quilting recap, playing pool

So when one year ends and another one begins it’s a perfect time for reflecting.  Thinking about how the old year went and where we want to end up in the new year.  It’s easy for me to organize my quilting passion around what was on Miss Scarlett (my long arm) for the past year.  I completed quilting on 66 quilts in 2017.

Of those quilts, 24 were for charities of one kind or another:

        -4 were single bed sized for Beds = Dreams

        -3 were quilted for customers for them to donate to charity

        -4 were for Clinton School

        -13 were Quilts of Valor, donated to the Indian Land VFW

Five of those quilts were gifts:

        -my tulip/butterfly quilt was given to Angie, one of our house

        cleaners

        -one was a deer paneled quilt for Kevin, our other house cleaner

(in case you can’t tell, Michael and I feel very close to the people who clean our house :~)

        -one was a baby quilt for my friend Jan’s first great-grandchild

        -one was a Quilt of Valor for my across the street neighbor, Ken

        -one was a gift to Judy at Thursday quilting, who gave me a

        beautiful piece of fabric

One was commissioned by Candyce as a Christmas gift for her honey Ralph, and they’ve already been snuggling under it :~).

One of those was a gift to us….our new bed quilt!

And 35 of them were customer quilts.  I’m pleased with what was accomplished in 2017, but I’m definitely hoping to do even more in 2018!

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I spent 1-1/2 hours on Wednesday morning (1/3) SKYPE-ing with Janice before having some breakfast and then settling in to sewing around NOON.  Michael finished up with his emails, and since the pool table went from this:  

to this: 

he was able to do this: 

First up for me was getting all of my rows sewn together.  

Once that was done, I looked around for my focus fabric to add a border.  I put it in a ‘safe place’ to make sure I didn't use it for something else, knowing I would need it when the quilt was done….. I’m sure you already know where this story is going…I’ll let you know when I actually find the safe place :~(.  By then I was dragging and headed upstairs to try to nap.  I woke up this morning totally congested and coughing and feeling terrible  :~(.  After I got up from the quasi-nap (I don’t think I ever fell asleep, but I did get to snuggle with my Cookie baby for a bit), I just sat in front of the fire reading my book for several hours before finally, when Michael left at 6 PM to see DOWNSIZING,  heading back downstairs.  I continue to be enthralled by CALL THE MIDWIFE on Netflix (it's also still showing the current seasons on PBS, but I need to get caught up first).  I would not exactly call it a heartwarming show, as there are not always happy endings….but I do love the characters and the changing ‘shape’ of the late 50’s and early 60’s depicted so far.  I spent the evening getting my latest quilt off of the frame and getting it all cleaned up and trimmed before adding it to the ‘to be bound’ pile:  

When Michael got home at 10 PM, he gave me his review:

DOWNSIZING started out a little slow and seemed to be a comedy, but after that it didn’t seem to know where it was going.  The second half became serious and made some valid points about over population and climate change.  It definitely made you understand how tough some choices are and he would give it 3-1/2 fat quarters out of 5.