Happy New Year!

This first picture is of Mom's Christmas gift quilt. Obviously I couldn't post the picture when I finished it as it would spoil the surprise. So here it is now. It is made of half-square triangles using Thangles. The original plan was to intersperse the neutral colors throughout the quilt, but I felt they stood out too much so I used them as a sort of inner border feature. Considering I had to change my design plans mid quilt project I am really happy how this came together.

The second photo is of the ongoing Feathered Star quilt I am working on. I completed the middle star a while ago (I think at least a year or more). I decided to frame it with the paper-pieced blocks you see here. I just finished making those blocks in December. I attempted to put them together and attach them to the star two days ago, but messed up the layout in the piecing process and ended up ripping all but the first row of blocks apart again to get it fixed and as originally planned.
 It still needs something more. I haven't decided if I should put this on-point or not. I am also thinking of adding another border - possibly diamond shapes. Given how cold and snowy and icy it is at the moment is seems appropriate to be working on this icy looking quilt at the moment.

Merry Christmas

Another great Christmas!

First day of my winter vacation.

First day of my winter vacation and things are looking up. We are finally getting some snow so it is actually starting to look like Christmas. All the presents are bought, wrapped and if needed shipped. I made the dough for the sugar cut-out cookies and will bake them tonight and decorate them tomorrow. I have 11 days, 3 magazines, 5 books and plenty of quilting to keep me at least a little busy.

A lovely Dec. day

 As we are coming up on Christmas I figured this would be a good time to sort through all the dog toys and get rid of a few of them. Ivan sensed something was up when I pulled them out and managed to find his way to the middle of the pile and camped out. I did manage to remove a few that had holes and stuffing coming out of them but don't feel to bad for Ivan, we still have a whole boxful for him to play with.

It is a lovely Dec. day - especially since I do not have to go out or do anything. It is lightly snowing. Not having snow on the ground, it just doesn't seem like X-mas around here. I just finished making the dumplings for Chicken Paprikas - I will make the chicken and sauce a bit later, closer to dinner time.

I did pull out one of my UFO quilting projects. I have a 15 inch feathered star block done and wanted to add to it and came up with the idea of using these paper-pieced blocks to frame it. These pictured here will be one corner - I still need to make 3 more sets. I figure with weekends, holidays and a few vacation days I will have 11 days off. Finishing the piecing on this quilt will be one of my goals. I still feel like I should have a whole list of things to get done over the break.  

Table runners done!

 November was a crazy, busy month. Travel for work, the Thanksgiving holiday and I even squeezed in a weekend quilt retreat. I did manage this weekend to finish the two table runners for my sister. I have her an IOU for these table runners back in June. I am thrilled that these are done and I won't be carrying them over on my list of things to get done for the next year.

The blocks in both these table runners are from the Judy Hopkins Around the Block series of books.

I did go through my projects and update my UFO and WIPs list of quilt projects and I am happy to say that the number is down from last year. I have 2 WIPs I am currently working on and 5 UFOs. One of the UFOs is a fully completed quilt top, but I have not decided what sort of quilting I want for it. The other 4 still need some assembly and design and decision making.

Fall Quilt Retreat

 I so needed this past weekend's quilt retreat. I really seemed to have lost my quilt mojo lately. You know how it is - busy with work, family visiting in Oct. and of course the seasonal S.A.D. which makes me want to do nothing but eat cheese and carbs and sleep 10 hours a day.

I didn't even have the motivation to pull out a current WIP/UFO project and instead took a few pending projects. First I grabbed a kit I bought at the AQS show in Paducah this year. It is a really simple pattern - Malaysian batiks cut into squares and sashed with your own black fabric. The fabulous fabrics do all the work for this quilt. I still need to put on a border - most likely I will just stick with plain black.

The second thing I worked on is the second table-runner I owe my sister. I had the block picked out and bought the fabric a couple of months ago. I managed to get the whole top done. There are 8 blocks here, each with 36 pieces. So while it is only a table-runner it actually took quite a while to complete (lots of getting up to press individual sections and trimming them before piecing them together).

 The final project I worked on was an idea that has been marinating for a while. I got a jelly roll of darker shaded solid fabrics awhile ago as a gift and had come up with the idea of making Lemoyne Stars with them. Several months ago I even explored a few ways to make the stars using different methods. I figured I might get as far as cutting out some fabrics, but surprisingly I managed to cut 8 fabric strips into star pieces (I got 10 star pieces per color using the Deb Tucker ruler method).
I then played around with color and design. I could make 8 single color stars, or I could make 2-color stars, or as I finally decided I would make 10 stars with the mix of all 8 colors. I also had to decide if the layout of the colors would be all the same or mixed up. I went with all mixed up, so no two stars are the same here.So I actually pieced all the stars together and trimmed them, they are 10 inch unfinished.

I can only hope to keep a little of the momentum of the retreat.

What did you do Columbus Day weekend?

As part of our weekend escapades we visited the Conroy Organics store just north of Plattsburgh, NY.  Once the band started the whole herd jogged up to the fence so a bunch of us went over to say 'hi'.

Mom made the most of the trip and did some wine tasting and as you can see picked up a box of wine.
It doesn't look like it but there is a fence between her and the steer. As those of us who know mom, know that if there weren't a fence she would not be out there! (Wine you can only make you so brave.)