New Year, Exciting Changes

Hey ya'll.  It's been quite a while since I've written on the blog.  I do apologize for the delay, but life sure gets in our way doesn't it.  Well a lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to sum it up for you.
 Quilty things have sure happened.  In early October I visited the Asheville Quilt Show.  There were lots of great quilts and I and 2 other friends had quilts in the show.  The day after the show we left for the beach for a much needed family vacation.  Of course, the handwork had to accompany and I've gotten yet another 2 barns finished!  My Appalachian Barns in brown are fun, but will definitely be a UFO for some time.  I love to take these along as I go on vacation or to doctor's appointments, DMV, etc.  Anywhere I need something to work on while I wait or relax!

November brought the start to the holidays and lots of busy times.  In November we took our youth group to our 7th Hearts on Fire conference in Pigeon Forge, TN.  This year there were close to 13,000 kids at the LeConte Center worshiping and having a great time!

In the midst of Hearts on Fire and all the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season I managed to get in my quilting time.  I designed a Nativity Wall Hanging that I gifted for Christmas.  I took the hanging to my extended family's gathering for our "Chinese Christmas" gift exchange.  What would you know that my mother would come home with it! The silhouette nativity wall hanging was a fun project that may end up in one of my Advance Technique series!

One of my Christmas gifts was a set of seat covers for my car.  We have a tradition in our house of opening gifts early on Christmas morning.  By early, I mean 5:30 am.  Well, as soon as gifts were opened, I got to work to personalize the basic black seat covers.  Leave it to me to create "quilted seat covers".  By 11:30 that morning, yes just 6 short hours later I had the seat covers finished and on my car.  I love how they turned out.  Stitching them on the seat covers was interesting to say the least, but they turned out amazing.

During the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season I have managed to complete Bonnie Hunter's Allietare mystery quilt as well.  Allietare was a blast to make and I love the way it turned out.  My mom has also claimed this one as hers and it's not even quilted yet!

The corrected four patch is on the right hand side!

 In this close up of my Allietare quilt, you'll notice near the center of the picture a mistake that a friend on Quiltville's Open Studio on Facebook pointed out.  One of my gold and white Four Patches was turned the WRONG way!  Grrrrrrrr.  Of course, I didn't notice it until the ENTIRE top was together, but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone.  As I was ripping out the aforementioned Four Patch I was thinking that if I were to leave it, and my quilt were to last past my time, people who would be looking at the quilt would wonder why the four patch was turned.  We do that now when we look at antique quilts.  Some speculate that the designer made their mistake so that it wouldn't be perfect.  Some guess that there was a special reason behind some of the things we find on the antique quilts we have.  If I were to have left the four patch turned, I can hear it now.  Future quilt appraisers and historians would definitely have something to talk about.  They would be trying to figure out why it was turned and what my purpose was.  Their imaginations would probably come up with some really good, flowery reason why I turned the four patch, yet in reality it was because dodo over here wasn't paying attention and sewed it wrong.  I wonder how many of today's antique quilts have the same kind of mistakes in them.  I wonder if the original quilters would laugh as we try to figure them out and come up with all these reasons.

A preview of some of the colors in my quilt
for the Theme category at Quiltfest.

Wow, as the New Year is off to a rushing start, I've got lots of quilty things going on.  Coming up in March is "A Mountain Quiltfest" in Pigeon Forge, TN.  I'll be there.  Who all is joining me?  I'll be there again this year with my friend Jackie Spencer.  We have other friends who will be coming down during the week and another couple friends, Amy and Carmen will be taking a class with us as well!  What a week that will be.  I'm also working on a quilt to enter in the theme category at Quiltfest.  Last year, you'll remember, I completed "God's Meeting Place", for the Mountain Heritage Challenge at Quiltfest.  Well, they retired the Challenge competition at Quiltfest, however they added the Theme category for each year.  This year's theme is my favorite, CHRISTMAS!.  Combining my absolute favorite holiday and my passion for quilting and it can't get much better.  You'll have to wait however to see what my project will be, because I can't give that up until the quilt has been submitted the end of February.




I'll also be attending my first quilt retreat in mid-May with our Cruso Quilters group.  We'll be travelling to Franklin, NC where we will have a quilt-filled weekend with friends!  We hope to make this a yearly expedition.

May will also bring the return for my quilt classes here in Cruso.  Quilting 101 will begin in May at the Community Center.  Full details will be available on my website in a couple of weeks.  August will bring my Advanced Technique Series.  There will be 3 projects, one each month for August, September, and October that we will work on.  Lots of opportunities this year from A Cruso Quilter!

I hope that you are making plans to join me at Quiltfest in March and in the classroom this summer.  God has already been good in the first year as A Cruso Quilter and it is my prayer that His blessings will be ever more abundant to all of us in 2016.  Until next time, quilt on!