Week One

Welcome 2017...but first a little recap of the last few projects of 2016.

We had a fantastic Breakfast Club gathering on Dec. 29th. It is a tradition for us to tackle a mystery on our last meeting of the year. Our leader, Marcia, picked a pattern and made it into a quick mystery because we only have a few hours to work on it before it is revealed by the end of our quilting day. We had to show up with brightly colored rectangles, 2 1/2 x 5 inches, and about 4 yards of a dark background. We each made one block to determine if we were happy with our background fabric in relation to the rectangles we had gathered. Here's my block.

This is not the background fabric I brought to class with me...as soon as I walked into the quilt shop I saw this darker grey and grabbed the rest of the bolt. It is perfect with all my little rectangles that were cut from a Bali Pop called, "Splash." I did add a few pieces from my stash.

After we all completed our block, Marcia revealed the her top...borders still to be added. Marcia really did use her scraps for this as there is not one single repeat of fabric in her rectangles! All batiks. 

Now the majority of the day is spent doing other things than quilting...like shopping and eating. There is always great food and company but the shop also had a big sale on fat quarters. Huge selection and if you buy 100 fat quarters they are only a dollar a piece. You are allowed to combine with you quilting partners to come up with 100 fat quarters. I came away with 27 batik fat quarters.

Back to the mystery pattern details. Here is the pattern as it was made up by the designer, Cory Yoder. Marcia's twist is a great version!

It is just one of 15 quilt designs in this new book which I highly recommend. I'm sure our quilt group will be making a few more quilts from this book. I counted six other designs in the book I would like to make. 

There were other projects I tried to wrap up before the end of 2016. I needed to make a little bear for a stocking called, "Bear to the Rescue." I have made several bears for stockings and I never seem to get faster...this little devil took me four hours to make. Ridiculous! And I still have three more to make.

But he sure looks cute when he is all done and sitting in the little firetruck.

And...I just finished tacking green wool backings to all of the cross stitch ornaments I finished in 2016. My cat was obsessed with trying to pull down all the cross stitch ornaments I had hanging from garland on my stairway railing. I'm trying to figure out how to hang them out of "cat range," next year. Very difficult decorating dilemma as I have 168 cross stitch ornaments...so far!

Here's a quick look at one backside. The instructions call for gluing the felt onto the backside but since I've had some of these ornaments for almost 20 years...I have found the glue does not hold up for many years of storage. It just needs to last for my lifetime!

I am working away on Bonnie Hunter's "En Provence." Love it...but lots of piecing left to finish before I even start putting blocks and rows together.  You know how it is...sew many projects in progress and new ones I would love to start. I'm looking forward to getting lots of quilting done in 2017.