New Year Starts and Finishes

In an early post, I referred to this bargello quilt. The pattern was called "The Long and Winding Road" and some of my quilting friends have also made it. It is so interesting to see what a difference the color combinations can make. This was a raffle quilt that I made for son's Scout troop. They went to a European Jamboree in 2005 and this quilt helped us raise some money towards that cause. This quilt, like many of my other quilts, has a mate. I am having some computer problems this morning, so I promise to post it next time, along with some things that I have worked on this week while I have been home on winter break.

The weather has been cold, so it has been perfect for hanging about around home and getting caught up on some reading and quilting. I have made the texture quilt to for my mother in law, and will go and quilt it after I finish this post. I have not put batting in it as it heavy enough already, but I have put a fleece back on it. I fused all the different texture blocks to a foundation to stabilize the different fabrics. I am still trying to figure out what to use for binding. I guess I could have made it envelope style, but it is pretty bulky, so we will see if this way works. This project was a little more complicated to do than I thought it would be, even though the sewing was simple squares. I plan to quilt it in the ditch so that it stays together better than it would if you just tied it. I am hopeing that a heavy machine needle will get through all the fibers.

This weekend I have been on my own, as my husband had gone to Yellowknife to visit a friend and to share some of his experiences about looking for meteorites. My son had been off with some different friends, as well, so I have been home alone for the whole weekend - well, except for the cat and the dog. It is strange experience when you are used to living in a house with others, to have the house to yourself for that length of time.

My friend L. and I braved the cold to check out one of the local quilt shops sales and have lunch yesterday. I did get some school work done so that I am mostly ready for my students this coming week.

I also got some of my fabrics organized, so that I can find them!! It is always a challenge to figure out how one should group the fabric. Do you group it by color or by theme ( stars, florals, sunflowers, funky speciality fabrics) or by type (florals, batiks, plaids, shirtings, tone on tone) or by project???
Everyone has their own sorting rules. In general, I sort by color, except for batiks and florals but I also have a stack of funky fabrics, children's fabrics and even a few projects that are separated out. Someone else might really wonder about my sorting rules, but these ones work for me.
However,I still need to get some more storage boxes because there is more fabric than there is storage space. There are lots of beautiful fabrics up there waiting to be used- I really need to make a plan and get more quilting done.

Some people I know are planning to complete a quilt a month or finish up so many UFO's each month . In general, I don't have many UFO projects. I have some quilts that are left over from my summer projects that are waitng to be quilted and that is in my plans for today. I don't do fancy quilting- just quilting in the ditch or meandering so I hope to get some projects that have been hanging around since the summer. Its a new year and time to get rid of some of these old projects do that they are useable.
I seem to have lots of plans for today- I better get a move on, so that I will have some new projects to show you.
I hope that your New Year is off to a good start and that you are keeping warm if you live in the North and cool if you live in the south.

Happy Quilting,
Regards,
Anna