April Goal Setting: Orchard Quilt

The dreaded March is over (I hope everyone had a glorious Easter), and I still feel bewildered and not-in-my-groove blog wise.  I've been doing quite a bit of quilting, but not as much writing about it.  Last week, I wrote a WIP: Wednesday post and forgot to link it up.  Over the weekend, I was going to write a follow-up post for my March "A Lovely Year of Finishes" and couldn't remember what my March goals had been.  When I went back to check on the blog I realized I'd never gotten around to setting goals for March (no wonder I couldn't remember what they were).  And then Monday morning, I remembered that it was the deadline for the artist contract and catalog photos for the Text Messages show, but couldn't find the contract anywhere.  After sending a panicked e-mail to the very nice curator about it, she re-sent the contract and I realized it had been attached to the original e-mail (which was still in my inbox) the whole time and that I was just an idiot.  So, definitely not-in-my-groove.

In an attempt to rectify this, I hereby set the following April goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes:

Finish the orchard quilt.

Over the last couple of weeks I finished quilting my Sierra Blanca mountain quilt (hopefully a post on that will be coming), and over the weekend started working on the orchard quilt as well as a warm sort-of-whole-cloth thing that I'll also share sometime soon.

You may remember when last we saw it the orchard was just some disparate painted trees and background. After some consultation with my mom, I planned the composition and over the weekend pieced together the foreground.  I also tiled the background; this is a technique we learned in Gloria Loughman's class that I'd wanted to try.  The sky was cut up from the piece of fabric I painted in the class and I laid out the pieces in a tumbling block/star pattern.  For now they're just fused, but will be sewn down during quilting.

Up next, the trees!

I'm going to link up with Fiber of All Sorts of course, but also with the lovely Lee over at WIP: Wednesday (if I remember this time-sigh).  Happy quilting to all!

February Goal Setting

It's time to set goals for February for A Lovely Year of Finishes.

My goals for February are fairly straightforward:  I want to finish the two art quilts I'm working on.  The first is my entry for the SAQA text message show and it's almost finished except for all of those annoying-time-consuming-non-creative-but-important steps.  I haven't been blogging about it, but it's finished except for binding, blocking square, sewing on the label and sewing on the pocket.  It's a bit crunched so I think it will take a fair amount of blocking.

My second quilt to finish is the Japanese tree quilt, otherwise known as the brown blob of doom.  We'll see how it goes- I expect I'll like it more once it's done (if only because done projects no longer require you to sew on their bindings).

And, because a post without a picture is no post at all, here's a little embroidery I just did.  The pattern is from the lovely Carina, she has a bunch of very pretty different ones, you should totally check them out.  I wanted to use springy/valentine's day colors, so I went with pinks/reds/browns/greens.  I didn't want to do it on a plain white or linen background, so I chose this green gingko print.  I thought the pattern was subtle enough not to distract from the embroidery, but alas no.  I think the next time I stitch it up I'll use a solid background- maybe summertime colors on light blue.

Anyway, it's a fun addition to my spring decor!  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy Monday and Plans for the New Year

I'm so very very late doing this, but I still want to share some of my plans and goals for 2013, as much to give myself a record as anything else.

First, a few thoughts on 2012.  It was a pretty good year for me, although by the end of the year I always feel ready to start something new.  The last couple of months (really since I finished Seymour) were filled with fun crafty sewing, but not with anything that I felt challenged my creative juices.  I just got Seymour back from the gallery show in Albuquerque and it was wonderful to have him back in my possession.  I feel really proud of that piece and like the feelings I got from working on it.  Doing more work like that is one of my goals for 2013.  In the last week or so I have finished up some of the things that were part of my 2012 (more posts about those in the coming weeks) so that while I still have UFOs, I feel like I have time and brain space for more creative design work going forward.

Major Goals for 2013

1.  I'm setting a goal for myself of creating four new art quilts this year.  Maybe I can finish more, maybe fewer, but that's my goal.

2.  It was really wonderful to finish Rejoice, Rejoice, not just because I love it, but because it was a UFO for so long!  Therefore, my second goal is to finish the last major UFO I have languishing in my sewing room: the dog portraits.  It's actually the only thing left on my my very first UFO list on this blog.

Current Projects in Progress/Planned

To add a bit of detail, here are the projects I have currently going or planned on which I want to make progress/finish this year:

In progress
Dog Portraits
Text Messages
Japanese Tree Sister Quilt
Crochet Sampler Afghan
Ahhhh EPP Star
Cyanotype Blocks Quilt

Planned
Gloria Loughman class quilt  (we're going to quilt camp at Asilomar again, YAY!)
Skirt from denim I bought a while back
Christmas centerpiece with vintage linen (I wanted to do that for this past Christmas but it didn't happen)

I know there are more I already have planned an in my UFO bin, and more that will get slotted in as time is available, but here's where I'm starting.

I've also decided to participate in A Lovely Year of Finishes hosted by Fiber of All Sorts and Bitter Sweet Designs. 

My goal for the month of January is to finish the top of the Japanese Tree Sister Quilt.  Hopefully I'll have time to do a full post on it soon, but here's a quick picture of where I am so far (since joining a linky with a picture free post is terribly boring).

Wishing you all a productive 2013!