Making Mini Quilts

I love to make quilts. I learned to make quilts with my Mom years ago. We would have all-night quilt-a-thons. Me, Mom and my friend Susan would get out our sewing machines on a Friday night and not come up for air until Sunday afternoon. Who needed to sleep or eat when you could spend time cutting up fabric into tiny pieces and then sewing them back together?

This past New Year's weekend I decided to take scissors to fabric and make a few mini-quilts. Mini's are not such a big commitment. Make a few squares, add a border, machine quilt then bind it and voila...a quilt! A small quilt but a quilt nonetheless.

Here are a few snaps of the action.

I took a pile of scraps from Mary's quilt*

Sat at my beloved Featherweight sewing machine.

And whipped up this quilt top.
I sewed the strips together lengthwise into a large rectangle.
Cut it apart crosswise, rearranged and sewed them back together.

I sewed a border around the rectangle and
made a sandwich with backing fabric, cotton batting and the top.

Then quilted the sandwich with wavy freehand lines
from side to side and across.

Made a binding, and stitched it on.

Mary stitched the binding so I could snap a picture. 

Topstitched the binding in place.

And it's finished!

Ready for bears.

Or small dog.

*This is Mary's quilt that provided the scraps for the mini quilt.

 A perfect way to spend the New Year.

Words of Encouragement

As an old year ends the inevitable happens. I reflect on the past 365 days and look forward to the next 365.

With the New Year just a few days away, resolutions seem to just naturally present themselves. They fly in and out of my head. Kind of like when I am perusing the shoe aisle and flit from one pretty pair to the next. But planning to organize my closet, alphabetize my spice rack and loose 40 lbs all before breakfast just doesn't seem realistic somehow.

But life really shouldn't be about flitting from one pair of shoes to the next or neat spices lined up in a row. (At least not TODAY.) This year I am taking a cue from a couple of ladies that I admire. Instead of resolutions they chose words to describe what they want from the upcoming year.

They inspired me to choose a word for myself.

I found this cool Visual Thesaurus online. I might be addicted.

Welcome 2012. Here's to GROW!

If you have a word you'd like to share, leave it in the comments. I'd like to know what you're thinking for your year ahead. Plus I need an excuse to go play some more with the visual thesaurus.

Happy New Year to you.

All is Merry and Bright

The stockings are hung. The gifts are finished and wrapped. The champagne and orange juice are chilling.

 Have a ...

 ...very, very, very...

...Merry Christmas!