February Goals

First February goal is to finish my Tree of Life quilt top for A Lovely Year of Finishes. I've been working on this for a long time! I love designing my own tops but it takes more time to make with lots of decisions! Falls under 'The Pleasure is in the Process'. With most of them made now, it's on to finishing the top...

Second is to work on Lori @ Humble Quilts QAL ~ MidWinter Blues. Got a start on my cutting...

This is Lori's finished top

 and the antique inspiration quilt that she is working from...

I love this antique quilt and am toying with the idea of reproducing it for my project. Love how the alternating blocks form another pattern and how, altho set on point, looks like a straight set.

Third is to continue on with the Amaretto Cottage BOM with Janie. She and I got started on the next block last Wednesday, there are four of these, this is one of mine...

Fourth is to make the first block in Barbara Brackman's new BOM Threads of Memory...

 

Kathy, a quilter participating in A Lovely Year of Finishes posted her finish (#66) for January and it's her Civil War Sampler top from Barbara Brackman's 2011 Civil War BOW!  It really got me thinking about my sampler and getting that back on to my list of goals for this year. My January finish is #87 the NYD Mystery quilt top. Last night I finished quilting it so it is also quilted for a finish!

Lofty goals considering all I have going on this month switching out longarms and reorganizing my studio. It will be a fun month, once I shake this cold off!

Have a great Super Bowl Weekend!

 

The Mystery is now a flimsy

2014 NYD Mystery quilt top is a flimsy. I am linking up with A Lovely Year of Finishes with this quilt top finish as my January goal ~ link to blog post. Link up # 181. Update: This baby is quilted!!!

After a few block layout changes plus I decided to add borders, this top is ready to be quilted! Notice I couldn't do the misfit layout of the original.

Quilting on my New Year's Day Mystery quilt

I am quite pleased with this one, you never know how a mystery will turn out! All the fabrics are pulled from stash scraps and FQ's except the light print in the large HSTs are cut from two half yard pieces that came from Honey Run Quilters. Many of the fabrics are left overs from Petit Fours, a quilt I made from a kit from Morning Star Quilts. Barbara, a new quilt customer recently brought her Petit Fours that she recently finished that I will quilt for her. When she unfolded her quilt top I immediately knew the quilt! Nice surprise!!

Petit Fours made in 2010

This is a pic of my Petit Fours made in 2010 for my friend Suzanne. The left over border print is in most of the blocks in the Mystery quilt top and more scraps I added to the Anvil blocks.

My goal this year is to use up stash and I think I got a pretty good start on that one :0) Another is to start blocks on a 2014 Barbara Brackman ~ Threads of Memory BOM and do a QAL with Lori of Humble Quilts. Both of them posted the first blocks, Lori yesterday and Barbara this morning on her Civil War blog. Check out the links. Off to sew as I have blocks to make this weekend!!!

Enjoy your weekend! Thanks for stopping by

 Jo

January and a New Year of Goals

Goals for January~
First up is the New Year's Day Mystery that I started on that day. My friend Janie joined me and she is making one too. Her fabrics are much different, both are scrappy. My goal is to finish this quilt top by the end of the month for a Lovely Year of Finishes. Half of the Anvil blocks are ready...

The remaining are cut, marked, ready to be sewn into HSTs and into blocks for a total of 40...

Alternating blocks are also cut, ready to mark and sew into 40 large HSTs. This is the layout:

This is my January goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes

Second is to work on the next blocks for Amaretto Cottage, a BOM that Janie and I are working on together. Janie is using the fabrics sent with the kit. I am pulling from my CW stash. We are on Block 5 and working at our own pace (Originally a 2012 BOM) My first four blocks...

and this week I made my log cabin blocks for month 5... 

Eight plus four corner blocks for a total of 12. Love that gold and cheddar Jo Morton fabric!

These are Janie's first blocks in her fabrics...

She is coming by today to finish her log cabin blocks and share our progress on the NYD Mystery. 

Third is to work on the design of my Tree of Life quilt and finish this top too!...

Center field is finished. Adding more HSTs for a pieced inner border. Outer border to be added in the red fabric. Almost a flimsy, then it will be set aside until I have my second longarm set up and ready to go! I am so excited!!! 

Which brings me another goal for 2014... to get to know my new machine (once it arrives :0) again, so exciting! Looking forward to working on and improving my machine quilting skills. There is so much beautiful machine quilting being done by some amazing quilters, I want to learn as much as I possibly can. Practice, practice and then practice some more! 

One new 2014 BOM I am doing for sure is Barbara Brackman's 2014 BOM Threads of Memory. Each block will be posted the last Saturday of the month on her Civil War blog. 

The Mystery quilt is my goal for a finish in January for A Lovely Year of Finishes with Bitter Sweet Designs. I really enjoyed the motivation to finish UFOs last year with Carrie at A Passion for Applique.  I would be sew very happy to finish 12 projects in 2014!!!

What are your goals? 

Enjoy a New Year!

2014 Civil War BOM ~ Threads of Memory

Forgot to mention this morning, Barbara Brackman is hosting a new Block of the Month for 2014 on her Civil War Quilts blog. Here is her post. Today's post is the last block for Dixie Diaries which wraps up the blocks for this year's block of the month.

Threads of Memory starts January 25th 2014 and will be posted once per month ~ the last Saturday of each month. These will be 12 inch blocks, no applique (one per month, not a BOW).

From her post:
"The theme Threads of Memory refers to the Underground Railroad. Each month you'll get a block named for an important place in the story of the network that assisted slaves on the road to freedom. We'll explore true stories of people who lived in slavery, escaped on the "Liberty Line" or helped the fugitives."

Becky will be making two versions and Dustin will add his own flair by doing two versions as well, one all in one fabric :0) I plan to play along and may tie it in with my Mom in some way. She has dementia and Threads of Memory has a whole new meaning in our world. Mom did allot of cross stitch through out her life and I am thinking of including pieces of her work in the quilt.

Will be fun to see who all joins in for this one. How about you? A flickr site was set up in 2011 and I imagine it will be using for this project. Yep, just went over there and checked, Dustin already has a thread about it.  The Dixie Diary blocks are posted there now. Here is a link. You will also find a link on Barbara's blog, it's a photo of a woman holding a camera. Sweet!

Also posted by Barbara Brackman on her blog a couple of weekends ago... for anyone a bit more ambitious, looking to start a new Civil War block of the week... here is her post about Elm Creek's book ~ Loyal Union Sampler   Also a good choice for a new project in 2014!