One month into the new year.

On the first day of the year, I always take down the christmas tree, put away all the decorations, and tidy up the christmas gifts.

This year I washed all the christmas quilts, freshened them up, checked for sticky candy on the lap quilts, folded them neatly and put them back on the shelf for another year.

I decided to take all the other quilts off the shelf and check them over. I like to keep all the challenges and the series together, and I wanted to make sure that the gift quilts were near the top of the stacks.

Turns out that I discovered 3 different categories. There was one stack that just needed freshening or refolding, a second stack that lacked proper labeling.I may have sewn a label that gave the name of the quilt, my name and date , but other facts like purpose of the quilt and the design were lacking, so I have a lot of secondary labels to make.

The 3rd stack was of quite early quilts that I may give away , but I am displeased with the quality of the quilting or the amount of  stitching.I’ve decided to add more machine quilting, and use them for practice to try out some new patterns. If I’m not happy with the stitching when I’m done – then they can be camping blankets or dog beds. In my early quilts, I find that there are lots of fairly wide borders that have only stitch in the ditch and could use some stitches.

The fiberspeak theme for December was “about face”. I have wanted to do some experimenting with windows in a piece and this was a perfect time for the first idea.

This piece is about 10X10 inches. It was 2 sides sewn together and the swivel in the middle is simply held by some beading thread and some beads to act like washers at the pivot points. I think this will be a series of a few pieces as I work out the bugs.

 

The theme for January was to pick your favorite flavor, and I picked citrus. Here’s what I made one evening.

 

Our theme for February is “out on a limb” and I am stumped for an original idea.