Catching up again

Seems like I'm always playing catch up on this. But that seems to be true of everything else in my life as well. So, we left off with November and what we were planning for Thanksgiving. We went to my Mom's for that. We headed over on Thursday and took the dog with us. We stayed at a hotel as mom had a house full. My aunt & uncle with their dog staying in the RV parked in the front yard. My sister managed to get the time off and was there. My cousin and her husband came from Lake County. My brother and his wife from Colorado. And the neighbor from across the street.  A house full for dinner and mom didn't do any of the cooking. My cousin's husband and my sister-in-law did most of the dinner. My sister and sister-in-law did all the baking for the desserts. My uncle helped with the last minute cooking for the dinner.

December was quiet. Hubby and I spent Christmas together very quietly. We got each other one thing for a gift and just enjoyed our time. We were supposed to have company, but they called saying they had a nasty set of germs and, bless them, didn't want to share. We both slept through the New Year coming in.

January, I made a quilt for my aunt to give to my cousin who was expecting her first child in March. My aunt had asked me in November if I would be willing to make the quilt and I said, sure. I finished it the end of January.

My Aunt was thrilled with the way the quilt came out and I was glad to be able to give it to her in February when I went over to my mom's for the baby shower.

February saw lots and lots and lots of rain and a lot of flooding in my neck of the country. Where I had traveled the weekend of the baby shower, a week later was under water, roads closed. I managed to get to work but some days it was a bit of a challenge.

I got another quilt done in February, but haven't taken a picture of it yet, so that will have to wait.

March was coming quickly and I still needed to finish my Red Bluff block of the month top. I managed to get the top done in early February and sandwiched in late February. Then it was a rush to get the quilting done so I could take it finished to the Show and Tell meeting March 21. I made it! Finished sewing the binding down March 19. This was at the
show and tell night. I love the way it turned out and now I'm
into April and I plan to finish another quilt. So stay tuned, there's more to come.

My cousin had her baby in March, a little girl. All are doing well and they are totally enjoying their bundle of joy.

February 2016

The month of February is almost gone. I finally took a picture of the last quilt I finished in December 2015. It's a winter wall hanging and I'm happy with it. I bought the kit at a quilt show somewhere and I can't tell

you the place or the year. The kit had all the fabric and yarn for the scarf and the snowman's hat, along with the backing and the binding. Another quilt that was purchased when I was first learning to quilt that got on the procrastination listing. I started putting it together in 2011, but didn't get finished until December 2015. I put the last stitches into the binding December 31st and the label.

My 2016 quilting year is starting off with finishing a couple of quilt tops, getting some binding ready for quilts that are in line for quilting, and finishing a table runner made from blocks I won at our February quilt guild meeting. I won the 6 heart blocks

seen in this design along with the center square and the 2 triangles of fabric to put it together. I went to the quilt shop the fabrics had come from and purchased enough of the darker purple to use as the backing and the binding. I got it sandwiched the third week of February and did most of the quilting at my small quilt group meeting. Finished the balance of the quilting at home and then put the binding on it. It's the first finish for 2016 and I'm pleased with it.

I will be working on getting more of my projects finished as time goes by. I want to do what I did last year as a challenge to myself. I want to get as many of my long standing UFOs done as I can AND I want to finish everything I start in 2016. I'm off to an okay start as the table runner is one of those starts. There are 4 others on the 2016 list and one of them will be finished next month. One is a block of the month and ends in November, so I'm hoping to get it done the first part of December. Will see how that works out. Another one on the list will most likely be finished in May. The last one on the list is a work in progress as it is hand stitched and I can only work on it for short periods of time.

Thanks for checking in.