February is humming along

January 2016 has been and gone and February is definitely humming along. The wild weather that we had throughout January seems to have settled and summer has returned with high temperatures most days. I can't believe it is a month since I last blogged, there has been so much going on lately and don't worry the fingers have been busy too.

There have been meetings and get togethers to start the organising for the year ahead and indications are that 2016 is indeed going to be a very busy year. 

Here is the bright strings completed and on the back of the couch. So pleased to see it done and yes it is my first completion for 2016. I made the strings using a calico foundation and I like the stability that using the calico has given this quilt. I am super proud of having one completion already for 2016.

I made some bunting for my granddaughters 2nd birthday - it was so fun and easy to make. 

My daughter didn't waste any time hanging it in Scarletts room. It really brightens up the dark corner and pulls all of the design elements together. I just love the little snuggle book reading centre that Kelsey has created for Scarlett.

I registered my Top 5 list and photo at the club meeting yesterday, it will be interesting to see how many people register for this club. We do have quite a few ladies in the club that don't have any UFO's, they only have their current WIP's and I really admire their self discipline and perseverance. I am already working on two of my top five quilts and I really can't wait to get rid of my list totally. 

I have realised that I don't want to work the way I have in the past and I have a new approach to my patchwork and quilting for any new and future projects and so I am planning not to end up with a large list of UFO's again.  I have a plan and we will see as the year progresses how I get on, but don't worry I will keep you up to date with where things are at.

I have decided on one new project for this year and I have already started this, the inspiration and incentive came out of nowhere and was a very pleasant surprise. So far I am enjoying it but I will tell you more on that a bit later when I have more to show you. When I said earlier in the post that my fingers have been busy, this is one of the things that I have been working on.

The only other thing that I am doing this year is a BOM that we are doing at club for our members. The ideas started off with us doing a Baltimore quilt but we also wanted to make it a New Zealand inspired quilt, hence the name for this project has become 'Baltimore to the Bay' due to us living in the Bay of Plenty. We also thought that if we kept it to a 9 block quilt including a border that we would get more members participating in this project. This is going to be our main project for the year instead of doing smaller projects like we did last year. I will show you the blocks for these as we go though the year, I have started working on the first block as we are wanting to show a variety of ideas and techniques when we launch this in the next few weeks and I will be able to show you mine after then.

My fingers are itching to do some more stitching and these quilts aren't going to get made sitting around, so until next time, happy stitching everyone.

Donna-Maree