Tuesday, January 15, 2013

365 Photo Challenge: Week 2

Welcome to week two of my photography venture...a picture a day and the prompts that prompted them! (Oh, I'm so well spoken.) I'll let the photos speak for themselves!

January 8: Discouraged
January 9: Peaceful
January 10: Climb
January 11: In Low Light
January 12: A Stranger's Smile
January 13: Real Life
January 14: A Self Portrait

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Sunday Morning

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you."
Psalm 32: 8

Friday, January 11, 2013

Finish Progress Report

Okay, so here's the scoop on my progress on finishing up some of my older projects. This week, I've been very focused on the Batman quilts that I'm wanting to finish as birthday gifts for my two grandsons. The boys recently started sharing a room and sleeping in a bunk bed that their Grandad made for them. One quilt top is complete except for a narrow grey border around the outside...
 The fabric finally arrived by UPS today. It took longer than expected, so I'm a bit behind...
However, I've gotten a good start on the second Batman quilt this week and am wading through the mess this type of improvisational piecing makes...
This quilt will be very similar to the first quilt, but I'm leaving out some of the "extras" and simplifying the piecing. I am also planning to use three shades of grey for the background rather than just Kona Coal, and am using scissors rather than my rotary cutter to add some wavy wonkiness to the frames. 
 Placed side by side, you can see that I have a ways to go in making the second quilt large enough for a bed...
 My goal is to get these two tops ready to quilt in the next week, so stay tuned!
The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild is participating in a challenge to make a quilt using Madrona Road fabrics, by Violet Craft. We can add solids or solidish fabrics, more Madrona Road, and must include a traditional block somewhere in the quilt. The quilt reveal just got moved up a week because of a scheduling conflict to February 7. Ack! I better get going as I'm only half way through the piecing of my top. Here's a glimpse...
 I couldn't help myself! I had to make another churn dash block this week...
 Mary sent me one, too, so now I have three! I am so excited about how cute this bright color combo is going to be!
How are you doing on your UFO projects? Are you like me, and having to make room for them along with your new ones?

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

365 Photo Challenge: Week 1

After years of using a point and shoot camera, my husband gifted me with a Canon Rebel T1i on a significant birthday last spring. I'm slowly learning how to take better pictures, but almost always rely on the automatic focus features. (I blame that on poor eyesight, of course!) Hoping to step it up a notch in 2013, I've made a goal of trying to learn my camera.  Joining the 365 Photo Challenge will keep me alert to photo opportunities and, perhaps, prompt some learning. Each Tuesday I plan to upload the seven daily pictures from the previous week along with each photo's prompt. There will be little, if any, explanation. After all, a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words! Here's a glimpse of my first week of 2013. Oh, one more thing, I'm going to try to incorporate a quilty picture each week if I can!

January 1: Resolution
 January 2: New Beginnings
January 3: Repetition
January 4: Fur
 January 5: Colorful Food
 January 6: With Words
 January 7: Movement


Capture Your 365

Monday, January 7, 2013

2013 Finish Along...Quarter 1

Today is the day that I list the UFO's that I'd LOOOOVVVVEEEEE to list as finishes by the end of this first quarter of 2013. Leanne, who is hosting the 2013 Finish-Along, has some great incentives planned to help keep me motivated.  Take a look. You might like to join us!

Actually, I found it motivating to get each project out of the closet, touch it, and admire it....there are some fun quilts here! Look...

1. Fortunate Friends...I've been working on this quilt for a few months now alongside my friend, Vicki. The top is close to being complete. Course, I gotta quilt it, too!
 2. Mazed...The blocks, made as leader/enders while piecing other quilts, are complete. It was on my design wall once, but my grand-daughter "helped" by taking it all down!
I look forward to playing with the parts again and finishing this quilt that can be put together several different ways!
 3. Orange and Aqua Sampler... The blocks for this quilt were collected during two quarters last year, from members of the 3X6 Mini Sampler Bee. As you can see, I've kept them in the envelopes they were mailed in,
 for reasons that I don't recall.


4. Postage Stamp...There is a BIG stack of these 16-Patch scrappy blocks... enough to make a full size quilt. I made them as leader/enders. It took a whole year. Why did I stop there? Beats me. I do know that I''ll loooooovvve this quilt! 
 5. Crossroads....Another set of blocks collected from a Bee.....this time from some members of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. In 2011. I think. I made this quilt once before and it is now gracing the bed of a sweet girl in Rwanda. I loved it so much, that I decided that I'd love to have my own. The blocks need put together and quilted. I might need to make it a bit larger. 
Aqua, grey, red, pink....yum!
 6.Birds... Oh, boy. I may detect a theme of procrastination here with Bee blocks! Here's another set of gorgeous blocks from the One Block Over Bee, all with that cute bird print for the centers. One member never completed her blocks, but fortunately, she mailed the fabric back to me last month...a year later! 
I'm looking forward to working with these again! 
 7. Paint Dipped...Remember this one? All it needs is quilting and binding.
 8. Batman...The top is complete...just waiting for more Kona coal for a border and then I can quilt it. February is my deadline on this one!
 9. 1600 Inch Race... The backing is picked and just needs pieced together, then I can start the quilting on this simple quilt. It was pieced during a quilter's retreat last spring using a jelly roll of Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy.
I wish that these nine quilts were the the sum of my UFO's. They aren't. If I finish them, or even some of them, in the next 3 months, I'll add a few more from my seemingly endless supply of unfinished projects. Nine is plenty for now....after all, I do have some new starts to work on as well, you know!!
Lynne is also getting on the Finish it in 2013 bandwagon by sponsoring another UFO group. I'm linking up with her, as well! Join me?
Never Too Hot to Stitch!


Friday, January 4, 2013

Finish

Do you adopt a Word for the Year
While I'm not wild about making New Year's resolutions, I do usually make a list of goals for the coming year. There's less guilt involved, you know! After much thought, I've made the word FINISH my word for the year and am hoping that it helps me achieve at least some of the goals that I wrote down in the back of my planner.(Yes, I use the old fashioned paper type!) I also wrote FINISH at the top of each calendar page, hoping that it will be a reminder. We will see. 

I'm also joining Leanne, the host for the 2013 Finish A-long, which kicks off on Monday, January 7. I'll be making a list of some WIP's that have been waiting way too long to become finished quilts. My goal is to make a Friday Finish report on how I'm doing each week, hoping that will help keep me motivated to actually DO my word of the year and not just talk about it!
I guess that I can work on a start and a finish at the same time, right!
 By the way, a few months back, I used one of my Joann coupons to buy this great ruler. I'd borrowed one from a friend during a quilting retreat, and decided that it would be better to buy my own than to accidentally walk off with hers!
 Because of it's large dimensions, this ruler is perfect for the WIP I am working hard to finish.
 I've worked so hard, that I actually got the blocks all made and the top put together as of last night. Now, I'm waiting for some more Kona coal yardage to arrive in my mailbox so that I can add a border around the outside before I start the quilting.
A very patient boy needs this for his ninth birthday, don't you think?
Uhhh....did I mention that his brother has a birthday just a few days before his and he wants a quilt too? "When are their birthdays?", you ask.
Oh, not till February.I've got lots of time.
Holy heart failure, Batman!