might make all churn dashes. Maybe in different sizes, but maybe not. I definitely need something much simpler and potentially more versatile than the Farmer's Wife.

Hop on over to Quilting Jetgirl to see what everyone else is planning for 2017!

Traveling Quilt Bee: Month #5

This month isn't actually a month -- it's a month and a half because of the holidays. For November/December, I worked on Michelle's quilt. She requested a palette of navy, coral. teal, and purple. I decided to try to add on multiple sections since I had the quilt for longer.

The first section I added was two sides' worth of four patches to break up the larger pieced blocks.

I used selected strips from an Architextures jelly roll that fit her color scheme. Neither edge came out perfectly "square" with an even number of four patches, but it still looks good to me.

Next, I decided that I would make a strip of 6 inch blocks along one of the long sides of the quilt top. I used a bunch of my favorite patterns from the Farmer's Wife blocks and added two 3 inch blocks to get it to the right length.

As of right now this quilt is approximately 54 x 51 inches. I kept toying with the idea of adding a third section , but ultimately decided against it when I had finished making my 6 inch blocks and just didn't feel like I had enough of the right colors to make a whole additional section. Instead, I went through my pile of abandoned bee blocks and sent off six 12 inch blocks for Michelle to add if she likes them!

My quilt continues to grow rapidly! Nela had my quilt in November/December, which I was very excited about because she and I had been in the Stash Bee together! Here is what it looked like when she sent it off to its last stop!

She added the row of HST blocks at the bottom of the quilt in this picture. As of right now, it is 54 inches wide and 67 inches long! One more row on each side of the quilt, and this thing will be nearly twin sized!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and NTT Thursday!

PS. I have an end-of-year goal to be the 800th most popular DIY and Crafts blog on Bloglovin. I am currently 820th, so I am SO CLOSE to my goal. If you don't follow me in some other method already, please consider following me on Bloglovin!