NYE 2012 A Mystery in Pictures!

NYE 2012 for Jordan

Kathy's NYE 2012 for Jonathan

Kathy and I both finished our entire tops with a bit of unsewing (shhh, we aren't mentioning that!) and resewing.  We think the six year old twins Jordan and Jonathan are going to love these quilts when they get them!  These were designed by Sherrie Wohlgemuth of QTMystery quilts.  We had a ton of hst presewing but it made for a nicely paced day of sewing and a completed quilt top!  This is our 7th annual New Year's Eve Day Mystery Quilt and is one of our favorite ways to end the year!

 This year we got on Skype with BJ who hadn't had a chance to do any presewing..BJ made really good progress once she got her hst's done!  I can't wait to see it when it is done!

Jacki made the larger size blocks so she could showcase the larger motorcycle print.  Hers is really colorful and I think it is going to be dynamite!

Ros had a fabulous rainbow like fabric for the center of her blocks that I really liked too.  This will be nice when all done too!  The gals had other evening plans and closed up shop around 5 pm, but Kathy and I sewed on til we were done!  

Ros and BJ are also working on Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street mystery which another clue came out today.  I snuck in a little sewing and am a little more than half way on it.  The final clue comes tomorrow!  I can't wait for the big reveal!  Barb also joined via Skype for a bit though she isn't doing the NYE, she is working on Bonnie's mystery.  So much fun to have so many mystery quilt lovers!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone.  May this year be easier on my heart than the last one was.  I am ready for a fabulous, less stressful year!  Bring it on!

Another Sewing Day--Life is Good!

 Today I got the last of the pinwheels made and all of Old Tobacco Road step three done!  It is now waiting for us to cut the bricks necessary to lay it out and sew it up!  For now it waits but am happy it is making progress.

 I also cut and sewed this Simple Strippy baby quilt for my youngest nephew's soon to be born brother.  He is insisting his name will be Lightening (as in McQueen) though his mother is leaning towards Oliver!  Hard to see the colors here, but it is lime and orange stripes.  Thought the lizards were good for a boy.  It is just a flimsy at this point.

 Kathy didn't sew much today, but did other stuff.  Then she pulled out this Scrap Jar Star in pink for the SoScrappy Rainbow BOM!  She will make one in each color with black for a background--I may join in and do one with the white.  I spent some time moving my small fabric to the back of my color bins (some cut cut into strips too) and then filled the empty drawers with string piecing strips that are sorted by color.  Things are shaping up organization wise here!

I also took a picture of some of the prep I did for future Rainbow BOM colors!  Well, our Burgundy Beef is in the crockpot for tomorrow, the dip is made for snacks and the steel cut oatmeal is doing its overnight thing so the food is taken care of for tomorrow's marathon sewing of the NYE Mystery for 2012!   

Bonnie Sewing Day!

 I had a bit of a migraine this morning and into the afternoon so I got a really slow start sewing, but I did cut and sew two Moth in a Window blocks...which Bug is kindly posing on.  I now have eighteen made.

 Kathy caught up on her Easy Street Mystery--clue six is all cut and ready for the next clue!

 I then decided to go ahead and get going on the Rainbow BOM Challenge...Angela said January's color is pink, I had already done red before deciding this would be good in the rainbow...and today I did the pink.  I also prepped up a bunch of the white and off white parts for future months and while I was at it I cut more for the Jack in the Box blocks too.  I plan to go ahead and make two more of each color so at the end of this year I will have enough for a quilt.  The turkey blocks are large so twelve of them might be enough for a lap quilt.

NewFO Challenge Plans!

 So I raided my pinterest boards to find some of the quilts I plan to start this year.  I am a finisher, but how nice is it that this challenge doesn't require finishes but starts!  That I can do!  In fact, I already snuck in one block for my first NewFO Talkin' Turkey!

 Here is how it looks on Quiltville.com.  I may do mine in a rainbow of colors all year though I do love Bonnie's version.

 I already have this one cut--Floribunda.  Yes, it is another Bonnie quilt (I AM her number one fan!) and has been waiting for me to just get going on it already!

 Here is the one that inspired Bonnie (I think)...

And this is what Bonnie's looked like with borders.  I think mine may wind up like the one above, I rather like the no border look of it.  

 I have wanted to make a Playing with Jacks (also Bonnie  Hunter, lol) for awhile now.  I found the PERFECT ball and jacks fabric in two different colors that I want to use in it or for the backing.  Lots of HST's in this, but with Triangulations I ought to be able to at least start it, lol.

 While I love anything from Quiltville.com, I also love modern quilts.  This year I want to be sure to make a few.  This block is in Quiltmaker's 100 blocks Vol.5 and there is something about it I just love.

 Pretty sure this is the same block (Cut to Pieces maybe?) and I love it too.  I really heart that mermaid fabric and have been on the lookout for awesome mermaid fabric.  If I like making this block I might have to do one as you see above and one as you see below.  Can't recall where I borrowed the pics when I put them on pinterest but I really, really love these blocks!

 On shop hop I fell in love with this version of Spin Cycle.  I bought the pattern, and I have the Denyse Schmidt fabric so this one needs to happen.

I also have a thirties nine patch quilt that I want to work on at some point this year.   I inherited it from a friend--at least some of the pieces are started, but not by me so that is technically a NewFO right?  I am sure plenty of other ideas will pop into my mind, but this is the plan so far!  

Are you joining in?  What are you going to start in 2013?

Skipping Down Easy Street!

 After work today Kathy and I holed up in the Quilting Studio and worked on Easy Street.  She finished up clue 5 and her clue six doesn't involve any sewing so she will be caught up in now time!

 Meanwhile, I skipped my way down the street to clue six.  I made too few to start with (11 strips not 11 sets, lol) then got carried away and made a few too many.  In any even they are done and I am glad I picked up a few small black and white pieces at SAS the other week so I have more variety.

 And here are all my parts ready for Bonnie's next clue on New Year's Eve day.  That is the same day as the NYE Mystery Kathy and I are doing, so we will be busy sewers that day!  Looks like burgundy beef will go in the crock pot and we can focus on sewing away.  We will be getting on Skype to check in on Jackie, Ros and BJ and the gang at Jackie's house an hour north.  We were invited, but we just love our annual mystery tradition and we always talk ourselves into staying home!

We both wound bobbins tonight and my NYE Mystery is all ready to go.  Kathy just finished cutting her last hst.  She has about 20 left to iron and she will be all set!  

I spent some time today and yesterday commenting on the clue 5 linky on Bonnie's blog.  I got about half way through so I need to keep on...am adding them all to my blog reader too.  Good thing I read fast!  I am really enjoying seeing the various color schemes as well as others that look a lot like Bonnie's and mine!  

Snippet of Sewing...

 After work tonight Kathy worked on her clues for both the mysteries we are working on and so I putted around, sewed a few more spools and decided I should see how many I have made and take a photo.  Lots of lime greens and purples because those colors are in Easy Street and I cut them from scraps!  Need more variety, but I have a whole wipes container full of cut pieces for more blocks so it will happen.

Read a blog the other day (I already forgot whose it was, darn it) and the gal had done clay yourself so I had to do one too.  Here I am, looking good--haha!  

Working tomorrow, but hope to get in some sewing this weekend!

Quilty Plans for 2013

I have been thinking about what quilty plans I will have for 2013.  I enjoyed 2012 and participated in Another Year of Schnibbles (until the end anyways) you can see how that went here and in the Year of Small Quilts Challenge put out by Sentimental Quilter.  I enjoyed that and am still working on the handsewn hexi doll quilt.  I will peek at her choices and try to fit in a few of them this year...love making little quilts but am running out of places to put them or gift them! 

I participated in Angela's SoScrappy Rainbow BOM challenge and am still in the process of making Jack in the Box for it.  I haven't seen the 2013 button yet but I will continue to do that quilt til I have enough blocks for a top.  I may just try to make one or two more blocks of each color as they come around this year.  I also want to add another block to make it more fun (or two, lol) so far I am thinking about doing the scrappy star block or maybe even Bonnie Hunter's Talkin' Turkey block! 

I did do the UFO challenge even though I barely had enough UFO's to qualify!  I did most of them..you can see the progress of that on my  UFO's page.  I didn't quite get to a few of them but they aren't pressing.  I might be able to come up with 12 more UFO's if I count all my works in progress, but I am a finisher so they will get done. 

NewUFO Challenge information in case you want in too!  Most of the time I do start something new in a month anyways, so this seems like an easy challnge, but I enjoy having sewing goals so this is a no brainer! 
I LOVE Mystery Quilts and am doing one on New Year's Eve with Kathy as we do every year.  It is one of my favorite sewing days!  I see there is another oneat Patchwork Planet on New Year's Day and it is a modern mystery...so I may just have to jump on that..though I work half a day I am sure I can get a good start on it before work if I am so inclined or save it for the weekend!
Are you joining any fun quilty activities that I have overlooked?  Tell me, tell me if you are.  Well back to work, break is about over but as always I am thinking about quilting if I am not quilting! 

Merry Christmas--Spiders and Talkin' Turkeys!

 Had to show you a few of my favorite Christmas gifts!  Kathy gave me this "prescription" coffee cup since I am not a morning person.  Drank out of it this morning, just what the doctor ordered!

 Spiders!  This may well be my favorite gift this year--let me tell you why.  My mom and I did two craft shows prior to Christmas and at one of them there was a corner booth full of spiders on Christmas trees.  Apparently there is a "Legend of the Christmas Spider"

A long time ago , a mother prepared for Christmas Eve. She cleaned and scrubbed her home, chasing the spiders from the living room with her broom. The spiders fled to the attic and listened to the excitement below as the Christmas tree was put up and decorated. When all was quiet again, the little spiders crept back downstairs to see the beautiful tree. They were filled with happiness as they crawled along every branch, admiring the glittering beauty of each ornament. But alas, by the time they had finished climbing through the tree, it was completely draped with their dusty, gray cobwebs.  When the Christ child came, He smiled as He looked upon the happy little spiders, however, He knew the mother would be heartbroken when she saw the shrouded tree. So He reached out and touched the webs and, blessing them, turned them into silver and gold. Now the Christmas tree sparkled and shimmered and was even more beautiful than before. Thus the custom to have tinsel of silver and gold and a spider ornament amongst the other decorations on the Christmas tree was born.  Author Unknown.

Right off the bat I spotted a purple spider similar to the one above and was going to get it for my sister.  She is deathly afraid of spiders and is ALWAYS posting pictures of the spiders in her house (she lives in the mountain wild, lol) that she needs someone to come kill.  She actually has anxiety attacks trying to get them out of her house.  Some of them are downright huge and some of them are poisonous.  Anyway we spent lots of time this year talking about spiders and commenting on her facebook spider pictures.  Every year since my kids were born I have bought each of them an ornament that represents something from the year.  It is my favorite item to buy them each year and when each of them moved out their ornaments went with them and they had a good starter amount!  So I saw the spider, thought of my sister and was going to get it for her.  Then I started walking around and saw spiders like the one below.

 Suddenly I knew I wanted these to be my kids' ornaments this year.  I bought three and I can tell you it is absolutely the most money I have ever spent on a few Christmas ornaments.  In the end I didn't get one for my sister or me.  My mom had bought one for my almost sister in law and then when she found out I didn't get one for Tina or me she secretly bought one for each of us and one for herself! So it was the year of the spider!  Everyone loved them and I think mine will stay out all year long!

 My other favorite gift is this rainbow leaf wall art.  We saw it at a craft show and I told mom how much I loved it and I am not sure when she got it but she made arrangements to get it for me.  I couldn't bear to put it outside on the brick wall that surrounds our back yard because the Arizona sun will fade it...so for now it is in my quilting studio and I love it!
Well if you have read this far now we get to the turkey part!  I really have been wanting to make this block since I saw it and decided that I would reward myself (for all the hst cutting, trimming and ironing) by sewing this up!

Talkin' Turkey!

 And at last all my HST's are done and bagged for the NYE Mystery!  Kathy has hers all sewn and it working on the rest.  Merry Christmas!