Still not Thing 12

OK, this is STILL not Thing 12 (or Thing 11, Thing 14, Thing 15 or Thing 16). Oh well....

I just finished this quilt for my mom, a (belated) Mother's Day gift. I told her in advance her gift would be late, just wasn't expecting it to be quite this late. But, who better than your own mom to understand how kids + job don't always = time to quilt...

The pattern is a log cabin, and it's from my favorite quilting book, "Creative Scraps: Quilting with Bits and Pieces." The sample in the book is done in Christmas prints (reds, whites, greens and it's gorgeous), but I decided to give it a shot in non-holiday colors.

Mom's favorite colors are blue and yellow and of course, she loves flowers.

Close-up of one of the blocks. The quilt is 4 blocks wide & 5 blocks long, plus borders:

Close-up of the quilt tag, which I hand embroidered. Starting this year (2008), every quilt I make has an embroidered tag (for posterity -- ha!) and someplace on it, a ladybug. For this quilt, it's a little more obvious than on some of the other ones I've made. Yes, I blocked out Mom's last name and mine. (You can never be too safe, you know!)

Not Quite Thing 12

OK, so I've made very little progress on "the list." I'm a bit disappointed since some of them are just SO easy, what's my problem?!?!? Oh well... there's always tomorrow....

In the meantime, these aren't quite Thing 12: Make a Kat Quilt, but I've sure had a lot of fun with them and I wanted to share. In trying to figure out what Kat Quilt I wanted to make, I decided to try my hand at a few new patterns. I think they both came out great (if I do say so myself!) and they've helped build my confidence that I can make any Kat Quilt I choose, once I finally get around to choosing one from the gazillion "must have" patterns I've been looking at!

This first one, called "Mousekethanks," was for Luanne, who gave my family a very generous gift. Though this can't begin to show our full appreciation, it was my best attempt at combining my favorite hobby (quilting) with hers (Disney!). The pattern is a Double Irish Chain and it's available for free (along with tons of other great patterns) on the Quilter's Cache website.


Red, black and pink would not usually be my first choice quilt colors, but Mickey fabric isn't as easy to find as you might think and as it turns out, Luanne's home office is pink, so the quilt fits right in!

Might be hard to tell, but those are Mickey heads on the red fabric.

This next one was for my daughter, Rachel, who gets a bit frustrated at me when I spend so much time sewing and then ship all the quilts to other people. I found a set of 5 coordinating butterfly fabrics a while back and couldn't walk away from them. I had no specific intent in mind when I bought them, but when I came across this pattern, I knew the butterfly fabric would be perfect! I call this quilt "Butterfly Kisses" and the pattern is available in an amazing book called "Creative Scraps: Quilting with Bits and Pieces." If you quilt, you MUST own this book, it's awesome!

Hoping to have more "list-relevant" updates soon but hey, so long as I'm having fun doing something, that's all that matters, right?

Thing 8: Conquered and Honored!

Drum roll, please... fanfare, trumpets, confetti.... I want it ALL!!! And dang it, I deserve it on this one (if I do say so myself).

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of all ages.... it is my greatest, most proud, most exciting accomplishment from the 5 Things list to date....

I have officially completed Thing 8: Be a Non Smoker!

It's been a long time coming and though I stopped smoking on September 13, I hesitated to cross this one off until I was really, really sure. Today, I am really, really sure, and man, it feels great!!

************************************

In celebration of both Thing #8 and some other writing I've been doing for an awesome new website called CoolMomsCare, Julie at The Surrendered Scribe gave me a blog award called Bloggers with Integrity -- For the Spirit of Giving. You can read what she had to say about me here, her words are so nice, I'm humbled and appreciative!

************************************

New Things: I already had a TBD next to Thing 12, from the completion of Thing 5. I have one new Thing to add, so I'll put that as #12 and leave #13 as TBD for now. Don't worry, I have some ideas, just want to pick the one that's most fun and most about ME this time around!

Thing #12 will be to make myself a quilt, with a pattern that will challenge me. I know, I know, I've had lots of quilts on my list. However, I've never, ever kept for myself (or even for my own family!) one of the quilts I've made, and it's time I did one for me. Many months ago I bought a pattern that looks basic enough for me to handle, but with a very striking finished look. I think I'm going to dig it out and start looking for fabrics to make the perfect "Kat Quilt" as Thing #12. Pictures to follow as I get started!