Happy New Year! Okay, so I'm a little late. : / In that case, I guess I'll have to wait another year to say Merry Christmas, huh? I think I also missed Trick or Treat? Okay, so I've been gone for a while - again. But I have a really good reason - quilting!

That's right. After three months of not being able to quilt after my foot surgery, I am now back in my sewing seat. In fact, I haven't been able to tear myself out of it! And I have gotten quite a bit done. Let me show you a little.

First of all, in December I got another of my Christmas quilts completely finished. Remember this one from the end of 2012? Since no one else in my family likes this one, I get to keep it. Yeah! It's actually my favorite of the Christmas quilts. I do love busy!

I also finished two baby quilts.

This one went to my wonderful nephew and his equally wonderful wife in New York. Their baby is due any day now. Actually, she was due on the fourth, but I don't want to put any pressure on the little momma. : )

The top picture is the front and the next is the back. The front has butterflies and the back has Tinkerbell. Since I had to mail the quilt in a hurry, I didn't get any close ups.

 

This second quilt is one I started several years ago, but I finally finished it! Dragonflies this time. Now I just need another niece to get pregnant, only this time with a boy. What's with all the baby girls in this family?

That brought me to a total of eight finishes on my To Do List for 2013. That's the good news. The bad news is that that is only one-third of my list done. And I've added more UFOs. Oops.

Speaking of UFOs, here is one for my 2014 list. It's only a UFO because I didn't get it bound last month. You might remember this quilt from Sager Creek's Stashbuster's meeting this summer. It's called Flying Birds, and I love the pattern. Here is the sample that Cliff made to show us.



I really tried to make one like this. I started looking for colors like the ones above. Nice, earthy colors. Nothing bright. Nothing weird. Then I found the fabric. Do you ever have a fabric just call your name? Loudly? Just begging you to use it? Oh. You don't. Well, in that case, neither did I. (Just kidding - I really did!)

 Here it is. Isn't it just fabulous? Yes, I know. Not exactly what I was supposed to be looking for. But when a fabric starts talking to me, I'm not brave enough to ignore it. ; )



I chose all of my colors with care - and yes, everything came out of my stash. No cheating and buying new fabric for this one!

The problem came when I tried to put it together. It insisted to sewing itself together in a completely different way than the pattern dictated.



Here are two very dear friends of mine at Stashbusters trying to figure out how this is the same pattern. It really is the same block. Can you see it? This quilt makes me smile. : )

Mom did a fantastic job quilting this for me, but it's currently languishing in my to-bind stack. I hope to get to it next week. I'll get pictures of the quilting when I get it finished. I asked her to quilt it in a happy, sunny way, and boy did she deliver! It has flowers and dragonflies all over it. Hurray!

I really need that warm, summer look right now with all of this snow. I was supposed to be back at school on Monday of this week, but so far I have only worked once - yesterday - and even then we were sent home at noon. I really need to go in tomorrow to prepare for the students, who start on Monday. Tomorrow is supposed to be okay weather wise. Not for my husband, though. His school is more rural and is out again tomorrow. He will be working make-up days far into the summer this year. Sigh.

So, what am I working on now? I have pictures! But it's bedtime already. You'll just have to wait. : ) Good night, and don't let the weather get you down. Smile, and keep on sewing!

Deb