Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year.  I took some time off of work and stepped away from the blog for a little while as well.  We were supposed to go to Mexico but the blizzard here in New England put an end to that plan and we weren't able to get out.  So, we made the best of it and did stuff around our area. 

I wanted to recap all of my accomplishments in 2010 as we move into 2011.  I think I was able to get a lot of projects accomplished last year.  It was certainly my most productive year of quilting to date.

I finished my Bento Box quilt!

I made this Blooming Nine Patch for my cousin's wedding. 

I made a bathroom curtain for our guest bathroom (no picture).

Made a baby blanket, bumper, and set of curtains for my friend's nursery.

Made my first bag using Pat Bravo's Milano kit. 

Finished my Wonderland quilt.

Finished my Figgy Pudding quilt.

Made a mini quilt for the NEMQG holiday mini quilt challenge.

Made my first pincushion for the NEMQG pincushion swap. 

I also made two camera straps for my sister and father for Christmas and made a few picnic roll-ups for my Mom for Christmas which I haven't uploaded a photo of to my computer yet. 

All in all, I think I had a great year quilting wise and look forward to accomplishing even more in 2011. 

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing everyone and their family a Merry Christmas!

NEMQG - Holiday Mini Quilt Challenge

Last weekend the NEMQG held a holiday mini quilt challenge with our pincushion swap.  I decided to make a small quilt using needle turn applique that we learned in our last meeting.  I knew that I was going to be busy traveling for work, so I saw that as the perfect time to work on a needle turn applique quilt. 

I designed the quilt myself after sketching up a few different designs and settled on a gingerbread house and a Christmas tree. 

I made it using the scraps that I had from the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery BOM except for the brown house.

Here are a few close-ups.

I added some crystals to the Christmas tree to look like ornaments.

Here's the house.  The windows and door knob are made of buttons. 

Here's the back of the quilt where you can see some of the quilting that I did. 

I was running short on time for the binding, so I ended up machine stitching it down using some metalic thread. 

Now for the competition.  There ended up being four quilts total entered into the challenge.

After seeing all of the quilts up there, I knew I had no shot of winning.  I mean, come on, look at some of those.  They're fantastic.  Everyone at the meeting was given a piece of paper to vote on their favorite quilt.  After the tally, quilts 3 and 4 (from left to right) were tied for third place and quilts 1 and 2 were tied for first.  I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when I learned I was tied for first.

Because there was only one winning prize, we had to have another vote off between quilts 1 and 2.

After the second tally, again quilts 1 and 2 were tied.  (I was shocked that I was still in it, much less tied for that awesome quilt on the left.)  Then, we realized that we were missing one vote, the deciding vote.  After all of the votes were recounted and the tally was final, MY quilt was dubbed the winner!!! Holy cow!!!  I seriously never expected to be the winner after seeing all of the cool quilts. 

So now this cute quilt is hanging in the hallway off our kitchen to our master bedroom. 

NEMQG Pincushion Swap

On Saturday, at the NEMQG, we had a pincushion swap.  It was a "bring a pincushion, get a pincushion" swap. 

Here's the pincushion that I made for the swap.

I made it using the leftover scraps from the Carol Doak Radiant Star BOM.  All of the pieces that I had leftover from trimming the paper pieced blocks became this pincushion.  I filled it with crushed walnuts.  I loved it and didn't really want to give it away, but I did.

Here we are swapping pincushions.

And this is the pincushion that I received.  Isn't it cute?

 

And here are all of the pincushions.  I wish I could have taken them all back with me, but if I did that I'm guessing I wouldn't be welcome back to the group.  So, I resisted.

Revisiting 2010 Goals

At the beginning of the year I developed some goals for myself for the 2010 quilting year.  I thought that this would be a good time to revisit them and see how I did throughout the year.

Goal 1 - Reduce the number of unfinished quilt tops needing to be quilted (9 at the beginning of 2010)
I reduced that number by two.  I now have 7 quilt tops that need quilting.  Goal = Acomplished!!!  (I have to say, before I went and counted, I was sure I was going to have more than 9.)

Goal 2 - Buy less fabric and use from my stash.
Hahahaha.  This is a funny one.  Yeah, about that.  I never actually took inventory of how much fabric I had at the beginning of the year, but I would be willing to bet my Bernina that I have more fabric now than I did on January 1, 2010.  That's saying a lot.  I don't think I ever thought I was going to have less fabric, but I wanted to consciously use some of the fabric that I already have.

Goal 3 - Reduce my UFOs (I had 9 quilts in progress at the beginning of 2010)
I now have 7 quilts in progress (from the cutting stage all the way to the binding stage).  Once again, I'm shocked that this went down.  If I had to guess, I would have also thought that I had more in progress.  Goal = Acomplished

Goal 4 - Continue Blogging.
Check!


All in all, I think I did a pretty good job of maintaining my goals.  I managed to finish 12 projects this year, 5 of those were quilts.  I'll showcase my finishes for 2010 after the holidays and when I can share more about some of them.