2018 Finish-A-Long

This is one of my favorite blog parties!  I simply have to jump in and play along!  I have plenty of UFO's and I've already listed 12 of them for other challenges, so here are the ones I will concentrate on for the 1st Quarter...

1.   Quilt Diamonds Are Forever:

I started this quilt in February 2014 and finished the top in late 2017.  I will be so happy to have this bright and beautiful quilt finished and ready for some serious cuddling!  It is my Guild UFO Challenge quilt for January, so it has to be done by February 6.  And my friend Joanne has offered to let me use her long-arm to quilt it - Yay!!!

2.   Hudson's Dreaming of Planes:

Hudson is our 6-year-old grandson - he's a real cutie pie!  And last winter he informed me that he had outgrown his baby quilt and needed a big-boy quilt.  I pulled fabrics and settled on a design, hoping to get it to him quickly, but somehow it never even got started.  So I set a deadline to have it done to give him when we visited at Thanksgiving - and that didn't happen either!  So, this week I decided to get 'er done so I would have it to give to him the next time we visit in North Carolina (where almost all our grandchildren live).  The flimsy is almost done and the quilting is scheduled!!!

3.   Back Door Quilts - January - March:

This is a monthly series of Back Door designs by Cottage Creek Quilts that I've been wanting to do for several years now, and this is the year!  I DO enjoy changing out small quilts with each month or season!!!  I adore the fresh, modern color scheme used by Shabby Fabrics  but didn't want to purchase the laser cut kits so I'm using my own fabrics.

4.   First 3 months of small quilts in Art to Heart's "Imagine":

Again, small monthly quilts!  I will display these on my 12-inch standing frame on our hearth to brighten our living area :)

5.   First 3 Blocks of Dear Daughter:

This was a free BOM offered by Sherri Noel of Rebecca Mae Designs in 2016.  I absolutely fell in love with it but just couldn't find time to start it back then.  I saved all the patterns and hope to keep up with it this year - I love it so!!!

6.  Rag Quilt for Me!!!

I've been hoarding some flannels for a cuddly morning-time quilt - me, my Bible, my coffee, and Rocky purring in my lap - life is good!  The box with those fabrics is buried under other UFO boxes right now, so I can't show a picture just yet.  But I'll be digging it out soon - we are making rag quilts at one of our Guild workshops next month, so this one should be easy to accomplish :)

7.   Mint Chocolate Wedding Ring - to flimsy stage:

Long time UFO - one of my oldest!  I'm steadily chipping away at this one and would love to have it done early in the year!

8.   Bonnie's Mystery Quilt this year - On Ringo Lake - to flimsy stage:

All the sections are sewn except for finishing up assembling #6.  Then I'll need to assemble the 50 blocks, cut pieces for the setting blocks (it's on-point), and assemble the flimsy.  Might be a stretch to hope for this one in the first quarter, but I can dream, can't I?

I think that will do it for this first quarter!  

I'm linking up with Leanne at She Can Quilt...

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

Begin as you mean to go on....

That's an expression that I've often used in my life to spur me on when I find myself at the beginning of something new.  Since this is my first Goals post for 2018, it should serve me well today!

Courtesy @texassweettea.com

Like many of you, a new year inspires me to do new things!  To clear out the old, begin the new, set goals, choose how I want to spend that precious year.  Of course, it rarely turns out the way I've planned it, but without a plan I'm doomed from the start :)  I'm definitely a planner, an organizer, a dreamer.  One thing that seems to work for me is to break things down into time and effort segments, then get those pieces on my calendar for the month...

These are the two projects getting all the love right now -

Mint Chocolate Wedding Ring ...
This is one of my oldest UFO's from 2008.  It was a little intimidating to me when I first started it as a relatively new quilter, but I'm really having fun with it this year and will almost be sad when it's done.  There's incredible satisfaction when each block is completed and placed on the design wall...

And yes, Rocky, is still the Snoopervisor Extraordinare of all things that happen around here!!!  

And he continues to take his job as CEO of Foot Warming very seriously....

And yes, he's put on a few pounds LOL!!!

Of course you know I had to join in Bonnie Hunter's newest Mystery Quilt - On Ringo Lake!

Just had to put pieces together to see how these blocks will look!

I loved her color choices and happily went with them, with a few exceptions - blacks instead of browns, and limited my neutrals to soft buttery yellows.  This year's project has literally thousands of pieces, and I'm almost done with them...

400 Flying Geese!!!!

I love all the new challenges, sewalongs, quiltalongs, BOM's - the list of shiny new things to do is always so tempting!  And I always want to do them all.  Joining in is a great way for me to stay on track and gives me that much-needed measure of accountability.  However, my biggest challenge is to limit myself to what I might reasonably be able to accomplish in one year - any of you relate?  Yeh, I thought so LOL!!!

These days, there are many UFO challenges out there and I like to choose one or two that I can combine with the UFO challenge at my Guild.  One of my favorites is Elm Street Quilts' One Monthly Goal

My project this month will be to quilt my Diamonds R Forever top...

This is an old UFO from a Guild class taught by the String Sisters ...

Another Challenge I hope to keep up with is the 2018 FinishAlong, hosted by She Can Quilt....

I'm also planning to join Lyn at What a Hoot! with her 18 in 2018 link up, and I'll hopefully get that list together later this week.  There will also be a few new projects that aren't really new but taken from my Wish List - I can't wait to share them with you!  I'll probably join Pomegranate & Chintz's 6 & 6 in 2018 for these.  Yep, I'm hopeless - join all the joins!!!!

Enjoy your week my friends!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=

KINDNESS MATTERS!

Hello to all my friends!  

I have missed you all so much, and I wanted to take this opportunity on the first day of this beautiful New Year to let you know that I am determined to reestablish this blog…. It will be on a slow pace, and I have set some limitations on how much time spent here….  But this blogging community is something I’ve loved and been a part of for a long, long time – since 2011 – and I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye just yet!

I won’t go into any long explanations for my absence since March – so many bloggers are facing the same issues and time constraints.  I am healthy and happy and that’s all you really wanted to know, isn’t it?  I just allowed myself to get waaaaay too busy!  There were too many days when I found myself feeling guilty because I chose to sew in the spare hour or two rather than craft a blog post, and that didn’t feel right.  So I decided to take a guilt-free break.  In that time, I’ve made some choices that cut down on my responsibilities and outside activities, and give me more time to do what I enjoy most – being with good friends and loved ones, and happily stitching in my own little studio!  I already feel better! 

So today, I wanted to begin this year’s blogging journey by sharing my goal for 2018 – 

KINDNESS MATTERS! 

If 2017 taught me anything, it illuminated the fact that we need more KINDNESS in our world!!!!  Human beings can be very unkind – even ugly – to each other.  We can say and do ugly things in the name of a “cause” and feel fully justified.  We can allow our prejudices and beliefs to totally blind us to how our words and actions impact our world.  How they make others feel.  We can say unbelievably unkind things in the heat of the moment.

My prayer for 2018 is for all people to begin to realize that basic human kindness to one another is essential.  To put aside their politics, their prejudices, their platforms, their desire to be right, and just consciously try to treat others as they would want to be treated.  To think about what they say before they say it!  To care more about how we treat each other than about being right or wrong.  To stop and ask: Is what I am doing going to encourage and build Hope? Love? Kindness?  Are my words building a bridge or tossing out bombs?  How do my words and actions make others feel?  How we make others feel is how they will remember us!

Of course, I can’t stop at just wishing for World Kindness, can I?  I’m not running for Miss America LOL!!!  I have to question myself first and foremost.  I have to examine my own actions, words, and motivations.  Am I being kind to the people I encounter in my daily life?  Sure, it’s easy to be kind to my husband, my mom, my friends, my cat (well, most days it is LOL!).  But what about the slow grocery clerk?  The guy who wants to cut in front of me in traffic?  The person who annoys me for some reason or another.  Am I just another cog in the wheel?  Going through my days thinking only about myself and my needs, plans, dreams, without giving a thought to whether I am helping someone else accomplish theirs? 

This year, my hope is to become more aware of my actions when dealing with others, more conscious of how I treat others and make them feel.  To challenge myself to definitely be more kind in every possible way, to every possible person.  Put that way, it’s a lot harder than it seems on the surface, isn’t it?  I’m sure I’ll fail often.  I’m sure I will look back some days and wish I had been kinder to someone, or even several someones.  But hopefully I’ll succeed more days than I fail.  And hopefully I will actually become a more kind person.  Succeed more often. 

My wish for you all is that you encounter many kind people throughout your 2018, and that you will be kind to them in return!

Hugs & Blessings my friends,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Teresa 

=^..^=