What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I'm really trying not to start new projects, but I am making a special mini quilt that is underway. I'll tell you more about why I'm making it when I finish it later this month, but here's a peek at what I'm up to. I ordered Kona Corsage, Rose, and Celadon to partner with Yarrow, Windsor, and the unknown dark green. I also bought my first yard of Kona Snow for this project as it will be the background. This evening I cut out everything except for the background.

Here's the sketch for my ...

December is underway and so is Cheryl's annual Blog Writing Challenge. This is my 4th year in a row participating in the December daily blog writing challenge. I have some finished projects to show you, some works in progress to update you on, and some year in review and goal posts planned for the end of the month.

Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm a quilter, traveling (via Zoom these days) quilt teacher and lecturer, and pattern writer. I'm currently participating in a 100 Day Challenge to make progress toward completing one of my oldest WIPs.

What else ...

I really tried to narrow down my 2020 goals for this year to a smaller number of items. So here they are!

Write a Book

I have a book that's been swimming around in my head. It's a quilting technique book. 2020 is my year to focus on that. My first step will be to take the big picture ideas I have and to map those into a rough table of contents and bite sized chunks so I can have small 1-day or 1-week goals to work on.

Patterns and Other Product Development

I have numerous patterns that ...

2019 was a bit of a blur. We moved back into our house, then back out and back into it again. (All in the course of about 2 weeks.) We had an epic family vacation to Ireland in June. And my mom's health took a turn for the worse just after that. She spent a lot of time in the hospital the second half of the year, but is thankfully back home, stable, and generally feeling well these days.

I continue to rail against my perfectionist tendencies. I forget who said it or which podcast the interview was on ...

In my annual quick review, I'm sharing my five most visited 2019 blog posts here. The Swoon blocks and Round Robin project both feature my favorite color palette! And the curves and Turnabout Patchwork projects were the same Kona palette. :-)

Top Five 2019 Posts

1. Island Batik Getaway Blog Hop - 907 pageviews
2. Seven Swoon Blocks - 767 pageviews
3. Curves Mini Quilt for Curated Quilts - 677 pageviews
4. Turnabout Patchwork Blog Hop - 676 pageviews
5. Round Robin Kickoff - 542 pageviews

Visit my Best of 2015, Best of 2016, Best of 2017, and Best of 2018. I also shared my Five Favorite Finishes of the ...

Here are a few of my favorite quilty things to read lately.

Books

My newest quilt book is The Quilter's Field Guide to Color by Rachel Hauser. Not only is it a colorful feast for the eyes, but it is an interactive workbook with a large color swatch library and 14 experiments.

In addition to books about quilting and fabric and color, I read the entire Quilting Cozy series by Carol Dean Jones this year. The books follow the lives of a group of retirees (and various other characters) who live in a quaint, retirement village. Sarah Miller, main ...

For the past two years I've shared my five favorite finishes of the year. Here are my favorites from 2019. In no particular order...

Modern Antique Tiles

I enjoyed designing this piece for my Island Batik challenge for the Vintage Reimagined prompt. I used the extending lines concept from Sylvia Schaefer's book, The Quilter's Negative Space Handbook. Read more.

Enjoy Mini Mini

This mini mini quilt ties my smallest quilt ever made, measuring just 2 1/4" x 9". It was created in response to the Project QUILTING 10.5 challenge: Abecedarius. I enjoyed (ha, see what ...

On Tuesday I shared my Top Nine from Instagram. Another fun IG activity this time of year is Year of Colour. It's a web app for creating a graphic representation of the colors using throughout all IG posts in 2019. You can also get a report of the last month, last year, or custom period of your choice. The controls have changed this year, but there are a variety of options, including organizing your year by date, hue, size, and brightness. You can also remove your dullest and/or darkest colors. Here are a few views of my year ...

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

And Happy Hanukkah to those continuing to celebrate this week! Tonight was the halfway point (photo above from the 24th), so there are four nights left. I thought I'd share some of our favorite Hanukkah songs from YouTube. Enjoy!

How Do You Spell Channukkahh

Happy Joyous Hanukkah

Chanukah ("Shake It Off")

Or really, anything by Six13

Boyz II Menorah 'A Week and A Day'

Ocho Kandelikas (audio only)

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

The post Hanukkah Songs We Enjoy appeared first on Sarah ...

Happy Hanukkah!

My good quilty friend, Mel Beach, recently finished up three winter/holiday mini quilts and I wanted to share her Hanukkah Mandala quilt with you. Be sure to visit Mel's blog to see her other two projects.

Mel's Hanukkah Inspired Mandala is a variation of her Mod Mandalas; in this workshop Mel teaches everything her students need to know to make their own mandala mini quilt, including bias tape appliqué and traditional piecing. She also teaches a variety of other workshops including free motion and walking foot quilting.

She used the pearlescent and glittery Fairy Frost ...

Happy Hanukkah!

I've been on a quest to make enough reusable Hanukkah gift bags to wrap the gifts for all eight nights before Hanukkah started this evening. Last month I shared a tutorial for a quick pillowcase style gift bag. I whipped together three final bags this afternoon and wrapped everything up. I'd still like to make a few more, but with a couple reused paper bags and boxes, and four of the reusable gift bags from Amazon, I was all set. I'm still feeling so appreciative of the bag I received as a gift.

My tutorial ...

The fabric featured in this post was given to me by Island Batik.

Last week I shared the Tula Pink dress I made for my niece. She must have been excited to wear it because she flew home and took her first steps that night!

I'm concluding my time as an Island Batik Ambassador this month, so my 3D challenge is my final project made in response to the monthly Ambassador challenges. Our challenge was to make a project of any size incorporating 3D by any method of our choice. This could be actual 3D, or an illusion on ...

We attended a Christmas party in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose this evening. The party included a horse drawn carriage to see the lights in the neighborhood. What an impressive display!

Those last two photos show a couple of the other party vehicles out to enjoy lights, a trolley car and a party bike.

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

The post Enjoying the Christmas Lights appeared first on Sarah Goer Quilts.

It's late and I haven't been in the studio much the past few days, but I am making slow progress on this pair of Parsley Pants (pattern by Made by Rae) for my nephew. I'm delighted that he wanted monster pants and I had this wonderful print from an apron I made my daughter years ago with just enough for the pants (not the pockets though).

I've attached the pockets and I love this accidental placement. There's a monster in my pocket!

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of ...

It’s nearing the end of the year. If you’re a wall calendar user, it’s almost time to swap for 2020. Here’s an idea to upcycle and repurpose the 2019 calendar you’ve enjoyed this year.

I used my Curated Quilts wall calendar, which is perfect for these simple cards since they are one sided pages on white cardstock and blank on the back. Scroll to the bottom for an adaptation for other types of calendars.

I started by removing the days of the month section by the perforations.

Then I trimmed the page to 8 1 ...

Tonight was my friend Linda's 41st annual cookie party. She's been hosting them every year since I was one. My mom has attended since the beginning. As a teen I remember waiting up for her to get home from the party to see (and taste!) what cookies everyone else made. I've been attending the party since college. It's a holiday tradition that I really enjoy.

The party consists of mostly the same familiar faces from year to year. We describe our cookie to the group, do a little craft project, play a gift exchange game with ...

Today, I thought I'd take an opportunity to share some of my favorite Etsy sellers. Maybe you have some last minute gift shopping to do. Maybe you want to buy yourself something nice. Maybe you just like to look at pretty things. Here are some of my favorite Etsy shops that I think you'll enjoy!

Beth S Macre - Whimsical Art and Clay designed to make you Smile

Clever Notions Designs - Bags, books, and more

Downstairs Designs - Practical indulgences for you and your home

Grecny Art - Comic book art, home decor and accessories.

Hammerly Ceramics - Handmade colorful mugs, rough ...

I've lived in San Jose my whole life, with the exception of four years of college in San Diego. As such, there are some local holiday traditions that are very nostalgic for me.

While we have a Jewish household, I grew up celebrating Christmas. We celebrate Christmas with my side of the family and friends. This weekend while my sister and her kids were in town we visited Christmas in the Park. I grew up enjoying the animatronic holiday displays and seeing the hundreds of decorated trees. The Christmas trees are decorated by a wide variety of community groups ...

Today we celebrated Christmas early with my sister and her kids, so I can show you the dress I made for my niece! She turned 1 last month.

I chose nine Tula prints from my collection, built around the Acacia Raccoon in blueberry print. Some, but not all, of the other Tula prints are from the Acacia collection.

The pattern is Jewel's Stripwork Dress by CKC which I made in size 2T. This works for her now (as soon as she starts walking, really), but leaves room to grow.

We had a great time doing the mini photo shoot ...

One of my favorite features in my newsletters is my Kona color palettes. Today I'm sharing my latest here with you.

Through some technical research I selected Surf as the Kona color closest to PANTONE's Classic Blue, their color of the year for 2020. I used PANTONE's provided hex code for Classic Blue and compared to my Adobe library of Kona swatches.

Each of these Kona palettes uses Surf in the top position. Colors are listed in clockwise order, starting from the top.

(1) Surf, Lake, Cyan, Storm, Copen, Oyster.

(2) Surf, Breeze, White, Acid Lime, Limelight ...