Strips or stripes?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I came across this image on Pinterest and thought this was something I would like to do.  I have about 3 blank journals laying around the house with little to nothing written in them.  I guess I think of this blog as my journal, but it's not the same as writing by hand. First of all, this is a public blog so I'm a little careful about what and how I write things, believe it or not!  I rarely write about my feelings other than to say "I'm happy to have a quilt finished!"  So, even though I rarely make new year resolutions, I think I'll be more mindful of writing in a journal this year.  At the end of 2019, it'll be interesting to go back and see how my year has progressed.  So, whatever your "resolutions" for 2019 may be, I hope they are beneficial for you.

A lot of bloggers that I follow have been posting the quilting year in review.  I'm not going to do that since I can't remember what I've worked on--and finished--in 2018. What I am going to do is go over the list of quilt tops that I have in my closet waiting to be turned into bedding. At the beginning of 2018, I posted a list of all the tops I have.  There were 13 of them.  During the year, I've finished and given away 3 of them, and I made 3 additional tops and quilted them up.  To be fair, the additional ones were throw sized quilts, not queen size as most of the others are.  So I finished a total of 6 quilts this year.  Not too good is it?

Consider also that I spent July and August focusing on my granddaughter who was staying with us and I did very little sewing. September and October were spent making items to sell at the quilt tour shop the first weekend of November.  Since then, I've been working on making other things as I've noted in previous blog posts.

So, lets take a look at the list for 2019.  I have 14 tops on the list, but one of them is sandwiched and ready to go.  I know I have 1 top in blocks and ready to be assembled into a flimsy, and I have 2 tops that I need to make--one is king size and the other may be a throw or a queen,  haven't decided yet.  As I have for the past how many years, my goal is to finish one quilt before beginning on a new project.  Yeah, we'll see how that goes again!

At any rate, here are pics of my sewing from yesterday. First is placemats for the Meals on Wheels program.  The guild made placemats for them a couple of years ago, and I decided to just sew together some scrappy 2.5" strips and call it good. I made 5 tops yesterday, and will make another 5 before I donate them.  What a great way to use up sscraps!

I also thought I'd post a picture of the potholders I made for Tessa, and will take them to her next week when I travel. She likes the 1930s fabrics so I dug into those scraps and came up with these three.

I also made up another 5 scrappy heart blocks as leaders and enders while stitching the placemats. All in all, a productive day.

Johanna arrived in the afternoon for New Years Eve and the 4 of us had a great dinner, Dan opened his Christmas gifts at last, and we ended with a wild game of cutthroat dominoes!  All in bed before midnight!

Today looks to be on the quiet side. Dan is working very hard to make arrangements for his move from Washington to Madison and it seems as tho all the various parts of making this move are beginning to fall into place.  Our friends who live about 20 miles outside of Madison have offered to have him stay there if he can't find any other place. Good friends are so precious.  As Elaine said, "If our daughters needed a place to stay, what would you say?"  Well, we'd say "Of course," just like she did.  

Enjoy your day, however you decide to spend it. I'm going to make a list of quilting priorities and tape that to the wall, like I did last year!