Best of 2018!

The year is almost over, which means everyone (including me!) is publishing their "best of" 2018 lists.  Today I'm going to share my five favorite finishes from 2018 and hope that that motivates me to finish up my lingering 2018 WIPs!

1. There's no question as to what number one is - my huge, mostly paper-pieced Release the Kraken quilt!  This was a block of the month quilt I made mostly in 2017.  Some months I used the provided alternate patterns and one month I made up my own!  I did a lot of work on the quilting, matching thread colors and using a variety of motifs.

2. My first finish from 2018 is also a favorite - Dwight B. Plaid! I even made him a matching pillow (it only took 10 months to finish that!).  This was  a mash-up of two different quilt patterns, a common theme in my quilting.

3. I'm not going real far back for this one - my Text Flags quilt! I love the movement in the gray fabric and the colorful low-volume fabrics. I've experimented with half-square rectangles before, but this was the first time I made an entire quilt with them.  It's also my most successful grid quilting.

4. My quilted tote bag! Making a giant tote bag to haul stuff to quilt guild meetings was on my to-do list forever and I'm so glad that I finally prioritized this.

5. This is primarily a quilting blog, so this little guy is debuting here right now.  I've recently started cross-stitching again.  I don't really like the look of them in hoops, so I've been turning them into mini quilts and hanging them up in my sewing room.  This is my favorite of the three or four that I finished this year.

 I'm linking up my list with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs - thanks for visiting!