Number 100!

This marks my 100th blog post... and it's my birthday!  Definitely time to celebrate, although I'm not quite ready.  This week we had some hard heavy rain and our basement flooded.  Since Wednesday we've been cleaning and drying and moving stuff and cleaning some more.  Last night was the first time in days I actually found some time to sew, and in all actuality, that's all I really wanna do for my b-day!

This is where I'm at with the dragon:

I picked up all the browns and will be re-laying them out in a better pattern next.  It's definitely a labor of love, or at least...something to obsess over.  Last night I was up late playing in my sewing room ~ there's no clock in there, and I listen to books on CD so I can get really lost in time.  No surprise I didn't get to bed till about 5am.  But, I got a lot done!  The anniversary quilt top is just about finished.

Oh yeah...  HAPPY NEW YEAR - year of the Dragon starts today!  With the new year comes high hopes for progressive change and continued happiness and contentment with many friends new and old.  Thanks for sharing in it with me!

Another Great Meeting!

Just got home from the first PMQG meeting of the new year ~ and I felt the need to write about it!   We are so lucky to be a part of such a creative group of people, everyone seems so nice and helpful, with a wealth of knowledge to share.  I always feel so warm and fuzzy afterwards, not to mention totally motivated and a little overwhelmed with all these new ideas! I'm love my quilty friends :)

I really wanted to finish the quilt top I'm working on to show tonight... but it just didn't happen.  So I thought I'd share what I'm working on... it's an anniversary quilt for my inlaws.  Mom picked out the fabric... and it's not a color palate I would have chosen, so it's a little hard to work with.  What do you think?

  

Here are some photos of the quilt pieces... and you can see my little green sewing room too:

I guess we'll see how it all turns out here in a few days... I'll post when I finish the top.  Speaking of posts... my next will be my 100th post, so maybe I'll  post some sort of give-away to celebrate!  Check back soon...

Slow Going...

Slow going is the way I would describe my sewing ventures lately.  With the new year comes new plans for our business... so I've been spending more time on that end of my world.  However, I am working on a schedule to be able to spend a little more time actually stitching ~ even when business picks up... but we'll see how that goes ;)

I did get the first stage of the dragon quilt laid out:

I'm making a few color changes... for the "beard" I'm changing it up to aqua, and then I'm starting on the next stage.  That will be to pick up all the browns and rework them by pattern into a wood grain look as the background... then I can rework the other colors using the shade values for depth. 

After all that, I can pick a border fabric... and then start sewing them together. 
It's not the quickest process... but I am enjoying it!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!  I am personally very excited for 2012... it's the year of the Dragon, and the galactic alignment of the stars.  I'm sure we will be seeing all sorts of craziness this year.  My hope is for change, growing towards a people and planet working together for survival and sanity instead of money and power.  This may be too utopian for most ~ but I think that's the type of living we are all searching for. 

In my search for sanity, I sew to keep me from doing negatively-addictive things with my hands.  For instance, next month marks 15 years of no cigarettes.  At one point I chain smoked 2+ packs a day... now I sew 40-50 hexies and I'm all good!

Speaking of which... here's a pic of the hexie project I'm currently working on with a dime to see size.  *thanks for the idea, Rachel!*

And here is where I'm at with the layout so far... it's going to be a Wood Dragon ~ which also happens to be my husbands Chinese Astrological sign.  So if I can get this done by June, he'll have an awesome birthday gift!

My books on CD just arrived at the library.  I'm listening to the Game of Thrones book series, and just started book 3 with book 4 already in.  That means I have to listen to both books in 3 weeks ~ which will hopefully also mean I'll get a lot of sewing done!