Quilters have the Warmest Hearts

A couple of weeks ago I arrived home to a wonderful surprise from one of my online friends. I have never met her face to face, but she is a very special person.
While cutting fabric strips for Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery she thought of me.  She was cutting her black and white strips, she realized that the newsprint fabric she was cutting had an article about Alaska.
I love surprises!!!
She sent me several 2" wof strips one of which was a bicycle print.  I am planning to use the strips in Bonnie Hunter's current mystery, Easy Street.
I have already cut a couple of strips into 2.5" squares to use in the quilt and will use the others for my corner triangles on other blocks in the quilt.
I love that I am part of such a wonderful group of women.

Crazy Hearts

I made this quilt for someone very special as a surprise.  She does not know that I did it so will be very surprised when it arrives at her house. I am hoping that someone is there to take pictures when she opens the box.
That special someone is my cousin Janie.  She told me she did not have a quilt from Grandma Wilson, and I decided that I would make her one. I picked the pattern because hearts represent love and there is a lot of love between her and I. We are the only children of the only two boys in the family and so she is the closest thing I have to a sister in that sense.  She is also close in age to me, only 2 years younger.  Janie does not sew,

Sampler Quilt

This fall a friend and I started a sampler quilt that was being offered at a LQS. The pattern is out of print, but the shop owner has permission to use it and has updated the directions for us. She rewrote the directions to use current tools, and updated things to use new techniques.
I really enjoyed the class and learned a few new techniques, as well as improved my skills in a few areas.
The class was divided into six classes and we got two or three blocks to complete at each class.
I was making great progress until we hit the three blocks that are hand pieced.  I am a slow handpiecer, which could be related to my trigger finger.
I have been working hard on the last few blocks, but they have over 100 pieces in each so that has slowed me down some. I could have easily done the one block with strip piecing, but decided that I wanted to use 120 different fabrics in it instead.  
I was delayed on my progress because of surgery to fix my trigger finger but in about six weeks I hope to pick back up my hand piecing and get to work on finishing those blocks. Until that time I am working on sewing the machine pieced blocks that are cut, though I still have some pieces to cut, one to paper piece and another that I have not started.  I have moved this quilt onto my list of things to finish in 2013.

Plaids

I think the time has come to make another plaid quilt for a male in the family as I have a ton of plaids.  I have a box of pieces, fat quarter, long quarters, and half yards, plus a pile of plaid yardage, and I know there is more hiding in the boxes I have yet to sort through. I know there is a large piece of red and brown plaid in one of those boxes, I just have to find it.

The Sewing Room

WOW!  I just realized that I never posted this, but then I have not finished my sewing room either, so I guess it like this post is a work in progress.  I started this post back in April and though a lot has been organized and put away my fat quarters, and half yard or less pieces of fabric are still strewn around waiting to be put in some kind of order.  I think I need to make this a goal for the new year, either get them put away or clear them out.
I did give some away, and others I am thinking I will cut into strips to use in strip quilts or other scrapping projects.

The draft I thought I had posted:
I am making progress on my sewing room, you can actually see the floor. I have a ton of half yards and fat quarters to go through and figure out where to put them, and what to do with them.

You would think that I had done absolutely nothing since August considering that I have not posted in several months.  That is not the truth I have been working away on several projects, but a few had to be kept secret as they are gifts, others I have started posts and not gotten pictures taken so I could update them. I have also been busy subbing and had finger surgery to release my trigger finger. My goal is to get things posted and finish taking pictures so I can get them posted.  Now with Christmas fast approaching I am hoping that I can get this done before the New Year, but that may not happen.  I will see what I can get done in the next few days and the week after Christmas.  I do have a couple of gifts to finish up before Tuesday, and hope that I am successful in getting them done.  If not I can always wrap them up with a note that says to finished after Christmas. :)