Progress and Blog Parties

I am loving my new found motivation that the New Year has brought for me. I created my calendar last week for January and one of the challenges I gave myself was to finish a block of my BOM, Bric-a-Brac. I am happy to report that I have achieved this and I have the pictures to prove it.

 Here are some close ups:

Oatmeal Canister

Stacked Bowls

Eggcups

Milk Jug

I have just noticed that those little satin stitched beads on the milk jug cover are not very neat when you take a macro shot so I am going to back stitch around those.

I am preparing a couple of exciting posts at the moment.  One is for Barbara's NewFO Link Party which should be on the 31st January. There is no entry deadline for this party and if you want to learn more, head to her blog Cat Patches.....ps. say hello to Smitty and Gracie for me.....but don't wake Gracie up, she likes to nap!

The other post I am getting ready to blog is for the Grow Your Blog  Link Party at 2 Bags Full. This link will take you to the official sign up page.....but you only have today left to register. The Party is happening on the 25th January.

I am so excited to be taking part in both these Link Parties so I hope you will come back for a visit on those days.

Trudy's Finished Quilt

You might remember this post from last year when a dear quilting friend lost her battle with cancer. It has almost been a year since Trudy left this world and I have not shown you the finished quilt....shame on me!

Trudy loved flowers and  bright colours so Kaye decided to get everyone to do a flower block in orange and/or red. The flower and block design were up to us.  This is my block which as I explained in the previous post was nabbed from One Piece at a Time

 

I blanket stitched the flowers and leaves and needle turned the biased vine.

 Once Kaye had all the completed blocks, she started to arrange them into a pleasing design. Most of the blocks were either appliqued or stitched with only a couple of pieced blocks.

thats my block......far right, second from the bottom

Finally, late last year, the quilt was completed and will be donated to the Blue Nurses.  They cared for Trudy and rather than flowers be sent to her funeral, she requested that donations be made to the Blue Nurses.

my block has moved to second row, middle block

FNWF at Bits 'n Bobs

Did you sign up?....... for Friday Night with Friends over at Cheryll's.......there are quite a few this week and I can't wait to see what everyone has worked on.

Yesterday I went to Bunnings with hubby and picked up a few paint swatches in the colours that I wanted to use for this months NewFO and then went home to audition fabrics from my stash. Turns out I needed quite a bit more.  You would think that with all that fabric, I would have no problems but it turns that I don't have much grey stashed.

So  with these swatches in my bag, a trip to one of my local quilt shops was the order of the day today and I found some gorgeous fabrics to add to my bundle.

The pattern uses a grey dot  for the background of the appliqued penguins but when I saw the grey swirl fabric, I thought it was just perfect. Together with the other fabrics below, I could just about be there.

Am I working on this for FNWF?........no! sorry for being a tease but..........

.............my plan is to work on my BOMs tonight.....probably mostly on Bric-a-Brac but luckily I checked my supplies because there were quite a few missing colours from my embroidery threads. I was able to pick these up when I was out at my LQS. Actually that is the main reason I went to THAT particular shop because they are the only ones who sell my preferred thread....DMC.

It took me until midnight just to stitch the first section of  instructions for the block while I watched various shows on the tv.

but I was determined to get this done before I called it a night.

This is such a pretty block for Bric-a-Brac and I would like to get it complete before the end of the month.

Miss M was here too. Cutting out more blocks for her chevron quilt.

 

Creation Station Clean Up

The Creation Station really needed a huge tidy after Christmas. I tend to dump things in there "out of the way" over the Christmas period and use it as a quick wrapping station so it was a mess......definitely no photos......too embarassed! You may have seen my recycled storage containers here. I didn't stop there, no siree. Now I am covering shoeboxes! They are going to look so pretty on my shelves!

Something else that needs attention is my creation inspiration - aka: magazine collection. Yep, my collection is a BIG FAT MESS!  I bought nice blue fabric boxes from Ikea last year. They fit my Expedit shelves and I was planning to store my mags in these.

Mag organisation - before shot

I really wanted some divisions in the containers so turned to my trusty core boards......love core board! I also use it to make mini bolts for my fabric storage....see this post.

I cut them to the correct size and labelled them with some blackboard labels I found at the Dollars and Cents shop last week. What a find! I have coveted these on USA blogs and I was thrilled to find them at such a good price.......going back to clean them out tomorrow!

mag organisation - after shot

2 containers sorted and filled........3 (or more) to go.

The Planning Phase

If you read my last post, you will have seen that I am setting some new goals this year to keep myself organised. Along with tidying the Creation Station this week, I have also been thinking about what I would like to accomplish for the month of January.  Since I have such a lot floating around in my head and "brain fuzz" is something I suffer from quite a bit, I decided to start a planning calendar.

These are all my unfinished BOMs that I hope to complete this year

 I found this calendar on Pinterest, downloaded and printed (just January) it to start my planning

 

Down the side is a place to write notes so I can write some ideas and reminders about what I want to tackle.

I have even made note of  FNWF (ahem, yes I got it confused with FNSI) this friday. Have you registered over at Gone Stitchin?.....it's not too late!

and also made a note of Barbara's NewFO date over at Cat Patches

Here are my January projects. I have the fabric to bind my tabletopper but still need to audition fabrics for the NewFO.

See the penguin on that magazine cover. I am planning to make that for my NewFO.  Here's another pic from inside the mag.

So there,  I am all fired up and ready to go but I have just one question to put to you all.  When does a WIP (or NewFO) become a UFO??

OK 2014.....lets go!

Putting together a collage of everything I made in 2013, I realise that I really did not get very much done at all. (maybe I have forgotten something!)

Either way,  I am going to have to get serious about making a dent in completing my UFO's, WIPs, BOMs, flimseys and even get started on some NewFOs in 2014.

Last year I started off with a plan of having a to do list each month with 4 quilty targets and 4 non-quilty targets........didn't quite pull it off. So this year I want to go with another plan of action.

Wednesdays and Thursdays are my sewing group days each week I am going to pick a different project to work on each week depending on which category they fall under.....as follows:

Week 1 ........UFOs - Aqua/Lime tabletopper and other quilting/binding jobs as well as Teddy Bear TParty/ My Garden (I now deem these to be UFO's)

Teddy Bear T Party

Week 2 ........WIPs -  Chevron Quilt/Spaghetti Junction/Betsy's Closet/Farmyard Frolics

 

Spaghetti Junction

Week 3 ........ BOMs -  Edwardian House/Tail Feather/Bric-a-Brac

Bric-a-Brac

  
Week 4 ......... NewFOs - I have a few of these to get started. One of them is Sunshine and Lollipops

Sunshine and Lollipops

Believe it or not, it all makes sense to me! I just need a bit of encouragement and inspiration to keep going.

In the meantime, I will be spending January in the Creation Station trying to organise and tidy up after the chaos created by deadlines in the last couple of months.  I made some storage containers today.  And to make it even better, I used recycled materials and either items on hand or from the Dollar and Cents store.

I love these sturdy board tubes that my oats come in and the packaging encourages their re-use in the home.  I just had to make them prettier! I had the double sided sticky on hand and the spray adhesive.  The roll of wrapping paper was picked up at Dollars and Cents for $2

Just a case of measuring how much paper and sticking the initial edge to the canister with double sided sticky and then using the spray adhesive to glue it all the way around. Attach the last edge with double sided sticky too.

Looks OK but they need finishing off somehow as the top and bottom edges were not quite straight. Washi Tape to the rescue.....I have had some of this in my Scrapbook cupboard for awhile but it is so pretty that I never want to use it incase I run out when I find something really awesome to use it on.

Get a grip Cath!! Here goes......washi tape around the top and bottom edge and now they look "finished". Two new pretty containers to go in my creation station.

little white candle holder is optional

What do you think?

Goodbye 2013!......and TWO winners

Christmas has been dismantled and almost packed away. Well, the tree is boxed up and ready to stash in the garage for another year but I am desperately trying to organise as I go so most of the decorations are still grouped on my dining room table until I finish organising it for next year. For some reason, i have got into my head that I want to add bows to all the tree baubles!!! Yep folks, that is what I have been doing today.

I can't believe I used all these red baubles this year

and just slightly less blue ones

On top of that, since Ted moved out, (I have been slowly waiting for him to move his possessions out too) the drawers in that cupboard are empty so they have been labelled and Christmas is being partially packed in there so it is easy to get to next year when I am looking for Christmas Cards/Wrapping/Tags/Candles/table linen and the crockery just a little earlier than Christmas Day.....good to have all these bits in one place....right? The baubles, tinsel, wreaths etc can still go into their plastic containers in the garage.

I have a little housekeeping to get done with regards to my giveaway 2013. Since I didn't draw a winner in November, I am going to do it now before I do Decembers ..... and surprise, I remembered how to include it here in my blog.....duh, I had the code all along!

 November Winner



Post 2 was Windsor Castle, Bath, Stonehenge Part 3


The winner for this one was......NOELA from Quilty Bits from the Blue Room
Well what do you know.....Noela! and fortunately I have Noela's address as she was my swap partner for the Santa Sack Swap.....Congratulations Noela.....expect something else from me.

Now for December:

 Post 5 was Making Spirits Bright Part 1
so who won?


and the winner for December is: SHEZ from Enjoying Life......WooHoo Shez, lucky last.  Send me your snail mail address and I will send out the last of my giveaway prizes to you.

On another note......I need to send Sheila another package as hers went astray (I think I may have messed up the address - yes I know you sent it twice Sheila....what can I say.....brain fuzz is not fun!) and the package for Kath is still sitting on my desk....oooops! sorry about that Kath.  I have a day off tomorrow so it will be a good day to get those sent off.