Just a Quickie Post

Hi everyone.  I hope that everyone's New Year's has gotten off to a great start!!  I did not make Resolutions this year, but I had a Plan (those are easily changed) to try to blog more frequently.  Well, we're looking at January 21st today, so that makes it three weeks.  I was going to try for two weeks - that was the Plan.   Obviously I didn't stick to that very well.

One of my plans though was to join Nicola's Scarlett Letter Challenge this year.  I felt that it was a great reason to finally stitch one or two of the samplers that I had hidden in stash.  I've done them before (like Ann Medd), but seemed to pass Scarlett Letter pieces over for other things.  This time I'm glad I didn't because I'm in love with this sampler.  This was my New Year's start (pics are clickable).  I'm a little further than this, but the camera is dead and I didn't feel like fooling around with the phone camera:

Ann Smith

The Scarlett Letter

AVAS and 35 count Magnolia linen

I love the bright happy colors of her.  What I don't like is all the over one.  I usually avoid over one like the plague, but finally broke out the magnifier and I'm so happy that I did.  The magnifier and I have become good friends.  The letters are full cross over one and the sky below that is tent stitch over one.

The Cotton Club isn't finished yet.  Just the borders now and it will be a wrap.  My 'plan' was to have it finished last week, but then I had forgotten that my daughter only had half days for most of the week due to semester finals, so that cut into my sewing machine time.  And I also got into a huge stash room clean out.  But while thinking about the end of the Cotton Club, I went back and forth about what to start next and it came down to two quilts.  In going through my stash, I decided to work on one old stash piece and one new piece.  And yes, I should have my head examined because in addition to trying to make progress on my basket blocks with Siobhan, I'm going to work on these two:

I have had this quilt in my stash for about 10 years.  Just about the time I stopped quilting for a while when I became busy with PTA activities  at my children's school, this BOM starting showing up in the mailbox.  I just filed them away and didn't look at them again until last year.  This one will be a challenge, but for some reason working on those baskets with Siobhan and actually appliquing has given me the courage to work on this.  There will no fast results with this one - it's going to be slow going as a lot of it is not only appliqueing, but also paper piecing and I'm not the quickest nor best paper piecer in the world.  I'm planning for two blocks a month - not a lot, but we'll see how it goes.  Maybe a block a week....maybe!!

The other quilt will be more straightforward, but another one that I've loved for a long time:

I don't know what my obsession is with quilts like this - it's very reminiscent of the Farmer's Wife, but I'm really looking forward to working on this one.  The colors are different than the Farmer's Wife and I think that is what I like about it - different blocks and different colors.  The BOM has 10 blocks each month so between the two of these quilts I've got my work cut out for me.  And besides these two, I want to get working on Phebe - I actually have a couple pieces ready to go, just have to applique them down.  So it looks like I'm going to have my quilting work cut out for me (well, no, I'll do the cutting - LOL) for the next year or so.

New Year's started off on a really great note for me.  I won a couple of giveaways and wanted to post  to thank each of the girls that sponsored them.  Before the New Year even started I won a giveaway from Lisa from a Southern Bell Misplaced in Michigan.  I found out that Lisa lives not all that far from me and hope that I'll be able to meet with her soon:

The red fabrics immediately went into the pile of reds for my baskets and you can't see them, but there were two stitching wallets - one plastic and one mesh that I'm already using.  And the pillow (a favorite of mine) is backed with a Fleur de Lis charm.  UGH, I can't find the picture I took and the camera battery is dead.  But it was so sweet and thank you so much Lisa.  I hope that we can meet up soon.

Right after the New Year I won another giveaway from Shelly of the Arizona Stitcher:

The box was full of so many goodies, the Little House Needleworks chart and the linen, ribbon trims, a stitcher's mug, some wonderful Christmas far quarters, chenille trims, a needle minder, note cards, tissues, a christmas towel, prickly pear jelly (yum) and chocolate!  Thank you so much Shelly.

The next giveaway I won was from was Becky.  She held a stitching challenge last year and I won!  The prize is a $100 dollar gift certificate to the LNS of her choice.  I can't wait to get that in my hot little hands and have some fun spending it.

Which means that I will acquire more stash.  But quite frankly I need to get rid of some stash.   Right after the New Year, I got on some kind of cleaning tear and really went at my craft room.  The closet is so clean and organized right now:

Everything in it's place (well almost, I just noticed the green top of the thread keeper system laying not where it should be) and things labeled, but.........this isn't the only closet that my stash is in.  It's also in two other closets, three cupboards and quite a few Rubbermaid bins in the workroom.  You can accumulate a lot of stash when you stitch, quilt and knit.  I think that I could easily be shown on an episode of The Hoarders.  My husband definitely thinks so and you probably would too if you saw pictures of the complete mess.   So I'm thinking of posting some of my stash on this blog or another one.  I actually thought of doing this a year or so ago, but hesitated thinking that people wouldn't want half of the things that I would get rid of.  And they might not, but I thought it was worth a try seeing what people would want and the rest I could possibly donate.  So stay tuned.  I hope to get a new camera battery tomorrow and have things put together by the next time I post.

So that's it in my part of the woods!!  It's cold and snowy here today - a great day to hunker down sew and put a pot of soup on the stove.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!