Make Nine 2020

When I wrote my 2019 Make Nine and reflected on 2018, I set the intentions to sew more regularly and play with my personal style more. And wow have I done that! 2019 has been a year of collecting big sparkly earrings, wearing more color, and working on larger, more long-term sewing projects that challenge my skills.

I've had a bit of stagnation in other parts of my life (career, romance), so I'm really proud of myself that I've made protecting and fostering my creativity a priority this year. I want to keep that going into to 2020, with projects that challenge me a little bit, all in different ways: size, unfamiliar materials, new shapes, pattern drafting and more!

Then Came June Sun Flare Quilt Part 2: Piecing

I'm still chipping away at my Then Came June Sun Flare quilt. It took about 5,000 years to cut out all the fabric, but it's a very satisfying sew once you get to piecing. I've finished my center squares, the corner "flares," and the middle stripes so all I have left is piecing it all together to make the blocks, and then finishing the top.

The very first quilt I ever made, using sawtooth star blocks, really frustrated me because it had SO MANY steps, and so many small pieces, that I nearly swore off intricate quilt patterns altogether. But, now that I'm a bit more experienced, know how to cut my fabric more precisely, and have shifted my frame of mind to relish doing little bits at a time and magically seeing it all come together after many many hours at the machine, I am enjoying the process so much more.

I had intended to finish this project this year as part of my revised 2019 Make Nine, but I have no desire to rush the process, so I'm just going to carry it over to my 2020 Make Nine and calling it grand.

Looking forward, though, I have a couple close friends getting married in the next couple years, so I'm starting to plan wedding quilts and it's been really fun pouring my creative energy into brainstorming and day dreaming and then getting to come home and work on a quilt!

Does that happen to you? Your excitement about another project feeds excitement for a current one? I often have the tendency of ditching a project for a newer, flashier one, so this is new to me!

I think if I were to do this pattern again, I would cut out all of the background fabric first, and then cut out pairs of the foreground colors and sew their blocks up, in an effort to break up the cutting. Doing everything all at once was incredibly tedious, but cutting is always the part I enjoy least.

Then Came June Sun Flare Quilt, Part 1: Planning

We're halfway through the year, and I've done four projects off my 2019 Make Nine list. I have a couple others bobbling around in my brain, but I'm also reassessing a bit. I like having projects that challenge me, but I think my 2019 Make Nine skewed very far onto the challenging side and away from a satisfying, balanced sewing year. As a result, I've kind of avoided sewing much lately because my mental and creative capacities can't keep up! That's not what I want, so I decided to pick up the Then Came June Sun Flare Quilt, swapping that in for the Carolyn Pajamas, which is the challenging project I have the least inspiration for at present. I think the Sun Flare Quilt will still stretch my quilting abilities, but the creative process and basic quilting skills are comfortable for me. Or so I hope! Ha! I also like having bigger projects that I can chip away at little by little when I only have a dime sized amount of creative energy on a given day, and quilts have been great for that for me in the past.

My updated 2019 Make Nine

I've decided to stay pretty true to Then Came June's original vision, but I had to make some swaps where I couldn't source the colors she used. I used from my stash where I can, and used slightly brighter colors in a couple places to satisfy my inner magpie:

1. Kona Ice Peach
2. Kona Peach
3. Kona Orchid
4. Kona Lilac
5. Kona Baby Pink (I think—an unlabelled light pink on the Kona fabrics rack)
6. Kona Deep Rose
7. Light blue "cloud" fabric from my stash
8. Medium blue tencel fabric from my stash, leftover from the Tiny Tiles Quilt I made last year as a wedding gift.
9. Kona Violet
10. Kona Hibiscus