New Year - Old Projects

First let me wish you all a happy, healthy and safe new year.

I have been catching up on my blog reading and see lots of resolutions out there to finish up projects from years past and I will join you all in this effort.  My Stitchin Friends club has taken on this as our club goal for the upcoming year, and as the person in charge of programs, it can be challenging to use old projects in teaching new techniques....but we shall prevail, right ladies?

I have picked three of my projects to work towards completion:

1. Do-si-do:  I have the quilt center complete and now on to the borders.  Unfortunately I ran out of the brown fabric I needed to do the border I had planned (although I apparently did not plan well enough or I would have enough fabric) so I have modified my plan.  These blocks are paper pieced using an add-an-eigth ruler wich can be tricky, but fun. I have almost completed two of the 4 sides so I am getting excited about seeing this one done.  I plan to hand quilt this one though, so a finished quilt is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the road.

2. Cottage Grove:  This is a project my friend Darlene and I are both working on, trying to keep each other motivated to finish at least one block per month.  We have the borders and the four floral blocks done, now on to the six cottages. 

This is cottage #1 that I just finished yesterday. I found that the only way I could keep the tiny seams at a true 1/4 inch was to draw the seam line onto the fabric.  

There is also applique on this project, and while the pattern calls for fusible, Darlene and I decided to go the needle turn way.  I discovered some new thread in Houston this year, and gave it a try on this project.  The results are beautiful, but I really have trouble working with this light a weight of thread (100), which is why I gave up silk thread for applique.  The jury is still out on this one.

3. My third project - klosjes.  Yep, I am still working on these after a rather long break from doing them.  I was distracted by the hexies and now I have discovered the Patchwork of Crosses pattern that I am chomping at the bit to start working on, but I really must finish these spools first.  For my quilt, I need 72 of the spool in a circle blocks (23 completed) and 284 of the spool blocks (72 completed).  I am either going to have to adjust my quilt size or work very hard on getting these done.  Hmmm..maybe I could just add a really big border!

So there you have it - a new year's resolution of sorts.  I would love to see these three quilts completed in 2013 along with some smaller projects that I can work in now and then.  I hope to be around blogging more faithfully as I do love reading all your blogs and seeing what you are up to. The only problem being, I want to do everything you all are doing too!

Happy Stitching and thanks for stopping by,

Teresa