2016 Goal Failure

 Happy almost New Year! Look what I got together--my Scrap Dance Waltz Quilt. Mine has 81 blocks set 9 x 9. Right now, it is about 85 inches square. This is going to be a quilt for our bed. We have a queen sized bed, but I always buy my comforters and quilts king sized to make sure they are extra long and I don't bother with a bed skirt.

I am a huge Bonnie and Camille fan and hoard their fabrics, but I dug into my stash for this beauty. This is part of a quilt along from Carole over at: https://frommycarolinahome.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/scrap-dance-waltz-quilt-along/

Isn't the design gorgeous? I love the curvy looking star that forms from the gray background!

I want it to be about 100 inches square, so I am planning on a 2.5 inch border in the gray and I ordered an aqua print from the Little Ruby line for an outer border and pillow cases. I hit a good sale on Etsy and found yardage at $6 a yard. I also got a striped red for the binding. I already bought some of the gray for the backing. My hubby even likes the design even though I did not bother to consult him. The quilt is so busy, so I don't need a lot of fancy quilting. However, I want it quilted pretty heavily to help it endure lots of being laid upon--I lay and read on our bed a bunch.

I have never made a quilt this big, so it was a challenge. I laid the blocks out on my living room floor to try to not have any of the same prints touching and sewed it together in thirds. As soon as my fabric arrives, I will get the borders attached. I hope my mom's longarm is ready for this quilting challenge.

I got together with my mom yesterday and worked on my Magic of Christmas blocks. These were my December OMG goal. This is a quilt along from Lisa Bongean: https://lisabongean.com

Lisa has posted all 25 blocks, but I have decided not to use all of her designs. Some of them had nearly 100 pieces for a six inch block--NO THANKS! I also don't think of this project as a Christmas quilt, so I don't feel the need to only make star blocks. I dug out some of my quilt books and will be making more six inch blocks to get this project to a decent size--25 six inch blocks do not make a big enough quilt.

I feel like I did meet my original OMG goal, but work will continue on this project. You can see how productive everyone else was this month here: 

http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2016/12/one-monthly-goal-december-finish-link-up.html

I got back from quilting at my mom's last night and took all of my Christmas quilts down and put my winter/snow/blue themed stuff up. I have a blank spot that needs a quilt. I remembered that Cheri Saffiote Payne had posted a pattern on Facebook that was a companion to one of my other quilts, so I headed into my sewing room and started cutting up some blues from my stash to make it. This comes from her Snow Village pattern and is the Saltbox Quilt. The blank block gets a snowman and the houses will get some wool felt roofs, windows, and chimneys. I also will embroider the trees in to top part. Nothing like an impromptu project to keep me busy for this weekend!

I totally sucked on completing my 2016 quilting goals! I wanted to:

1. quilt my Farm Girl Vintage top--not done

2. make my pigs quilt--blocks done, but not together

3. make my Down in the Garden as a BOM in 2016--two blocks are only done--FAIL

4. make examples for my Quilty Fun class--I did pretty well on this one--I made half dozen examples

5. get my daughter off to college---DONE--she is doing awesome at Colgate University

Since I was such a failure with my most of my 2016 quilting goals, I am not bothering with making any specific goals for 2017--no pressure either!