Finishing Up - 2012

As much as I want to start something new, this is not the time.  Life coach Gail Blanke was interviewed on NPR the other day. She's written a  book called "Throw Out 50 Things", which advocates ridding your life of clutter.  She says that by editing our lives and discarding physical and emotional clutter, we find our life.  I've taken her advice to heart, and begun.  I'll discard, repurpose and donate. I don't need to keep count, as it'll be pretty easy to get to 50.

What's harder for me is to stop accumulating.  And as new projects fall into that category, I'm not giving myself permission to start anything new until something is finished. A little motivation alway helps, so I was delighted that Nicky over at mrsssewandsow led me to Quilter in the Gap's 2012-finish-long and lots of like minded quilters.

The pace is just right too.  Not weekly, or monthly deadlines, but QUARTERLY, which sounds just about right to me.

My list is very familiar to many of you as my quilting progress is slow.

#1 -  Finish the Civil War Block of the Week 2011 quilt.  Thirteen blocks set, forty to go and then off for professional machine quilting.  I'm taking vacation next week and staying home to sew.

#2 - One of my New Year's resolutions was to quilt my Bird Quilt for an hour a day.  On Monday, I  did a marathon, and logged 8 hours while I listened to Amor Towle's "Rules of Civility".  I finished quilting the butterflies in the outer dark green border and am outlining the dogtooth triangles ( which you can't see here).  I'm hosting my small quilting group on Sunday, and want their opinion about whether or not I should add more quilting behind the birds and in the light green border.  ( I'm pretty sure the answer will be yes.  The deadline is the third week in April as this is to be my "show quilt" this year.

#3 - Joseph's Coat.  There are a dozen finished blocks sitting in a box.  This is my go everywhere - take along project and truthfully I'm in no rush to finish this, it is the perfect hand project. This photo does it no justice, I'll have to amend that soon. 

Happy Sewing !