Getting Ready for 2015

A Blank Slate (Wall)

(Actually took the Christmas quilt down and haven't put up a different quilt yet!)

I've taken down Christmas and have spent a lot of time thinking over the past month.  I like to make New Years' Resolutions, but this year I'm just going to make goals.  You know the usual ones:  lose weight -- only I'm already working on that.  I spent a lot of money in 2014 taking two big trips and finishing the basement and remodeling my bathroom and putting in new floors and painting, etc.  So, 2015 I won't be spending much at all!  I'm not going to be a miser, but I've been working on decluttering a lot, so I will think twice about buying anything that I really don't need.  I do hope to be able to buy a whole new wardrobe after I drop a size or two!

I've had a lot of trouble this past year with my hands -- I have degenerative osteoarthritis in my hands (I just thought I had arthritis, but now my Rheumatologist has given me a name for it! vbg). Basically it means I've had numerous cortisone shots in my thumbs and fingers, especially this year and it's never going to get better.  So, I've been thinking about what that means for my quilting.  I love to hand applique, but eventually I probably won't be able to do much of that. So, as often as I can, with probably lots of rests in between, I'm hoping to finish off my appliqued Merry, Merry Snowman quilt, by Bunny Hill.  I only have a couple of more blocks to do.  I also have a couple of other appliqued quilts in the queue that I started years ago, so hoping to work on them as I am able.

So here's more goals for 2015 - quiltwise.  I bought the Statler stitcher for my longarm last May.  It came with Creative Studio 5.0 which is the program that moves the machine head to the patterns I've selected.  We've just been notified that CS6 is coming out in January.  So far, I can only do edge to edge quilting well and this machine can do so much, and I haven't had time to learn 5.0!  So, I'm going to be learning CS6 in 2015.  I really would like to learn all the machine can do.  And I have plenty of tops that I've saved for years to quilt once I learn to do some custom quilting.  And that includes the appliqued quilts I'm hoping to finish. The quilt on the machine in the picture is one of the quilts for the homeless that I quilt for my church group.  The group makes the tops and I quilt them.  We've had backing fabrics donated by a quilt store owner - that has been a godsend in itself.  The quilt shop is in Pecatonica, IL, so if you're ever in the neighborhood, the name of the shop is Lucky 2B Quilting.  Polly has donated more than half of all the backings we've used.

I have more thoughts and goals, but I'll put them in the next post. What are your goals for 2015?
Until next time, blessings....