Best of 2017

I'm linking up with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs to share my Best of 2017 finishes!

Since my blog is relatively new, I'm going to pick my five favorite finishes.  I'm currently quilting another quilt that is high on my list of favorites, but it's going to miss the cut-off for this linky party - please come back to check it out after the new year.  It features an Elizabeth Hartman pattern and it's just gorgeous.

1. Pineapple Mini Quilt.  I don't consider myself a super-trendy person, but my best friend and I were smitten by the pineapple trend of this summer! And what else to do with a trend than make her a birthday table topper out of it?

2. Range Quilt - This is a quilt I made for my brother and his girlfriend.  They are graphic designers living in Utah and I knew instantly that this was the perfect quilt pattern for them.  I subtitled it "Sunset Over Utah" and they told me that I got the colors exactly right.  I also took extra time to tell a story with the quilting on this one and my brother thought that that was really cool.  He also said his girlfriend had been wanted one of my quilts for a while - I hope it gets lots of love!

The dark line is from the backing - you can only see it when the quilt is held up in the sunlight.

3. Cobblestone Quilts.  I made two Cobblestone Quilts - a Halloween version and a Heather Bailey version.  This is such a great pattern for showing off large-scale prints and it comes together quickly.  Both of them are quilted minimally, meaning they are super-snuggly.

4. I Love Sushi Mini Quilt.  This quilt holds a special place in my heart because it was my first published pattern (in Make Modern magazine (affiliate link)).  I designed a version of this as a Valentine's Day gift for my husband and then modified it into this sweet little pattern.  My kids request sushi almost weekly (and my husband hand-makes it!) so this is very appropriate for our family.

5. It's hard to pick just one more, so I'm going to pick two of my Quilt-Along finishes.  After working on these quilts for such a long time, I always feel so attached to them.  It's no surprise that I rarely gift my quilt-along quilts - they stay safe with me!

The first is my Moda Building Blocks quilt.  I bought this quilt kit right after it debuted at Quilt Market in 2014 and even bought quilt backing at the same time.  Then I put it in my closet and it sat and sat until September 2016, when an Instagram quilt-along started and I finally pulled it out.  I finished this in December and sent it out for quilting (a rare treat) because of its size.  It came back shortly after the new year and became my first finish of 2017.

My second is my Summer Sampler 2016.  I stayed up-to-date sewing all the blocks during the summer of 2016, but it got set aside and I didn't quilt this until the beginning of 2017.  This quilt is completely custom quilted.  To make things easier, I used a white thread on the back, but all of the thread colors on the top match.  This quilt fulfilled a couple of goals for me.  First, it uses a text print for the background.  I forced myself to not care about the direction of the text when I was putting this together, so it goes in different directions all over the quilt.  Second, it only uses Alison Glass Sun Print Mercury fabric, so it used up an old fat quarter bundle that I had bought and was saving for the perfect project.  Finally, I experimented with a non-traditional layout.  This a great quilt that makes me smile every time I use it!

My favorite block is the nine patch made out of Drunkard's Path blocks.
I only ever saw them as white with the colored shell, but I got a lot of comments about how clever it was to put the white on the inside.  It was interesting to hear different perspectives on that!

Thanks for looking!  I love taking trips down my quilty memory lane and I hope you enjoyed it too!