Sayonara 2025🐍, Yōkoso/Welcome 2026🐴

Farewell 2025. Welcome 2026! Here is a Grace and Peace Quilting review of 2025, and a preview of 2026. 

In 2025, I quilted 143 quilts total, 76 for others, and 67 of my own.

Of my own 67 quilts, here's the breakdown:

1 Queen size quilt

13 Twin/Throw quilts

44 Baby quilts

6 Wall/Mini quilts

3 Table runners

Overall, I have quilted a total of 1,405 quilts on my APQS longarm since it arrive in June, 2012. 

This was a difficult year-end for me. My beloved husband of 39 years was in and out of the hospital 8 times starting in mid-May with heart failure. He retired from being a pastor for 39 years in September and we began heart transplant evaluation. He had a stroke but recovered from it 100%. Then he was hospitalized at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and listed as a Level 1 for a heart transplant. Before he got a donor heart, he was called home to the LORD. We were all "shocked and abandoned in deep sorrow", as my Japanese friend said so well.

He was my blog editor, quilt holder, fabric advisor, and biggest cheerleader. It's hard to go on. But I will. My faith, family and friends are carrying me through.

Just one month earlier, my Mom was called home to the LORD. She was 96 and 11 months old. She wrote that she wanted to be remembered as a Christian. She was a professional accordion player, as well as an accordion and piano teacher. She was very creative and loved crafts, cooking and gardening. She said if she could've gone to college, she would've majored in Home Economics. I would say she got her college education through hands on experience. 

For a couple years now, I went to my Mom's assisted living home weekly, where Mom, myself and several other women cut out bibs, burb cloths and wash mitts for Bundles of Love, a local non-profit that delivers bundles of baby things to families in need. This was a gathering we all looked forward to every week, spending time together and working on a worthwhile project.

I started out my quilt year by turning my 2024 Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks into 6 butterfly baby quilts. ⤴️

I definitely majored in making baby quilts this year and made 44 of them. I donated many of them to Bundles of Love, as well as some going to family and friends. 

In February I participated in an all-day quilt along with Gudrun of GE Designs. Here's my finished quilt, Jolee, from that event.⤵️

In October I participated in a one day virtual retreat, also lead by Gudrun of GE Designs, along with 500+ other quilters from 48 US states and 8 countries around the world. Here's my finished quilt, Margot, from that event.⤵️

I finished my 2025 Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt in November. ⤵️ I have several leftover blocks that I am working on to make a baby size version of the same quilt.

 All year long I worked on the Stripology Quickies Club quilt along. I finished the 12th and final quilt in the series in December. ⤵️ Ten of these quilts were made in 2025.

While sewing this year, I listened to 164 books, via Libby and Hoopla apps, free from our local library. I keep track of my books on Goodreads.⤵️ A favorite author of mine is Gabrielle Meyer with her time-crossers series, "Timeless". There are 6 books in the series with a 7th coming out in May, 2026.

Here are my quilt plans for 2026:

~I will be doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again. 

~I will be working through the Stripology Lil' Pattern Club.

~I will be joining the Stripology Virtual Retreat in March.

~I will continue my longarm business of quilting for others.

Below, ⤵️ and the photo at the top of this blog post, is a Christmas/New Years card I received this year from my friend, Setsuko in Japan. A blessed New Year to you.

Grace and peace!!! ~Nancy

Linking up with 2025 Quilting Check In, Wednesday Wait Loss, TGIFF, Off the Wall Friday, Finished Or Not Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap, Handmade Monday, Sew & Tell, Design Wall Monday, Monday Musings.