I really didn't make any resolutions this year. I have been struggling more each week with my health. Finding answers has been a long road. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer a couple weeks ago. My testing has shown a mutation that can indicate a more aggressive strain. I'm just in the beginning of all this, so there's many unknowns still. I don't think this is the whole of my problems but I'm hoping I am at least on a path now of getting back to better at some point soon! I decided this year I want to focus more on doing things I WANT to do in quilting. I love house quilts so that was first on my list. I also tried free motion quilting for the real first time! I think I did pretty good you guys!
I know I need lots of practice but I was pretty darn happy with my first go and I can totally do this someday!
I did enough that I know what speed will work good for my machine. I only had one issue and it was only in a couple places, what I think they call "eyelashes" on the back. I can't remember what causes that so I need to go back to my Craftsy class and look that up. Or I'm sure one of you have the answer :)
Next I tried a very simple paper piecing. Twice. And I failed. I learned that you have to start with pretty big scraps until you get more experienced. I followed directions (what I thought to be) exactly and two of my pieces still ended up going the wrong direction. I will get it figured out because I love the beautiful quilts that can be made with this technique. Another one of my goals this year is to make harder quilts. Ones that may take twice as long but will be worth the effort!
I wanted to share something I found at Big Lots. They had these newsprint packs on clearance for 75 cents! I bought the last 3 they had hoping it would work through my printer and it did, perfectly! I had to trim them slightly to fit through my printer but they worked great for printing my paper piecing patterns. I may need a lot of them...
Anyhow, if you paper piece and have a Big Lots near, you may want to raid the clearance aisle!