Timeless Stitches
Published in The Baldwin City Community News
January 5, 2022
Happy New Year! We’ve rung out the old and rung in the new year of 2022 with an icy and snowy landscape that will only get whiter as the first day continues. Weather like this makes me want to stay safe and warm at home working on something new. In the quilting world, the beginning of a new year often means starting a new Block of the Month (BOM) program in which you receive directions to make one block each month, culminating in a finished sampler quilt at the end of the year. Quilting challenges also often start with the new year, much like resolutions—the commitment to a new project or challenge to launch your creative spark anew.
The 2022 Block of the Month program staring in January at Quilters’ Paradise, Celebrate the Year, was designed by shop owner Sharon Vesecky. Each block will feature a theme for the month and over the year you will have tried a variety of quilting techniques. We hope you’ll join in for another year of fun learning more about the many facets of quilting. Just call the shop at 785-594-3477 to sign up.
Over the last few years there has been a growing interest in temperature quilts. These projects, made over the period of a year, track the high and low temperatures each day using a range of colors that represent 5- or 10-degree spans. A few quilters have made weekly or monthly blocks rather than daily blocks. There are as many designs as there are quilters! Even those who crochet have gotten in on the fun by adding a row a day for the highs and lows for some awesome afghans. Some temperature quilts compare the highs and lows of the current year to the maker’s birth year or temperatures where they live vs. where they grew up. Others include weather patterns—rain, snow, sunny, cloudy, windy. Blocks used in samples I’ve seen vary widely from flying geese, half-square triangles, appliqued circles on squares, churn dash blocks, and more. The possibilities are truly endless!
My husband, Les—also a quilter, and I are diving into this challenge and have our 22 fabrics already selected that each represent a 5-degree range from -5° to +105°. If we get any super extreme temps outside that range, we will add fabrics as needed. We’re all set up to track the weather with a wireless weather station with wind and temperature stations outside and the base unit inside. Les is a weather junkie anyway, so in addition to helping make the blocks throughout the year, he will be tracking the weather for us.
To add to the fun, I have joined two groups on Facebook that are doing 2022 temperature quilt sew-alongs and am following several variations of #tempquilt on Instagram. These virtual groups, with members from coast to coast, will be encouraging each other to stay on track and share our progress. Having that extra bit of accountability and encouragement can help even the most determined quilter to not abandon a project mid-year, thus turning it into a potential UFO (unfinished object). Here’s hoping we can stick with it and next year share with you our completed 2022 Baldwin City Weather Temperature Quilt!
