Best of 2015 and Blogiversary Giveaway!

Giveaway now closed, go here to find out who won! :)

When Cheryl over at Meadow Mist Designs announced she was having a Best of 2015 linky party, I immediately decided "I'm IN!" :) Then I realized, my blogiversary is the last day of the year! How appropriate would it be to do my best of, celebrate my blog's anniversary AND do a giveaway? I think it makes a pretty sweet combo, no? So let's do the Best of 2015 first! If you want to scroll down and just look at what might be up for grabs (I know you want to! LOL), do and come back, check out the best of 2015 according to the statistics page on blogger. 

Let's go in reverse order. . . build up the suspense, eh?

5. I'm throwing this one into the mix because it is my favorite post and 'finish' for 2015. It is the post about the final finish of the family tree quilt.

4. D9P commissioned quilt finish. This stat surprised me. . . It is a post that was not commented on as heavily as other posts but fell in the number 4 position for number of hits, coming in at 852 hits as of this morning.

3. Lambs, Pigs, Chickens and Horses came in third with at total of 857 hits.

2. Twirling #2 came in second with a total of 872 hits.

1. And the most viewed post, not only of 2015 but over the life of my blog. . . are you ready?? The Kremlin quilt!! Are you surprised? Yeah, me too!!! This post has 1211 hits as of this morning. Odd. I did notice that my Russian visitor stats are up. . . maybe I was put on a 'watch list'. . . LOL If that is the case, maybe my blog will inspire a few watchers to become quilters!! ;)

So there you have it. It was fun to see what the most viewed posts were for the year. Kinda fun huh?

OK, on to more fun! Today marks my two year blogiversary. When I wrote that first post, I had NO idea what I was getting myself into! I know you have read it before on many blogs, but the quilting blog world is so welcoming! And friendly! And helpful! OK, I could go on and on but I'll spare you. :) I have made so many friends through this blog! What started out as a way for my mom to be able to easily see what I was working on, quickly became my quilting community! And for that I am grateful. Very grateful! :) For each and every one of you who have cheered me on, provided your opinions, expertise and friendship in general, I say thank you, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, thank you! :)

Giveaway deets: Giveaway is open to everyone, international readers that includes you! :) No need to follow, but if you'd like to jump on board for year three, I'd love to have you! :) Just leave a comment. Any comment will do! If you have a preference of which of the three you would like, tell me in your comment. If it's possible to give the winners their choice, I certainly will! If you are a follower of my blog, leave another and tell me how you follow and you'll have two chances. :)

Giveaway will close on January 7, 2016 at midnight MST. Winners will be picked by Mr. Random and will be announced on January 8th. Please, please please, leave your email address in your comment if you have any doubt as to whether or not you are a no reply blogger! If you don't want to leave your email address in the comments, email it to me.

What am I giving away? Oh a couple of things I just have laying around waiting to be shipped off to the lucky winners :)

First up, one lucky winner will open their mail and find an Aurifil thread card (someday I'll tell the story of how I come to have two of these lovelies) and a sample pack of Aurifil thread. The sample pack includes all weights of Aurifil. Ever wonder what the various weights, types of thread actually feel, look like? Throw your name in the hat for this prize and you can check it out, for free! :)

I have no idea why this picture is flipped on its side. . . you get the idea :)

And what else? One lucky person will win a fat eighth bundle of Oakshott Cottons!! Aren't they puuuurrrdddyyy?? :D If you have ever wanted to give Oakshott a try, here's your chance! :)

And that's not all. . . one more lucky winner will win a beautiful fat quarter bundle of Morning Walk Holy Breeze by Leah Duncan for Art Gallery! Seems appropriate for a blog set in the desert to be giving away this beautiful bundle of southwesty (new term) fabric :)

Three gifts waiting to be sent to three lucky people! Just leave me a comment, a second if you are a follower and come back on January 8th to find out if you won! I just want to say, you are all winners in my book and to all of my readers, cheerleaders, occasional visitors and lurkers (love lurkers, I am one myself! LOL) I say, "Thank you!" I am looking forward to a great 2016 and can't wait to see what it brings for me and for all of you!

Linking up with Cheryl for the Best of 2015! If you haven't checked it out, do - there is a huge party going on over there! I'm a little late!! ;) And if you haven't linked up yet, there's still time! It's open until January 2nd.

Until next time, keep on quilting!!

Giant Blue Star - Quilt Finish

So excited to share this finish with you!! This quilt cinched it for me. I'm seriously addicted to dense quilting! I'm seriously NOT taking on any more commissions without this understanding up front, quilting will be dense, it will take more time, and it will cost more. That's just the deal. I quilt because I love it, it is not my business nor do I ever envision that it will become a business. That would just suck the fun right out of it for me. So you have heard it here first, I am officially going to be way more picky about what I agree to make and my prices have gone up. ;) There, I've said it publicly so now I have to stick to it, right? haha Oh, and never again will I agree to make TWO quilts in three weeks. That can be taken to the bank (does anyone say that anymore, my dad used to say it all the time! LOL). OK, I'm done with that little rant, let's see how this baby came together shall we? :)

I contemplated many designs for the star on this quilt. In the end I knew this - I could spend a bajillion hours doing intricate ruler work and it wouldn't be seen, or I could figure out some kind of funky all over design. As you can see, I chose a funky all over design :) Inspiration for this design came from Yvonne's quilt. Her's is a little LOT more consistent. . . mine is a little haphazard. . . I used blue thread, I seriously could not see where I had been. It was a constant guess and as I got started, I decided to go with it - texture is what we are after here right? :)

Uh, yeah, this was my husband's idea. . . Remember the border on Shockwaves? I remember doing that border. . . it took a LONG time. Time is not on my side. . . So I decided that I wouldn't do the inner circles and would mash down the outside with some back and forth lines. . . How long could that take?? . . . you guessed it, a good amount of time. I drew all of the circles onto the quilt using an architectural circle template that had a bunch of different sized circles. Then I got to quilting. . . And I made a decision - NO WAY was all of the background going to be done with these circles. Just the triangles. . . 'just'. . . .

And then this happened.... I was trying to figure out what to do in those corners. And I ran across this video. . . I almost fell down the stairs when I went to show my husband. I was more than a little excited. He looked at it and said "Oh yeah!". . . I ran back upstairs and started marking out the squares and immediately started quilting. . . after the first square (there are 6 squares quilted in the picture above) I thought "What in the hell are you doing???" And then I thought, how can I not??? :)

At this point I send a picture to my #1 Fan. Text comes back "Kind of tight don't you think?" What?? He doesn't like it?? How could you not like it?? So I asked him and he says "No, just thought you weren't going to get carried away with it." . . . LMAO, he should know by now!!

This picture was taken Tuesday morning. . . I was supposed to deliver the quilts on Tuesday morning.... I had half of the background quilted at this point and still no idea what in the heck I was going to do for the borders. . .

Tuesday late afternoon. Decision time for the blue borders. . . I knew this, the quilting was not going to show, I've used this fabric many times on the back of quilts. The quilting doesn't show, texture yes, quilting, not so much. But then I decided to extend that AW Dot to dot design done on the outside of the fans in the squares to the borders. . . LOTS of marking.

What I have not mentioned is that through the entire process of quilting this quilt, I was having thread breakage and my machine was making a horrendous noise that was coming from the bobbin case. I was using the exact same black Isacord thread I had used on the purple star. . . I decided that since we had to run some errands Tuesday morning, I would stop at the shop and buy a new bobbin case. When I was there, I happened to see the repair guy. I asked him if I had the right bobbin case to which he responded "Why do you need that??" . . . I told him what was going on and he said, you don't need a new bobbin case, just take the bobbin case out and put a drop of oil in that center 'thingy' (totally a technical term if it came from the repair guy right??? LOL) and you will be good to go. . . I didn't believe him and bought the bobbin case anyway - I didn't have time to mess around! Anyway, he then asked one of the women who sells the machine about my thread breaking issues. . . People, I love this shop. I do NOT love this woman. Customer service is not her deal. I was told that it doesn't matter what your machine liked with the last quilt, now it doesn't like that thread. You are using the wrong needle (I change my needles constantly, I do use different sized needles depending on the wt of the thread), your machine does not like those needles. . . I could go on but I see this paragraph is getting long. I'll spare you. Let's just say I left the shop seeing red. . . blood red! LOL

I'll shorten this story by a lot by telling you that the drop of oil in the center 'thingy' worked!! We won't talk about the fact that it took me several hours of tearing apart the house to find the sewing machine oil. . . which was in the most obvious place ever. . . NOT ;) OK, back to the quilt!

TADA!!! This picture was taken Wed. morning. . . it had just come out of the wash and I was leaving in minutes to deliver it ;) BUT, it was finished!!!

I woke up at 3 am Wed. morning and finished ironing the binding and sewed it onto the quilt. Threw it in the wash, dried it and lint brushed it. Then we went out for a bike ride. . . we came home, had a very quick photo shoot and I ran out the door for a hair appointment (hey, we all have priorities right? LOL), took the quilts with me as I would be dropping them off right after the appointment. Whew! But wait, I have more pictures ;)

This quilt makes me smile! :)

I used the stripy fabric from the outside star points for the binding. I considered doing a bias cut binding. . . but I have never done it before and I didn't have time to deal with any potential mistakes ;)

The back, a perfect dark blue flannel :) I used gray thread and in person, you really can see the stitches on this one :) Happy dance :D

Those fans!! Seriously my new favorite. . . I am going to be playing with this concept - I think the possibilities are endless!

The border quilting shows on the back! :)

And not so much on the front. If you really look, you can see it.

And one more picture of the whole quilt. Because I just can't get enough!! ;)

I am happy to report that I received a text on Christmas Eve from my client. He sent a picture with all three of the 'kids' (all young adults but when they are our kids they are always kids right?) holding up their quilts with the biggest smiles! :D and this message "Success!!" WOOT! WOOT! Oh, and the text also said "I'll need those pillows" LOL He had asked if I could make pillows like I had for his daughter. Yup, but they are not going to be finished for Christmas! Make some pillow IOUs for the boys. . . in other words, Ho, Ho, Ho, NO! At least not for gifting on Christmas Eve.

This ends my saga of two quilts in three weeks :) In the post of the finish of the purple star, Yvonne commented that she hoped this little venture didn't burn me out too much. Until I read her comment, I had not really thought about it. It may have. I haven't touched my machine since I finished this quilt! That will change today ;)

A reminder, my 2 year blogiversary is coming in four days! I think I will be combining my Best of 2015 post and the thank you followers giveaway post. Seems fitting don't you think? ;) So make sure you come back and enter to win. . . what? Oh, it will be something(s) good I promise!!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for her Monday addition of Finish it Up Friday and with Beth for MCM! I can't wait to sit down with a cup of coffee tomorrow and check out what everyone has finished and is crushing on! AND DWM, I haven't linked up with Patchwork times all month (I think... I didn't look but it's been far too long! :)

Until next time, keep on quilting!

Purple Giant Star - Quilt Finish

Back again with the finish of the Giant Purple Star. Original name huh? ;) One thing I forgot to mention in the last post, this is another quilt made completely from my stash!! Well, except the back, flannel was requested and I don't have a stash of flannel backing ;) Let's just get to the pictures! Then we'll talk about how crazy I am. . . I finished this one on 12/16. Five days to quilt. . . six days remaining to quilt the blue star . . . no problem right?? ;) You can read all about the madness of why I was trying to get two quilts made, start to finish, in three weeks, here.

First, let's talk about my crazy brain and my design choices. . . shown in pictures, of course!!

I decided to echo the star lines several times (ruler work) and then fill with something that didn't have to be marked. . . I did mark for the circles - just a dot at the 1 inch mark along the inside of the border. I needed something to keep the circles relatively consistent and to make sure that I was getting a circle at the apex of the point. For the second fill I used crazy 8s. And filled the centers with spirals. This isn't the best picture, there are better ones to come ;)

As you can see in this picture, I quilted the negative space first. Typically I work from the inside out, but because I had ditched every seam, it didn't seem to make much difference where I started and inspiration for the negative space hit first ;) Inside the stars I decided to do that same curved back and forth I did on this quilt. The movement it creates is pretty cool and it is quick. . . I needed quick, tick tock, Christmas Eve is fast approaching!!

I did the same crazy 8 pattern in the border, I think you can see it better in this picture. Square, make binding and label and sew said binding and label on. . . getting close!!

TADA!!! :) Finished. Truth is, I did not take these pictures until after quilting was well under way on the Giant Blue Star. I didn't have time to get it washed and take pictures!

I used the flannel backing for the binding on this one. . . I had nothing but scraps of the purples in the front of the quilt left. The only other choice was the black marble. I kind of like how the flannel looks :)

Check out those center points! Go to this post to see how I managed that :)

The movement that curved back and forth design gives is just awesome. And it is forgiving. . . turns out that making freehand curved lines in blocks this big is a bit of a challenge and being consistent was not even a consideration LOL... as you can see, I didn't achieve consistency but it doesn't seem to matter much :)

I wish I could tell you exactly how big this quilt is after quilting and wash. . . I can tell you it is approximately 67" x 76". I used Quilter's Dream Wool for batting (started my new roll with this quilt!) and Isocord black thread for quilting the negative space and Superior Masterpiece (50 wt) black thread for the quilting inside the star. I used Aurifil 12 wt black to sew down the binding. Love, love, love how the 12 wt thread looks on the binding!! :) I used 40 wt Aurifil 5004 in the bobbin.

Oh yeah! Here's the back ;)

I used a flannel wide back for the quilt. Dark Purple. LOVE how the quilting shows up!

And a close up with a little bit of sun shining through :)

As I quilted this one, something became very clear to me. . . a.) I am a glutton for punishment. . . b.) dense quilting is my thing. . . I can't help myself. From the start of making the two giant star flimsies, I was saying all over design. They are both getting the edge to edge treatment. I don't have time to custom quilt . . . but as you can see, my inner crazy quilter won in the end :)

So what does this mean for the second Giant Star? . . . Come back tomorrow, the post is written and will go live in the morning. I think it might be my best quilting to date. . . so yes, crazy quilter won in a major way on that one too!!

My 2 year blogiversary is coming up on New Year's Eve!! I can't believe it has been two years!! When I wrote that first post, I had no idea what a supportive and fun community I was stepping into! I had no idea that I would make friends. People I consider friends, not 'internet friends' but people I have regular contact with and share the things that don't make it to my blog. It has been a wonderful experience overall and it still amazes me that I have more than a handful of regular readers. Thank you to all of you who have hung through the last month or so. It's been crazy. Posting has be scarce and my commenting on other blogs has been bleak. I feel the worse about that. Please know that I have been keeping up with your blogs, but not commenting. Now that things are back to what constitutes 'normal' at my house, that will change :D Back to the blogiversary, please come back on 12/31/2015. I have a giveaway planned as a thank you to all of my followers!

Linking up with DWM, MCM and Finish It Up Monday (Amanda Jean's linky party is Monday for the holiday schedule)

Until next time, let's go quilt!! :D

Another Giant Star Flimsy

I can't believe two weeks (or more. . . ) has zoomed past. I can believe that I have not posted. I had two quilts to finish remember? In case you missed it in my last post, my customer was so happy with his daughter's quilt, he ordered two more for his sons. . . for Christmas. Christmas Eve. . . not Christmas day ;) I am happy to report that the quilts were delivered on the 23rd. . . After two weeks of sewing like a fiend, ignoring all housework (guess what I'm doing today???), neglecting my husband (he would tell you that LOL) and the pups, having many moments of thinking "there is no way in hell this is going to get done", they are done, and the customer is again very happy. Mission accomplished. Barely :)

This Giant Star was a bit more of a challenge. Not the pattern, not sewing it together. . . choosing the right fabrics and combinations to make this purple quilt not look feminine . . . Alrighty then ;) I relied heavily on my husband's and #1 fan's opinions. Both agreed they like purple. Good, now I have some testosterone driven opinions to help me muddle through the fabric choices and layout. BTW, speaking of layout, I love this pattern because depending on fabric choices, it really does take on a whole different look. But I digress :)

As for fabric choices, many texts happen between me and my #1 fan and discussions between me and the ever patient husband, bold dark purples and black background. I think it worked! :) I'm just going to show the flimsy today. I don't have it in me to write a post about the flimsy and the finish - I'm still recovering! LOL But check back over the next several days, I'll be posting both finishes. Oh, and for those of you who were wondering. . . no, I was not able to keep the quilting simple. I'll be talking about that more in those finished quilt posts. . . I have learned much about myself and my style over the last couple of weeks! But that is for another post, for now check out this flimsy!

First, let's see the fabric pull and process for picking which would work best.

This is all of the fabrics for the original pull, I needed four fabrics to make the star. I vetoed the bluer purple, #1 fan vetoed the lighter Grunge purple and the marbled purple directly under it, too close in shade to the medium Grunge under the light Grunge fabric. #1 fan was not impressed with the background fabric I had picked. . . I assured him it was the right choice (Tula Pink, True Colors. . . what's not perfect about that???). Trust me, once I get going you will agree I said. . .

Here it is with the purple fabric cut into squares and folded in half - nothing is sewn at this point. I wanted to check my purple choices AND prove to #1 Fan that my choice of background fabric was perfect. . . I sent him this picture. The response was "NO!! Black. No question!" . . . Really, cuz I am digging the Tula :) "NO. Dark." OK, message received. I might add that my husband had the same reaction. . . I was outvoted. The black is Moda Marbled, as is the lighter purple, the two fabrics on either side is Moda Grunge and I have no idea what the fabric at the top star point is. . . I'm just glad that for some reason I had two half yard pieces of it!! More on that in 3, 2, 1, got to the next picture ;)

HSTs sewed together and rows sewn together. . . border. . . Panic. No more Grunge in those colors left. . . No more Marbled fabric left. . . AAAHHHH!!! Go back to stash. . . Dig through purples. . . OMG!! What is this half yard of the mystery fabric doing here??? Will it work? #1 fan and husband say yes, best choice. Crisis averted!! ;)

And here it is all sewn together!! :)

Seriously LOVE!! And I have a testosterone driven thumbs up ;) Me: Is it masculine enough? #1 Fan: As masculine as purple is going to get! He's a funny guy isn't he??

I took this picture so you could see how spot on the middle points came together :) Check the rest of the post for lessons learned and how I did this on the first try!

The back with the sun shining through. . . just love these back of flimsy pictures!!

And one more. . . just cuz :)

I did a couple of things differently when I was sewing this one together and they actually turned out to make this flimsy a little quicker to piece than the blue one.

1. I cut all of the squares for the HSTs corner to corner prior to sewing. These blocks are big. I cut them at 18.25" and marking the diagonal line down the middle was a bit of a pain with the first one. With this one, I decided I would deal with the bias and just cut it first. This worked out well and made chain piecing these huge blocks a breeze.

2. When I pieced the middle rows together, I started at the middle of the rows where all of the points converge. First I pinned (yes, me, pinning) and then I did a test seam just across where all of the points come together. Checked for perfection (or as close as this quilter gets LOL) and then I sewed the seam from the middle out to one end, then the middle out to the other. It worked well. I did not have to rip it out once. If you are looking for perfection, you might want to give this a try. I don't always want or feel the need for perfection with my points - but on this one I knew that if I was off more than a smidge (technical term), it would be pretty obvious and more importantly, it would bug me to no end! ;)

I finished this flimsy on 12/11. Yes, one day after finishing the blue Giant Star. I decided to quilt this one first. The finished quilt post is coming to your blog feed soon ;)

Finally, since it is Christmas day, I hope you are all having a great holiday season!

Until next time, keep on quilting!!

Giant Star Quilt Finish. . .

This is not what you expected right? Yeah, me either! I was happily quilting along on Renee's mini (so frickin' close to finished...) when, BAM! All plans went off the rails! On Tuesday of this week I finally delivered the last commissioned quilt. . . To say he was happy with the quilt might be an understatement. Things like "You have exceeded my expectations" and "It is beautiful" and lots of other gushing went on. . . and then the question. And I knew this question was going to be coming as soon as he saw the quilt. . . "Can you make two more before Christmas? Oh and I'll be seeing the kids on Christmas Eve so you won't be able to work on it that day." You know I don't have it in me to say no and honestly I really wanted to be able to do it. . . BUT, two quilts. 3 weeks. Head spinning. We discussed colors. We discussed styles. We parted after lunch with the agreement that I would think about it, i.e. talk to my husband and make sure it wouldn't cause a divorce! LOL On the way home, I started thinking about it and decided if the top was a quick one to sew up, I might be able to accomplish it. I sent him pictures and renderings of the Giant Star quilt (Jeni Baker's pattern) I made for my nephew Sam. I knew I could whip this top up in a day. And based on our color discussions, I knew I could potentially pull all of the fabric from my stash. . . Thumbs up for that stash fabric I knew I had to have but didn't know for what!! One of the the quilts was to be blue. I have been collecting, OK, maybe hording, blue fabric for awhile. Making an all blue quilt has been on my list since forever.  :)

After some back and forth regarding cost and design, both parties agreed and now I'm scrambling to get two quilts finished in time for gifting on Christmas Eve. . . :) And the first one is finished! (see the flimsy quilted) I prepped and cut fabric Tuesday night. Yesterday I sewed my fool head off which resulted in this:

I added borders top and bottom, thanks, Jasmine, for sharing that!! :)

Close up of fabrics. :)

How cool is that imprint on the background fabric?? LOVE!

Just love pictures of the back of quilts! :D

LOVE!! The fabrics for the pinwheel in the middle and the stripy fabric on the outside star points are from a line called True Blue. The background fabric is from the Moonshadow line and is called Ether (how appropriate for a star quilt, right??) and the top and bottom border is of course Prisms from Studio E. Yes, all from my stash!! All of it bought from the Hawthorn Threads sale page at a fabulous price. No, they don't have any of it left. . . I checked. The fabric in the other star point was purchased when Pink Castle went out of business (I think....). It is Textura from P&B Fabrics. The backing fabric will be the same wide back I used for the first quilt only in blue. That will be here on Saturday. Hopefully by then the second top will be finished as well. . . Speaking of that, I'd better get sewing donchathink? LOL

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday. Heck, I might have another top to post before that linky ends! LOL

Until next time, keep on quilting!

Squirrel! Another Pillow Finish :)

,I have another pillow finish for you today :) I showed the beginnings of this pillow in my last post. The wonk in the piece was pretty evident in those photos and it only got worse! By the time I had finished quilting laying down yards and yards of thread, it didn't look like I was ever going to get this baby to lay flat enough to even square it up. Ahhh, but never underestimate the power of the water bottle!! I started pinning the piece to my design wall and spritzing dousing it with water. I just kept pinning and spraying until the entire quilt was tacked up on the wall. And it turned out pretty darn flat in the end!! Wanna see some pictures? ;)

I used a piece of Kaffe Fasset fabric for the binding. Yeah, I broke into the KF.... I hope he knows how special he is ;) LOL

I took this close up so you can see the 12 wt Wonderful thread. Like laying cable!! FMQing is totally doable with 12 wt thread - just go slow!! :)

There is still a good amount of distortion in the face. That will likely bother me to no end. . . but as you can see - I was not about to rip it out and redo!!

The back. I used flannel again :)

One more. My husband thinks it's too nice to use. . . We had a talk. It will be used ;)

I used a stencil for the motif which you can find here. I have had this stencil for awhile and was quite excited when my husband decided it was perfect for his pillow and it was the perfect size! As I was quilting this, I kept thinking of alternative ways it could have been quilted. So many options!!

The finished cushion cover is 17"x 22". I used all Aurifil threads (including Aurifil Poly... have I mentioned how much I love this stuff????) except for the copper one the sun face (Isocord) and the light blue on the inside of the rays (Wonderfil). OK, have you ever seen Wonderfils line of threads???? My local LQS recently started carrying the line and OH.MY!! It was difficult to show some restraint. . . one of everything please!! ;) AND I am happy to say that Rosanne likes it! :D

Speaking of Rosanne. . . last time we talked, she was in having a spa treatment. I got a call from the repair guy Friday night (I was supposed to pick her up on Friday...) saying that he somehow had gotten the wrong board. . . wha wha whut??? It took three weeks for that board to come into the shop!! NOOOOO!!!! He said he would do some checking and see if they had another 8900 laying around that he could steal take the board from so he could get me back up and running. But it wasn't looking promising. . . The next morning I got another call, he had pulled out the wiring schematics, took another look and the new board was in and working fabulously!!! WOOT WOOT!! I picked her up at 10:30 and immediately set her up to start FMQing. She is purring like brand new again!! Amazing how a good cleaning, a little oil and a new computer board can just transform a machine to its original awesomeness. Makes me smile! I am pretty meticulous when it comes to cleaning my machine, and he still found a glob inside by the motor - a spot that is not reachable unless the machine is taken apart. I'm meticulous but not crazy (well, that's debatable now isn't it?? LOL) and I have no intention of ever taking her apart to clean her. I might just have to resort to taking her in every six months instead of yearly. I don't mind, she's worth it! ;)

What am I working on now? Number 4 on my Q4 list, mini quilt for Renee! I have it started. I have to tell you, making something for someone who has the talents Renee has (if you haven't seen her work, go check it out and prepare to be amazed!!) is a little intimidating. . . I spent all morning staring at it and second guessing everything I thought I had worked out in terms of design. OK, I spent all morning and part of the afternoon ;) Finally I just sat down and started quilting. Sometimes you just have to put your big girl panties on and just do it! Once I started, it seemed to fall together. Funny how that happens isn't it? Want a sneak peek? Just a little one of the back, I want this to be a surprise so won't be showing much until Renee has it :) Now that I have it started, it will be finished soon! As a matter of fact, I'm going to get off the computer now and go quilt! :D

Happy to report I have done more on this since writing the post earlier this morning. I am definitely over that staring phase!! EEEK!! LOVE :D

Linking up with Lorna for Let's Bee Social and Amanda Jean for Finish It Up Friday. I have had finishes for the last several Fridays. . . another for next week? Only if I am able to finish this mini and get it to Renee prior to next  Friday. . . might happen! ;)

Until next time, keep on quilting!!