My best wishes.......

My best wishes to all my friends in Blogland for a very healthy, peace-filled and happy 2012.

This is my last "finish" for 2011.....a quilt that is made from blocks done in a swap I hosted awhile back.....too lazy to go look up the date!!!  LOL   Ebony Love (Love Bug Studios) did a nice job of quilting it for me and I put the binding on today and got it all washed and dried so it would be nice and crinkly....just the way I like it!

I did get a lot of quilts completed in 2011 and hope I do as well in 2012.....but I really need to sift through my UFO's and decide........Finish?........Give away for someone else to finish and keep?........Trash?    I have way too many and some of them no longer appeal to me, I am sad to say.  I may have to offer some on my blog as a giveaway, so keep your eyes open!  Maybe there will be something that appeals to YOU!

Happy New Year! 

Jelly Roll Block # 6....

Here is my block # 6 for the Jelly Roll Quilt-along. I like this one better than most of the first five blocks I made for this quilt-along.

I am getting tired of working with this same jelly roll now.......hope that doesn't mean THIS project will become part of my UFO count....UGH....as we all know, I already have WAY too many of them. I do think I will have to look closely at them over the summer and give some of them away.

Oh, my.......

NOTE: Blogger has been acting weird. I typed this to appear on Sunday morning and it appeared Saturday night...so some of you might be seeing it for the second time!!! Blogger can be nuts sometimes!!!
I have a free-standing cabinet...a tall one...in which there are many shelves. A year or so back, I organized it and put things in bags and boxes. I then made a nice list on the computer and taped it inside the door. The list tells me what is in each box and on each shelf. Very impressive to see, I can assure you. Of course, I have hardly looked in there since that time. I'm not sure why I was in there yesterday....but I happened to look at the list and saw a line that said "Valentine placemats in progress.....2 baggies.....shelf 5". Okay......that sounded promising, so I went to shelf 5 and found them easily. WOW.....great system....it really works. I then opened the bags and found this.......what a MESS!!! Several strips of Valentine's-themed fabric popped out on the tabletop (nearly exploded out, to be more honest about it). I saw just a very SMALL part of a quilt-as-you-go placemat in progress. I had been hoping that "in progress" meant the placemats would be further along. You know....as in......nearly DONE. *sigh* I have three swaps for which I need to get moving and also have my UFO challenge project to do this month. I needed those placemats to be further along than that! Well.....the placemat project is now back in the two baggies and I might get it done for Valentine's Day.....in 2011!!! For now, the project has been banished back to shelf #5 in my wonderfully organized cabinet.

UFO Challenge # 1

See the "flying saucer" to the right......where it says UFO challenge??? Well.......you can click on there and find out about the UFO challenge for which I signed up in 2010. The gal who organizes it (Nancy at Patchwork Penguin) has us select 10 UFO's and assign a number (from 1 to 10) to each of them. She then announces a number each month (Jan. - Oct.). We take the UFO with THAT number and work on it that month and aim to finish it before the month is over. Number 4 was chosen for January and that is my Christmas candle mat I'd wanted for this past Christmas. To the left is a photo of it before it was started. Now I hope to get it done in the next couple of weeks as part of this challenge. Anyone can still sign up for this UFO challenge, if they wish....just click on that flying saucer and it will take you to the right spot on Nancy's blog!

The quilt that almost was, but wasn't & still isn't...

For those with a good memory, you may recall THIS quilt (in progress) from my blog last year....It is a simple Christmas snowball-type quilt in progress. It was almost completed last year, but wasn't and...while I'd like to tell you it is finished this year, it isn't. *sigh* BUT.........I am going to get it out tomorrow and at least get all the blocks sewn into rows and get the rows joined at some point this week and try to decide on borders. It still won't be a completed quilt for this Christmas, but hopefully, it will be done for Christmas 2010! I strongly suspect many of you also have a quilt that "isn't" yet.....LOL Today our Lakeside Ladies quilting group meets (our small neighborhood group). They were going to have me show them the disappearing 9-patch (D9P) technique but one never got her fabric or her 9-patches made, another has to take her hubby to a doctor appointment, and another already knows how to do it. SO...one might work on a D9P...and the rest will just work on other projects and chat. We always have fun no matter what we do!

Quilt Diva.....

One of you, my fellow bloggers, (and I think it was Crispy but my memory is failing me right now) won a Quilt Diva pattern recently and I then emailed you the photos I took of MY Quilt Diva who is in my UFO pile (of course). You said I should share her with my other friends in Blogland. I worked on her at a class a couple of years ago and have yet to do the stitching around the MANY pieces of Quilt Diva. If I would make the time to sit and do that, I can then get it sandwiched and ready for quilting and then do some fun embellishments on her....a real bracelet...some quilt-show pins on her vest, etc. SO...for the rest of you...here is how Quilt Diva is looking right now. (You can click on the photos to enlarge them.) Notice the real tape measure in her hair and the pieces of fabric hanging out of her suitcase are just dangling there, so they are 3-dimensional and flapping around in the breeze. She was fun to do but a LOT of work. Don't you love my wild color choices? (Actually, she looks a bit like Maxine except for the hair color, doesn't she?

Here is a full-length shot of her. The scissor blades are a metallic fabric. The letter I under her is a shadowed letter and the silvery part of the letter I is made to look like a sewing needle. Cute, huh? See the tape measure holding that wild "I Love Lucy" head of hair in place? And, yes...she has cleavage!!!And here you can see the pieces of stash fabric trying to escape from her little hand-held quilting case and the real zipper on her rolling tote. She's SUCH a fashionista, isn't she? Don't you just love her footwear??? LOL

It's all about the number 3........a GIVEAWAY.....

Remember the other day I posted about the birdhouse blocks I won in a guild BOM a few years back? You remember them........the ones that have been sitting as a UFO since then. Well....one of my regular blog readers REALLY liked them and has been needing to make a birdhouse quilt for a relative for awhile. SO......since I wasn't super-attached to them, I decided to give them to her and she is very happy about that. (That's ONE way to get a UFO out of the sewing room, isn't it?)

Anyway.......I like seeing my UFO pile get smaller.....so I found another of my many UFO's that will be involved now in a giveaway. I was in a swap of flowerpot blocks. I made 6 and sent them off and got 6 back. Now I have decided I have no need for all 6 of them. I kept 3 and will make either 3 small wall-hangings or 3 pillow tops. The other 3 are pictured here and are up for grabs as a giveaway. They are each 10 inches square and the applique is all fused on and then the raw edges were stitched. Maybe you will be interested in trying to win. So...look at the photos and then read the giveaway "rules" below the photos.

Flowerpot # 1

Flowerpot #2
Flowerpot # 3
Rule # 1 - this giveaway is ONLY going to be mentioned here. My personal blog giveaways are only for my regular readers...seems the fairest way to do it. I have grown tired of those who just show up after they hear about a giveaway but never show up after that. So.....you don't need to be mentioning this on your blog, okay?
Rule #2 - today is May 3 and so you will each get 3 chances to win and you can split your chances up in whatever way you decide (maybe 2 chances for flowerpot # 1 and only 1 chance for flowerpot #2 and no chances put in for flowerpot #3....OR maybe you only like flowerpot # 3 and want all 3 of your chances to go there...or maybe you want 1 chance for each of the flowerpots). You look at the flowerpots and you tell me where to put your 3 chances.
Rule #3 - if you are one of the winners, please agree to show us what you do with your flowerpot (or maybe you'll win more than one). I'd enjoy seeing if they become the start of a large quilt...or if they will become small wall-hangings or the top for a pillow cover.

Simple enough....3 flowerpot blocks to be given away......3 chances to win....3 rules!

The giveaway will be closed at 5 a.m. Sunday, May 10, and I will draw a winner for each of the 3 blocks that day and announce it on my blog the following morning. GOOD LUCK to all who decide to enter this giveaway! (And if you don't care for the blocks and don't wish to enter, no offense is taken!!!)

A UFO from some guild blocks-of-the-month......

A couple of years back, I won these 12 birdhouse BOM blocks in a raffle at a guild meeting (in a guild to which I belonged at that time). They have been sitting in a bag since that time and I just found them again yesterday. Some have to be trimmed down and a few need some extra strips added as they are too small. Luckily, I still have some of that green from when I made my block...mine is the middle block in the third row. I will need to find a fabric that works for the sashing and border and get moving on this. It's a good quilt for spring! A couple of the blocks even have "birds" inside the birdhouses like the one I showed close-up here.

This needs finishing.......someday........

This is a sampler quilt from one of Eleanor Burns' books. The little neighborhood group did this as a project....each with our own fabrics, naturally. This was probably close to two years ago...and this is as far as I got. It's not a huge quilt...maybe 36 inches square. I just never got around to sandwiching it and deciding if I will attempt to quilt it myself or not (and IF I do, will I do it by hand or machine). I'm thinking maybe this WILL get finished....someday (but not necessarily soon). *sigh*

UFO's........*sigh*

I call them UFO's (Unfinished Objects).....others call them WIP's (works in progress). Whatever you call them, I think 99% of quilters HAVE them......right?? Well....this is just one of many I have. This one was started in a class taught by Barbara Barber from England. She calls it "Clamshells". I took the class at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in February of 2007. I really should try to work more on this soon. It's not even going to be big, so it's not like I have a lot more left to finish......but I just never kept going forward with it. Hopefully, I can remember how to do it now!

Productive day yesterday.....

Yesterday I spent most of the day sewing on gifts for the holidays. Because some of those folks look at my blog, I can't show photos....yet. I will show them after the gifts are received, though.

My guild is having a UFO day at the January meeting. The way this works is.....those who wish to participate in it sign a "contract" 9 months before this particular meeting. On the contract, you list the UFO's you will complete and show that day. Well...I put 4 items on my contract and have NONE of them completed. My hopes of getting any of them done are fading quickly....since the meeting date is January 5. I am consoling myself by saying that I will shorten show-and-tell time by having a few less items there that day....and then everyone can get home sooner!!! LOL (The last time we had this UFO meeting, the show and tell was VERRRRRRRY long....I mean almost excruciatingly long.....and some were unable to stay for the whole thing.) I think, though, this year the plan is to only show a favorite one or two items instead of ALL the UFO's you completed. (Some gals last year had 10 or more items to show.)

I realize I need to get a picture post on here soon.....more interesting that way, so I'll try for that tomorrow.