Gratitude Quilt - Finished

I am happy to report that I have met my goal for January - the Christmas Gratitude quilt is finished--I took the last stitches in the binding this morning. This is item #2 on my UFO list. With a goal of finishing one UFO per month, this year is off to a fine start.

This project busted the red and green fabrics in my Christmas fabric stash right down to the backing. I pieced the backing from 10 1/2" squares of all the Christmas reds and greens in my stash.

Myers Briggs Personality Type

My Myers Briggs personality test results reveal that I am an Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judger.

You Are An INTJ The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems. Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized. You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others. Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer.

What's Your Personality Type?

If you are interested in more information on the INTJ personality type, have a look here: http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html

The personality types of others: Nancy is an INFJ, Linda J is an ESFJ , Patti is an INFJ, Amy is an ISTJ.

Quilt Guild Block Exchange - The Elements: Earth

Our Quilt Guild has a new challenge--a block exchange. The theme of the block exchange is, "The Elements~Earth, Air, Fire, and Water".

We were given this fabric as our inspiration.

This fabric is a small (only about 6" square) piece of batik. The fabric is intended as our inspiration only and is not intended for use in the blocks.

We got together in groups of four. We were to make four 6 inch blocks each month for four months. The first month we were to make four blocks with the theme of, "Earth". We exchanged the blocks with the other three members of our group last Wednesday at our guild meeting and went home with four different blocks that centered around the theme of, "Earth"~our own block plus a block from each of the other three members of our group.

One of my group members was unable to make it to the meeting so we have not finished exchanging blocks in my group. I will show you a picture of the other three blocks I received once we have completed the exchange. For now, I can show you my block.

I used the colours of the inspiration fabric to decide on the colour of my block and drew from the name of my block to satisfy the "Earth" element. My block is a paper pieced block called, Worlds Without End and is from Quilter's Cache.

Once we are finished, we will have 16 blocks~all different~that we are to put together into a top and bring back to the last guild meeting of the year for show and tell. This is challenging, but fun all the same!

Gratitude Quilt - Quilted

My Gratitude quilt is now quilted. I hope to finish prepping and attaching the binding to the quilt this afternoon so that all that will remain is the hand stitching.

I have two more customer quilts waiting in the wings, so I have told myself I only have this afternoon to work on this quilt--then it gets set aside until after the customer quilts are finished.

Quilt Lips

I haven't posted in a while. I was waiting to post once I had made some quilting progress. It seems lately that I take one step forward and two steps back and I just can't seem to make any progress.

I intended to quilt my gratitude quilt last weekend. I loaded the backing and batting, and top on the long arm and started to quilt last Sunday. I am trying to use up batting that I have on hand and so I had loaded Warm and White batting (from the Warm Company) which you all know has no loft.

The vision I had for the quilting would have benefited more from a quilt batt with loft. I quilted spirals on three of the blocks and started to meander in the space between the spirals to fill in the space and help define the spirals. I was using green thread that matched perfectly with the green fabric in the border but it did nothing for the red fabric. My vision was falling apart. I decided last Sunday night that this was a bad plan and it needed to be abandoned.

Last week I was busy in the evenings and I couldn't get back to that quilt. Last night I frogged all the stitching and cleaned up the threads so that the quilt would be ready for quilting today with a new plan.

I decided to choose an overall quilting design that was simple. I loaded a gold coloured thread made by Superior called, Highlights #703. I have never used this thread before and I wasn't sure what tension I should be using. After trying to quilt a row and having the thread break twice, which required more frogging, and further tension adjustments, I finally have a result I am happy with.

This gets me to the title of my post, "Quilt Lips". The quilting design I chose is called, "LIPS" and utilizes my Circle Lord Wave templates.

Now that I have settled on something I like, the quilting is going along quite quickly. I feel I am finally making progress after going backwards for a week.

January Snowman Block

This block is from my list of projects (see side bar) that I want to finish this year. This is from #4 on the list. .....just 11 more blocks to go--one per month for the year.

I have to work hard to catch up to Linda J as she is working on the month of May already! I hear that Pam has also joined us and will be starting work on her blocks soon.

This is my first attempt at red/blue work and I think I am hooked!

Mom and Dad's Crumb Block Quilt

We have had two sunny days in a row! The temperatures have been bitterly cold since our last snow storm, but the sun has been shining which makes those cold temperatures easier to take.

My mother took advantage of the sunny weather to take a picture of her new quilt. I couldn't resist showing this picture here as it shows off the quilting so nicely.

This quilt was quilted using Circle Lord's Baptist Fan templates. The curves definitely compliment the straight line piecing in the blocks.

Christmas Gratitude Quilt - Completed Flimsy

This weekend I took down the Christmas decorations and packed them away. This is always a sad time. I love Christmas and enjoy the decorations in the house. It is always a little bit of a downer when those things have to be put away.

This year, I was able to continue the feeling of Christmas beyond packing away the decorations by working on my my Christmas Gratitude quilt. My quilt is now finished to the flimsy stage. My version is different from Judy L.'s version in that I have left off the last two borders. I ran out of the red and green fabric so this quilt is slightly smaller than Judy's version. At 60" x 73" this quilt is plenty big enough for a lap quilt--even without the last two borders.

Gratitude Quilt - Progress

I worked on my Gratitude quilt tonight. This is the progress so far. I am now to the point where I can add borders.

I also added my 12 top UFOs to my sidebar. My Gratitude quilt is one of my goals so I am going to keep going on this one so that I can take it off my list.

Linda J.: I started my January blue work snowman block. I can see where working on those blocks will be addictive! I now understand why you finished January, February, and March already!

First Blogging Anniversary, 200th Post, New Year's Resolutions, and Progress on Projects

Today is the anniversary of my arrival to the world of blogging. One year ago today, I wrote my first post. Today--1 year later--I find myself writing my 200th post!

Linda J. and I have challenged ourselves to finish some of our UFOs this year. I guess you could call our challenge a New Year's resolution. Linda has already made her list of top 10 projects that she wants to finish this year and she has added them to the side bar of her blog. I have made a list of my 12 projects -- one project for each month--but I have not yet made my list public as each time I read it I make further changes. I will work on narrowing down my choices and then I will follow Linda's lead and add my list to the side bar of my blog.

I started two projects in December after commitments to customer quilts were out of the way. The first project was inspired by Finn in a post that she wrote in December. This pattern is called Patience Corners and following Finn's lead is made from nickel squares of Christmas fabrics that were in my stash. My plan is to make this quilt lap size - approximately 4 ft. x 6 ft. This is the progress that I have made on my Christmas Nickel quilt so far.

When I was cleaning up the cuttings on the flor of my studio after the making of my Christmas projects, I cut up the scrap pieces into nickels ans strips. I used the leftover bits that were not suitable for either of these two categories to make Christmas crumb blocks. When I was looking for a setting for these blocks I came across a piture of Jeanne's quilt that was pasted into my inspiration notebook. My crumb blocks were 8" square--the perfect size for the center of the blocks in Jeanne's gratitute quilt. So, the second project I started was inspired by Jeanne's quilt. This quilt was later featured on Judy L.'s blog as her gift to us in the November Hour-A-Day Quilt project. This is the progress that I have made on my Gratitude quilt so far.


I attended a sale at our local quilt shop during Boxing week. There were so many fabulous Christmas quilting fabrics on half price. I exercised discipline and did not purchase any--not even a single fat quarter! When I came home and took a look at the Christmas fabrics in my stash, I decided I was no longer going to save them. I am going to use them up so that next year when the new Christmas fabrics come out, I will be able to purchase them with a clear conscience knowing that I don't have any Christmas fabric in my stash! In order to totally bust my Christmas fabric stash, I am going to be piecing the backs for the two quilts shown above out of 10 1/2" squares of stash Christmas fabric.

Although 2006 has been a year of adding more UFO's to my every growing list of projects to complete, it has also been a year of new friendships. The friends I have made in the world of quilt blogging have been both inspirational and supportive to me and demonstrate just how small a world we really live in!

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey

New Year's Eve

We had our big New Year's feast last night--New Year's Eve rather than on New Year's Day. This gives everyone New Year's Day to relax and rest up so that they are ready to go back to work and a regular schedule tomorrow!

These are pictures taken at dinner last night--we had the four immediate members of my family, the girlfriend and boyfriend of my son and daughter, and my parents. Our meal was simple--ham, mashed potatoes, peas, broccoli, salad and baking for desert--simple but delicious!

After dinner discussion was lively--the pros and cons of various large screen TV formats, computer technology, etc. This is my husband studying the research on TVs that he got off the Internet.


This is my husband and mother....

...and my son.


Later we spent the evening playing board games--Wizard, Sequence, and Scrabble.

The youngest finished up the evening with a movie while the oldest headed to bed--even if it wasn't quite midnight in the Pacific! After all, it was 2007 somewhere in the world already!

This morning, those younger members of the family are still asleep and my husband headed off to work. I have the house to myself and I am enjoying the quiet.

I will leave you with a picture of Joey that sums up how I feel right now--too pooped to do much of anything after a great holiday season!

Happy New Year everyone!