2019 Review:   Family, Education, Quilting (In that Order!)
While I have been relentlessly working to enjoy my family and add to my skills in data science,  I managed to still spend time with my best quilting friends and finish some projects along the way.   It was a light year for photographs and blog posts, but I hope you all enjoyed the “tricks” that I shared during the Dueling Threads retreat.

Quilty Finishes:  7 quilts long-armed for others, 2 gifted quilts, several minis and some charity quilts, 2 quilt shows, and 2 retreats.  Plus,  I got to see my Mom participate in her first quilt show!  She does beautiful work.

I feel pretty good about 2019, and some of my latest works in progress are going to turn out great!  Here is a sneak preview to some of my favorites for 2020 in my studio.

1. “Delft” Quilt:  All in blues a little like Dutch pottery decorated with metal oxides.  It still needs border and quilting, but I am well on my way.
   

2.  Data is Beautiful – Take 1:   This design is an original work in progress and was inspired by a graph that I saw during one of my classes.  Sometimes graphs are not very good for telling a story or conveying information, but they sure are beautiful! I remember sitting there saying to myself.  , “That is a terrible graph, but it needs to be a quilt!”.   I’m still working out the technical details, but I enjoyed choosing the colors and coming up with the first draft.

3.  Icy Aurora:   I started this quilt in Fall of 2017, and am finally to the home stretch of custom quilting it.  It is a variation on the binding tool star quilt that I saw in the MSQC Block magazine.   I used a scaled down version of the binding tool to create the outer border.  The white in the quilt is a batik with subtle icy blue dye mixed in, so I am quilting it with thread of a similar color, called “iceberg”.

4. What’s a snowman with out a snowball fight?:  This pattern by Wildfire Designs Alaska, had been on my bucket list for a while.  I didn’t make it originally because I waited too long and the fabric in the pattern had already sold out.  I found new fabric in spring 2019, so tackled this in December and January.  However, you can see that I imagined him as a whole and am adding some fun mittens and snowballs from the Lori Holt, Bee in My Bonnet, Quilty Fun book to the bottom so that he can hang on my door.