Merry & Happy to All Y'all!

Year-end Review

It has been a busy year & I have a tall pile of quilts to show for it.



I ticked off quite a few of the to-dos from my January list. Let's see, I finished 8 quilts that have remained in-house & 5 quilts for donation. There were 2 tops finished -- I'm quilting one now, 1 stack of blocks ready to go together & 4 small tops for donation to finish. (I wish I had kept track of how many yards of Kona Snow I used! 2 finished quilts & 2 quilts-in-progress have all used it -- I guess I was something of a Snow Plow. :-}) There were 2 mini swaps for HMQG, 5 Jane Market Bags -- 4 given away, 1 kept & 4 zipper pouches -- 3 given away, 1 kept. Well, phew! 

I'm now thinking about my list for the coming year. Do you make Quilt-y Resolutions? I've been doing so for a long time, before I started sharing them with my on-line friends. They used to be shorter & less specific than they are now -- "log cabin" vs "x & + blocks using black & white prints & solids (blues?)". But at the top of my list for 2013 -- & all my lists in the future -- will be: Relax, Enjoy the Process. Because I don't really think I enjoyed all my finishes this year. With each one, I was mentally on to the next project rather than just enjoying the one just done. It was more about checking them off than about loving what I love most in the world to do -- QUILTING!

Measuring my days

For some time I've been trying to remember a quote, I'm pretty sure my Mom read it to me. Not so long ago, I could have called her & asked, "What's that quote? Something about counting days with spoons?" & she would have told me what it was.

No more.

So I typed 'counting days in teaspoons' into an Internet search -- no luck. There was a small ping in my head that said the author of the quote was T.S. Eliot. So I tried 't.s. eliot quotes' & there it was: "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons." (I was kind of close.) I'm not sure of the intended meaning, but I am drawing a parallel with the spools I've emptied this year -- measuring out my life in empty spools.

Last finish of the year

And just in time for cold weather -- well, cold for us.

This little quilt --  in spite of all the stars, it just isn't very stellar, in spite of all the birds, it just hasn't got wings. I guess I'll say it has a Good Personality!

I loved the 2.5 inch rolls from Connecting Threads; I have loved for a very long time the fabric I used on the back; I was eager to try making a jelly roll race quilt; this was my first time to attempt the walking foot quilted braids. But sometimes the product is less than the sum of the parts. It was fun to make & quilt though, & it will still keep us warm even if it won't be winning any beauty contests.





And it is starting to grow on me. :-)

Busy weekend

Some cutting & playing.



Some quilting.



Some basting.



And thinking about this.