#makenine A 2020 challenge

I shared the results of my 20before20 challenge, and I mentioned I was having a think about the new year and what new challenge I wanted to set for myself.

Having completed something that felt epic, and genuinely took all year, I wanted to continue that theme, while also knowing that I did not want to make for the sake of it, nor turn something that is my fun hobby into a chore.

With these thoughts swirling in my head, the annual #bestnine instagram posts started coming through.  Now despite my epic year of finishes, I did a really lackluster job of sharing them (also some of them are not exciting or I'd fallen out of love with by the time they were done).  So I didn't really have a good summary of the best nine makes from 2019.

What occurred to me is that what I want is just 9 finishes for 2020: 9 photos of stand-out projects that reflect a whole year of work. #makenine

And while that seems simple enough, I knew I wanted to focus on the epics, so the wip box has been opened and the big scaries are all laid out. I've picked 9 EPIC projects for the year. And I'll share all the process, hopefully both here and on insta, even though those are never the prettiest photos, because the finishes are going to be AMAZING!!!

What have I picked:

#1 Harry Potter and the Project of Doom #erininhogwarts

I started my Harry Potter in 2014… It’s wonderful, but I set it aside to do hand embroidered titles on the spines of each book and it has sat quietly in the cupboard under the stairs ever since. This year *I will* be doing the embroidery. I am determined. Harry deserves better than under the stairs.

#2 Pemberley #pemberleygrande

There is a beautiful epp doing the rounds on insta, the Pemberley.  Each block is intricate and gorgeous, and I want it.  But because #ilikebigquiltsandicannotlie I decided that I wanted to make it 3 times the size of the original.  So I need to make a squillion blocks.  I think I need to make 2 per week, and I have yet to get pieces cut and basted.  I can already tell this one is going to be too ambitious, but it’s there!! We’re shooting for the stars, people!!

#3 Feathers on Strings #poetryinquilting

For my Calendar of Quilts I want to have something to pull out for World Poetry Day.  I have a concept in mind, and while it’s very simple, I also want to make it king sized, which suddenly ups the complexity quite a bit.  I haven’t fully worked out how this will work. All I know is that there are foundation paper pieced feathers and that I want a feeling of floating and that the quilting should be a poem… I’m hoping I can con one of my friends who long arms, into designing the quilting pattern lol.

#4 Anthologie #anthologiequilt

You’ve seen this in the works.  I love it. I love it so much, I started a second one in different colours (ps, that’s stalled as well, oops).  It’s got so much personality and special bits that I knew it needed hand quilting, and so it sits next to my tv chair and I quilt a little here and there in the hopes that one day I’ll turn around and it’ll be done.  It’s too big to really be a transportable project, but it’s lovely sitting quietly in a comfy chair handwork.

#5 Sewing Room #stashgoals2020

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but one of the things I did in 2019 was destroy my sewing room. lol. But seriously, in early February we ripped out a large bar that took up half the room and spent the rest of the year trying to put the space back together again. It looks amazing, but it still has quite a bit of organisation that needs to happen. In particular, I need to iron and fold *all* my fabric… I’m making cute little mini bolts using comic book boards and it’s going to look amazing, but it feel like I’ve been ironing for weeks and am no closer than when I started. I will have an Instagram worthy sewing room before the year is ended.

#6 Plot Twist #subteltyplottwist

I keep drafting a post about this, and haven’t gotten around to hitting publish, but this is a giant needle turn applique project, that I started in 2018 and stuffed in a cupboard for months because it was too hard. I've pulled it and and started stitching.  I'm starting on the bottom corners so that with luck by the time I get to the middle/top it'll be slightly better quality, as this is a whole new skill for me.

#7 Blue Butterflies #rivercityroundrobin

The butterflies I started in 2015, as part of the round robin, came back to me (ages ago, but that besides the point) and they’re beautiful, but they, and their accompanying friends, have been on my design wall since April… They need to be a top and it needs to happen now.  It’s a bit of a jigsaw but I love that, and I have ideas for what I want to do in the gaps. Just need to start sewing.

#8 Medallion #LQimprovmedallion

I started this in Dublin when I wanted something a bit more structured to play with, and it has grown sporadically.  I’m not normally a medallion girl, but this has a cool asymmetry to it, and the colours make me happy.  I want this to grow and be a full finished top before the year is done.

#9 Jelly Bean EEP #jellybeanquilt

I started this during our secondment to Dublin, but did a lot of the initial work while in our staging hotel in Amsterdam, so this quilt is very linked in my mind with The Netherlands and Ireland and time spent in planes (hello laying it out on the floor of the Singapore airport at 2am as I waited for my flight to board).  I love this. I love the bright happy colours. I love the feeling of whimsy it gives me. But like always, I decided it need to be *just a bit* bigger, and so I needed to cut more fabric and prep more pieces and so it sits, and waits. There’s actually not that much to do, maybe another 6 rows, and they go together quick. It’s the cutting that has made me set it aside. I can absolutely do this!! I can.

There we go.  Nine projects. And I even made myself a fancy little info grid with al of the projects in there ready for me to swap in the finishes...

Now, something that is apparent when it’s all listed like this is the ridiculous amount of handwork going on here:

Pemberley, Anthologie, Harry Potter, Plot Twist and Jelly Bean

all of these require me to sit and stitch by hand.  That’s more than half the list :-/… It seemed like a good idea at the time, and they are all things that I want to have finished.  And, with the exception of Anthologie, I have permission (from myself) to send these to a long armer: it’s just the assembly that *I* need to make.

So that's my mission for 2020.  Wish me luck! I'm going to need it...

E xx