Goodbye Bear

As 2011 comes to a close, it's time to say goodbye to my longtime buddy, Bear.  Bear passed on in mid-November and is finally free from the pains of his illnesses.  We spent nearly 17 years together and as anyone with pets knows, he was a part of our family. 

His loss was very tough for me and a lot of times I still think I hear or see him around the house.  I still look around to see if he is going to "rearrange" my quilt blocks when I lay them out.  He always did think he could do it better than me!  But he will always be in my heart and I know he is in a much better place now.

Design Wall Monday 12/26/11

This is more "off" the design wall - finally!!  My sister and I started this baby quilt many months ago for a brand new niece.  It's tough to work on a quilt together when you live far apart.  And procrastinate.  So this is what I was doing on Christmas Eve.  Machine quilting a zig zag quilt with a cozy flannel backing.  I did get it finished (thankfully it wasn't huge).  We gave the quilt unbound.  Now my sister has it and will do the binding.  And now my "design wall" is a little emptier!  I couldn't show this quilt earlier because it was a gift.  One more quilt up there I can't show, but that will be done in a couple of weeks.  I'll get a nice clean picture of this one once the binding is finished.

It's the last Design Wall Monday of 2011!  Check out what other people have on their design walls at Judy's blog.

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to everyone!  Life's been super busy, but I hope to be blogging again very soon.  I wish everyone a healthy and happy holiday.

Design Wall Monday 12/05/11

I have been in kind of a sewing slump lately.  But I needed to get some projects ready for class, so I cruised the internet for inspiration and the dawn of an idea took place.  After playing around in EQ7, I came up with a great quilt and then was totally motivated to get working on it.  There were so many different ways I could go with the colors that I started to get stuck again.  Finally I put my hands on a fat quarter pack of batiks that were ear-marked for another project that won't be happening any time soon.  In no time I had my pieces all cut (shown above).

Then I had to decide how to arrange them.  These are the corners of bigger pieces layed out on my "design ironing board".  Now I just need to do some piecing and it will be done in no time.  It's amazing how much you can get done when you get motivated!

Be sure to check out all the Design Walls on Judy L's blog and get motivated like I did!!