Recovering and regrouping…

Can you believe that we are in the 2nd week of the New Year? I am still recovering from all of the gift making and gift giving of the holiday season and frankly I am pooped! Now that the new grand daughter has arrived safely and is too cute; and the holiday rush is over and after much reflection, I have resolved to complete the quilts that I started on last year for myself. I gift quilts and I love that part of the craft, but I love them for myself too. So, if you look at my WIP list on the right side of this blog, I am going to work my way down the list. Maybe not in that exact order, but it is going to happen and I will keep at it until I am done. There will be a few new projects, but I just can not resist starting new stuff before I finish up the old stuff. I do that all of the time, so it will be a hard habit to break.

So for a brief update, I am continuing work on the Farmer’s Wife Sampler quilt. This is my diversion project and there is no rush here. The Ocean Waves quilt is moving back up the list. I am done with making the blocks. Just need to lay them out and create the top. I don’t want this one to continue to be a UFO, so it will definitely get done. Then, there is the Nine Patch Pineapple quilt that I started as part of an online challenge. It was definitely a challenge, required my undivided attention and I had to put it aside. I could not keep up. But it is going to be a gorgeous quilt and I do want to finish it. In 2010, I went to a retreat in Smithfield, VA where I had 2 classes with Bonnie Hunter. Lots of scraps, lots of blocks and not enough time. So the Pineapple Blossom and the Holiday Blue Ridge Beauty are moving up the list. And finally, a quilt that has become sort of my trademark for my obsession with half-square triangles. I started this quilt probably 4 years ago. I don’t think I have ever mentioned it on the blog, because, well, I worked on it for so long that I had to stop. It had started to overwhelm me and every time I looked at it, it was just too much. A co-worker  named it Half-square Triangle Madness and the name stuck. You will see what I mean when you see the photo.

So that is the short list of to do’s. Remember I wrote in a previous blog that I am going to start a Dear Jane. I intend to do that, just not until I finish something on the UFO list first. And I am also doing Bonnie Hunter’s Orca Bay Mystery quilt. It has been revealed, so I am taking my time on this – no big hurry. The Trinity Celtic Knot quilt is on the list and may move up faster than others because it will be a long overdue wedding quilt. All of the quilts on the WIP list are in various degrees of completeness, but here are photos of some of them, so that you can share in the fun. I will post a picture of Half-square Triangle Madness as soon as possible. It is a big quilt and I have to think about the best way to photograph it. I plan to do more frequent updates as I scratch them off the list, so stay tuned. Thanks for following my blog and have a great week.

       Ocean Waves

       Nine Patch Pineapple

     Farmers Wife Sampler

     Orca Bay Mystery