Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I'll be back after the new year. Going to spend time with family and friends, take time off work, work on some quilting projects, and work on our organizing our new house.

Anything Goes Monday Guest Host: A Year in Review

Welcome to this Guest Hosting of Anything Goes Monday. A BIG Thank You! to Marelize for sharing her special linky party with me.

And since Anything Goes, I figured it was that time of year for a "Year in Review."  Is it too early for this?

I was hoping to have some fun Christmas and Holiday crafts to show off at this point, but with my recent move I haven't had time to do my Christmas Crafts. I still don't have a Christmas Tree nor have I unearthed our Christmas decorations yet: They are still buried in our storage unit.

I started off my year with good intentions. (Don't we all?) And as the saying goes....the road IS paved with Good Intentions.

While travelling the road paved with my Good Intentions, I did manage to accomplish a few things in 2014.

• I created more pinwheels for my pinwheel quilt here and here.

• I did a short series of Quilting Tips & Tricks.  It was a lot of fun, so I've decided to bring it back in the New Year. 

• I made some soft cuddly animal pillows for my nieces and nephew you can read about here.

• I tested this pattern for Esther and finished my own Honey Honey quilt. 

Babco Unlimited - Honey Honey Quilt

• I got a new sewing machine! (Well, it's new to me even if it was well used loved by my mom.) Ya-hoo! I didn't realize how much I was fighting my old machine until I started sewing on this Bernina. What a difference.

• I helped organize the Utah Quilt Festival--a 4 day quilting retreat full of quilting and sewing classes, luncheons, vendors, giveaways, and more with my mom and aunt.

Me and Mom -- Quilt Fest 2014

• I made these super cute and comfy slippers.

Slippers

• I designed my first quilt and finished it within 4 weeks. It was chosen as 1 of 8 quilts our guild will send to the AQS show in Grand Rapids, MI.

Babco Unlimited - Paining the Roses Red Quilt

• And I'm so close to finishing my Wheel of Fortune Quilt. I hope to have it finished by the end of the year.

Wheel of Fortune Quilt

• My biggest event this year (and the reason I didn't get more quilting done) is I moved this year.  I moved from this little white house to this bigger blue house.

Which means that my old sewing space of a table crammed between the couch and the dinning table, an ironing board across the room, and my leaning tower of fabrics has a new home.

Old "Sewing Room"

I get a REAL sewing room. As in a room JUST for me and my sewing and crafts.  So far, it's just a room with bins and boxes. But it's MY room with bins and boxes. Never thought I'd be so excited about a sewing room. I did manage to set up my table...that's it so far. I haven't even set up my sewing machine on said table yet.

New Sewing Room

Seeing all that I did accomplish this past year makes me itch to write my goals for 2015. But I'll spare you that long goal list today.

I need to do something to help get us get into the Christmas Spirit and soon. It's just 10 days away! My new house doesn't have a fireplace to hang stockings, but I already have experience with that.

In years past, the kids and I have made a fireplace out of construction paper for Santa to use. Santa is pretty amazing and magical, so he can totally make use of this. Even if I don't know where any of our Christmas decorations are, I do know where the construction paper is.

Babco Unlimited - Christmas Fireplace

(Picture from Christmas 2012)

So, what about you? Have you been crafting/sewing up a Christmas/Hanuka/Kwanzaa/Holiday storm? Or have you been working on something else?

Now's the time to show off what you have been working on.

An InLinkz Link-up

A Finished Quilt

I did it! I finished this quilt the night before my deadline, and I couldn't be more happy with it.

Babco Unlimited - Painting the Roses Red Finished Quilt

This little lady bug makes me smile.  I found it in my stash and had to piece him in somehow. 

Babco Unlimited - Painting the Roses Red Finished Quilt

This is only the second quilt I have free motion quilted myself. I admit, I was very nervous about ruining my wonderful quilt top with my beginner quilting skills.

When it came time to quilt my borders, I was at a loss. I searched out inspiration on pintrest and found a few quilting motifs I thought I could manage.

Babco Unlimited - Painting the Roses Red Finished Quilt

I had to improvise with my thread choices. I had planned on using the same green variegated thread all over the backing. But when it came to quilting the white churn-dash border, I couldn't get my tension right and the green kept pulling up to the top. It was so distracting. (And frustrating!) 

I finally threw my hands in the air and quilted both sides with white thread. I was under a deadline and didn't have time for this nonsense. Now, when I look at the backing, I love how it turned out. 

Babco Unlimited - Painting the Roses Red Finished Quilt

This is a horrible picture taken by my mom, but here you go. I brought my completed project to my guild meeting last week. 

Painting the Roses Red

And guess what? It was selected to be part of our guild's entry to the AQS show in Grand Rapids, MI. The Quilt Show has a category called "The Ulitimate Guild Challenge" you can read about here.
I was beyond shocked my quilt was selected to be 1 of 8 our guild entered into this National Quilt Show.

Linked up with Anything Goes here.
Linked up with Let's Bee Social here.
Linked up with Needle and Thread Thursday here.
Linked up with TGIFF here.