Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. Hope you find a few minutes to sit down for a bit of creativity and relaxation. Bring along your project(s) and enjoy sharing in some of the news, projects and tips doing the rounds of our Worldwide Quilting Community.

Recap: Back on 20th November I published a post titled ‘Reining-in Project Meandering‘. So a month on and just a week before Christmas: Did I mange to focus on a few named projects and not get distracted by squirrel projects? HO! HO! HO! Well! What can I say?

✅ I did complete the quilting and machine stitch the binding to the large red and white Nine Patch quilt. As planned, the binding is now lined-up to be my hand stitching project over the Christmas holiday while visitors occupy the sewing room/guest room.

✅ I have managed to do a few rows of knitting and I’ve bought the buttons so maybe the cosy cardigan will be finished in time for Christmas…

❌ No progress made on my ‘background project’, the Fall Foliage’ quilt. In fact when a squirrel meander curled it’s way into my sewing room I did pack away the Fall Foliage blocks rather than have them hanging over me as a reminder of my indiscipline.

❌ No progress made on completing the pattern of the Ohio Star Table Runner Feeling a bit anxious about this now but I just haven’t been able to settle to hours of laptop time with all the pre-Christmas extras filling my mind. A job for Twixmas maybe?

And so to the Meanders…

Remember the link to Diann’s ‘Joy’ wall hanging? Well! that hung around in my mind (so to speak!) whilst I spent extra hours in the shop covering a colleagues holiday. It was a very quiet week so I ended up doodling a pattern, ordering a hanger and, once home, raiding my Christmas stash and scraps to come up with my version of the hanging. It’s now adorning the wall behind our kitchen table. A successful squirrel meander!

And the second meander is a gift that has to remain secret for several months 🤫 Hopefully there’ll be space for it in their packing cases as our Daughter, SIL and Grandson prepare to return to their home overseas.

Just a few links to explore this week:

‘Tis the season for shiny, sparkly things! Krista’s tips and helpful explanation about using metallic thread in a sewing machine should be a great help if you are planning to add a bit of a twinkle to a project.

Katy is a prolific quilt maker. Her layout of a quilt inspired by a collection of leader-ender Four Patch blocks is really clever. I especially like the way she has used different shades of one colour to create a pattern radiating out from the centre of the quilt top.

I’m always drawn to the illusion of woven fabric created by a plaid-like patchwork design. Allison shares her Plaidy Cake quilt pattern over on her blog, Cluck Cluck Sew. It showcases her fabrics beautifully and as she says would look great made in Christmas fabrics… Maybe a project for 2024?

Even expert quilters can go on a learning journey. Leah Day has put together a video sharing her top three tips for quilting with knit fabrics. In an earlier video she showed us how to create a memory quilt made of baby onesies. Watch as Leah talks about the quilting choices she initially made, the problems she encountered as a result and the remedies employed to overcome the difficulties.

What are the hot colours for 2024? According to Kona the colour for 2024 is ‘Julep’. Mariana shares the quilt she designed and made to showcase Julep for Kona. On the other hand, Pantone’s colour of 2024 is ‘Peach Fuzz‘. I wonder how much we patchwork quilters take note of these announcements? Maybe we will see some quilts in these colours on our Instagram feeds over the coming months?

Linking with Judy for Design Wall Monday.

Happy Stitching!

Allison