The last posting of 2017

While the movers are packing everything in our house, I sit in my son's room and write the last posting of 2017. Tomorrow we leave Sydney - first we go to Canberra where we will be until the 2nd of January, then to Girraween where we will be camping for four nights, and then on to our new home; Benowa on the Gold Coast.

Our one year in Sydney has been quite eventful. Some of us liked it a lot and are sad to move, others did not like it so much and are happy to leave. We are all happy to be close to our old friends in Brisbane again and we all hope that this will be the last move in quite a while! (we will make an exception for a move to a house of our own on the Gold Coast in 1-2 years time)

I am happy and proud that I managed to reach my goal of running 5 km in April of this year, and that I went on to do 10 parkruns (free weekly 5 km runs) - the last one early on Christmas Day!



Looking back at my creative endeavours, it has been quite a productive year. I only made two quilts, but they both did well: Sydney is currently in the USA for the World Quilt Competition...



... and Mondrian's Lone Star was featured in issue 19 of Make Modern:



I did do quite a bit of sewing this year and added some tutorials to the blog (how to make an oven mitt, a denim doorstop and a lined project bag):



Three patterns were added to my pattern shops on Etsy. There are now 18 patterns; the pattern for Mondrian's Lone Star will be added in January.



My love affair with knitting that started last year continued in the first half of 2017. I made my first (and second) pair of socks, lots of gloves, two scarves and a cabled cushion.



And then, in July, my mother-in-law in the Netherlands taught me to crochet... and I haven't looked back since :-)



Looking back at my creative goals for 2017, I said:

I hope to publish more knitting patterns after my first one, the Wine Bottle Cover!

No, that didn't happen!

I would also like to make more art quilts, and add some work to my sports quilts series.

Nah, didn't happen either!

And my final goal for 2017 is to design more patchwork quilts in Adobe Illustrator.

That also did not happen... I may keep my goals for 2018 more general!

I don't think I will be making any more quilts for a while. Maybe at some point in the future I'll get back to quilting, but for now crochet (and maybe a little knitting) is what I want to do. Eventually I would like to write a crochet pattern, but I think I still need a bit more experience and some more 'mileage under my hook'. (does that make sense?)

Most of all I hope that my family will be happy in our new home and that the boys will make friends at their new schools. That we can settle down and grow some roots again.

I hope you will continue to follow this blog and leave the occasional comment. Thank you for coming along on the ride so far!

I would like to wish all my readers a creative and colourful 2018!