end of the year finish

quilted & ready for binding!

detail - campfire

After a fantastic Christmas vacation with family I made it home to deal with the unpacking, errands, reheating the house and finding something edible in the pantry.  Once most of that was out of the way, I managed to squeeze in some quilting this afternoon and finished up the quilting on my Outdoors quilt!

It's been exciting to actually see this become a quilt over the last year - it certainly waited long enough. There's some of the back story here if you're interested.  In short, it's about 6-7 years old, I dusted the pieces off this summer to assemble the top and now all it needs is some binding.  Yay!

detail - trees, flying geese & sky

My December goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber of All Sorts was to finish the quilting on this one and what a relief to have this final goal met for the year!  I've participated and finished my goal every month from February - December!!  Thanks for the extra kick in the pants to get these projects finished- can't wait to keep it rolling in 2014!

detail- onderwater fish

This quilt is on my Quarter 4 list for the Finish-A-Long 2013 at She Can Quilt and I should be able to put the binding on it shortly.  This may find a home on the wall in my living room so I'd get to see it everyday.

detail- twinkling stars

Merry Quilting!

Phew these last few weeks have been non-stop both at work and out of work and in between!  There's been a little bit of sewing fit into all the busy - both for myself and some for gifts too.

I've been working on my Outdoors quilt and it's been a lot of fun so far.  Lots of thread colors and details and texture are being added to make this one of my favorite projects.  Soon enough I'll need to figure out binding color/fabric and get a label together.  Hooray!

a hiking trail through the trees! (please ignore the loose threads)

My Christmas tree is up as well and it was enjoyable to sit by it while watching the snow fall the other weekend.  Putting up the tree can't be done without the Grinch or other favorite Christmas movies  such as Holiday Inn.  I also got around to watching The Holiday which was a whole lot of fun!

Sometimes inspiration strikes whether there's enough hours in the day or not.  That hit me over the weekend and I hauled out my scrap box, some fusible, some form of Peltex, my iron and scrap paper.  I worked out a few fun wintery designs and made art cards as gifts for my friends. 

 Fun and fairly quick to put together once I had the idea sketched out.  Especially fun to go through my scraps and find the exact right prints - like the one I used for the tree.  Perfection!  


These were a hit and I definitely plan to make more as quick gifts.  Linking these up with Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilts.

Merry Quilting readers!

Sunday Snapshot #19

So I was in the middle of the winter storm path this weekend and we went from 70 degrees to mid-20s!  Brrr!   Lots of sleet and freezing rain and then it snowed which makes everything pretty.

 There's nothing better than crunching through untouched snow! 

December goals for WIP :: 12/4/13

So this weekend included lots of great food, good company and lots of quilting - hope yours did too!  I got to finish up some goodies for retreat which was a nice *short* break from quilt wrangling.  Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced again this week to keep the momentum going now that I'm back to work post-vacation.

zip bags!

Once I finished up the Christmas quilt, I wasted no time in pulling out the next quilt top from the pile to be finished.  This time it was my outdoors challenge quilt top and I got it basted and into the machine.  I had some definite ideas for the quilting in mind and pulled out matching thread colors before starting to stitch.  

quilting detail - sunshine

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish the quilting on this one before the holidays creep up as this is my December goal to finish up A Lovely Year of Finishes in style!  Linking up with Fiber of All Sorts and making it official that I've participated in it for 11 months this year.  Glad to have made so much progress in finishing up a good number of quilts this year with the help of deadlines and public accountability.  Good luck to all on finishing your December goals!