Hello,

We are racing now toward the end of 2016.    In thinking about the end of the year  and closing my book keeping, I become very aware of numbers.   Because I am still enjoying Ethel’s fabrics I only purchased  38 yards of fabric this year and most of that in half yard units.    The first  for the  Label Block project for this year was block # 34.   This week I completed block # 100  so that is  67 blocks  for the  year.  A bit more than one a week.   I make pillows and  fill them with the cut off bits of batting  from the trimming and squaring off of  quilt work. This year I completed   9 pillows.   I donate quilts to almost every organization that asks for them and this year I gladly gave away  13 to such deserving origination’s like Ronald McDonald House, the Art Rage Gallery and my local Public TV station.   I am still ahead in that game as I completed 59 on my own creations.     I use lots of thread in my work and this year  and  I emptied   65 spools.   I was a part of  5 quilt shows and I am looking forward to my solo show in January.     I participated in 4 challenges.   A good way to stretch ones self.       I was rejected from 7 competitions.    But I keep trying.     I wrote and posted  37 blogs this year too.  This year has been a full   one with lots of  things going on in my quilt life.  Looking back,   I feel that 2016 has been a good one for me and I hope you can say the same.  I hope that I can face  2017 and handle the challenges it presents as successfully as I did this year.

Progress Report:   Aunt Shirley’s Quilt  This work got shipped off  to it’s new home on Monday.  I hope it gets to my Aunt before her birthday Jan 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cotton Candy   This work is  12” X 12”.     It seemed to take me a long time to get to this little work.  I just kept shuffling  it to the bottom of the pile.  The colors are so very different from what I am working with at the moment.  But once I decided not to try to make it into one of my rock works it was easy and enjoyable.  I will try again for rose quarts later.

 

Name Game- Wendy and Mark This work has gone through a major change sense last  week.  I added Mark’s name- (he is Wendy’s husband)- because the Wendy section was not enough.   Still it is not something I look forward to working on.  But I felt the same way about the one I did last summer where I used my own name. Perhaps that is the nature of this project. I am still shuffling  the strips at this point.

Dead Horse Canyon  I have been calling this wool work 1 for the last few weeks.   That just does not cut it so I selected a name.    This name comes from a childhood play area near my then home in Carroll Iowa.    I have been thinking about it a lot of late and though this could be a tribute to all those memories.

 

 

New Work This is the newest rock based piece.  I used gabardine for the base and I also added fusible inner facing  to the back.   That extra body has some real strength.   I really like how it is not a warped as the wool piece above.

Circle Challenge 1   I have finished the hand  circle  quilting on this work now.  I am ready to add the facing and finish it off.

Circle Challenge 2   With the end of Circle Challenge 1 in sight I put in machine quilting work on this one.  I now feel I need to work on the layout for the third in that series now.

 

Scrap Happy  I am working with the scraps from Ethel’s box this week.  She had a whole stack of batik samples and they are all 5” square just like the ones I made for my quilt in the fall.  So I am using them with some old and  new 5″ squares for this new top.

Label Block  # 100  As the big Spiegel  label  ( upper left corner) shows I am still using labels that are not all current.  I just enjoy the process.

May the new year bring you joy and creative times.

Carol