2012 UFO Bust-The Master List

Last January I joined Susan at Blackberry Creek in her 2011 UFO Busters group.  I had so much fun watching everyone finish their UFOs and I even completed a few of my own!  This group was really the push I needed to actually QUILT my quilts instead of letting them pile up while I started new projects.  Here's my list:

1. Love Quilt
2. Bliss
3. My very first quilt
4. Floating Lilypad
5. Rehab
6. Twilight Sampler
7. H & I's
8. Christmas Sampler
9. Layer Cake Quilt Along
10. Binding Purse 
11. Apron
12. Flip Flop tote bag

I completed 5 projects! 

My Christmas Sampler is almost complete.  I am nearly done sewing on the binding and I just have a few last minute quilting to complete.  My Rehab quilt went through some serious quilting and it is 75% done.  Two more started out as blocks and are now tops.  I didn't touch my Layer Cake quilt along, my Apron, or my Floating Lilypad UFOs. 

I'm calling this list 60% done.  

We decided to keep up the UFO Busters for another year.  This is my 2012 list:

1. Christmas Sampler

2. Guild Charity Quilt

3. Rehab

4. Floating Lilypad

5. Twilight Sampler

6. H & I's

7. Apron

8. Layer Cake Quilt Along

9. Boot Bash

10. Jewel in the Crown 

11. Civil War Sampler Quilt

12. Black and White Delight

That is more than enough to keep me busy all year!  I want to beat my record of 5 finishes.  Most of these are really large quilts, so wish me luck!  Come join us, it's never too late to start Busting some UFO's!

2012 Plans

Happy 2012!

So many good things happened in 2011. I can't wait to see what 2012 holds!

Our wedding picture from 2010

Family: My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We are so happy and in love. Every day gets better. He is my quilty husband and my perfect match. We really got a foothold in our life together this year. After taking a huge risk in 2010 and moving to Sacramento, CA to find work, we both landed good jobs with the state of CA. We saved enough money to put a down payment on a home. We just started looking and know that in 2012 we will be buying our home. We have a handle on our finances and some lofty financial goals in 2012 (pay off his car, reduce our debt, and explore options for starting our own business). Hopefully this year we may be adding to our happy family.

Self Improvement: I went back to school this year. I took an Accounting class to be eligible for a promotion at work. I got an A! It was so fun that I'll be taking another class this semester. Small Business/Entrepreneurship. I'm very excited.

Home cooking, yum!

I also want to get more fit. Since I stopped eating gluten I have more control over my health. I have more energy. Now I'm ready to get in shape and reconnect with my body. My focus in 2012 will be on organic, whole foods and a more active lifestyle.

Fire dancing in Maui, 2010

I would also like to get back to fire dancing. It's been a long time since I picked up my fire poi and I really want to learn some new tricks.  It's also a fabulous arm toner!

Work: I am ready for a promotion! Right now I'm a secretary. I want to take on more responsibility and receive higher pay. I've put a few applications out and hope that soon someone sees my potential and wants to hire me! My husband has a job interview next week for a promotional position that is closer to where we want to live (in the country, about an hour from Sacramento). Cross your fingers for him :)

We also want to open our own business. This is very important to us and this year we will be gearing up for it. No set goals, but we will be concentrating on research, business plans, and maybe starting a website. Basically, laying the groundwork :)

Our Wedding Quilt

Quilting: Now the fun stuff! I want to continue improving my FMQ. I want to make harder quilts. I want to make some smaller projects. I want to try some modern design quilts. I want to do some more handwork. I feel like I've been exploring and trying to find my style. I want to get better at finishing my projects and more importantly, starting new ones. I also want to make some gift quilts. I want to enter a quilt into the State Fair and the County fair.

2012 is going to be a great year! Bring it on :)

Merry Christmas!

The presents are wrapped...the cookies are baked...the house is clean...

Mmmm...These Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies are delicious! Also try these amazing Snickerdoodles. They are flourless and sugarless. I brought them to a potluck at work last week and people were stopping me in the hallway to give me compliments on the cookies! I didn't bother to tell anyone they were gluten-free and ridiculously healthy :)

I've made it my goal for people to get to know me and say "Wow, I never knew you were gluten-free!"

This year we wrapped our presents with materials lying around the house. I used recycled brown grocery bags and some fabric and trim pieces. Cute! They look great under the tree :) I used a glue stick to make it super simple.

I'll be spending the next few days with my family. Cooking, eating, laughing. Sewing the binding on my Xmas quilt (yes, still!).

I hope you have a

and a quilty New Year!

FNSI and Giveaway Winner

Good morning! Happy Sunday! I am having a fabulous weekend. I went to a meeting of the Sacramento Modern Quilt Guild. It was fun and I can't wait to hang out more with these girls! My husband and I also looked at houses yesterday and put an offer on one. Cross your fingers for us :)

I had so much fun reading all the embarrassing quilty confessions from my giveaway! If you have some time, read the comments. They will keep you in stitches :) I couldn't respond, but I read every one of them and had a great laugh.

The winner was picked by RNG and is:

Just Pam who said: "I think most of us have been there. My worst was finishing a large quilt that I gave away for a raffle. It was beautiful and I realize that I had one block that totally didn't belong. My quilt club told me no one who doesn't quilt would see it. The first question by the person I gave it to was what is the significance of that one odd ball block!"

Congrats! You won a $20.00 gift certificate to Green Fairy Quilts!

For FNSI I made an oven mitt for my aunt. I pulled her name for the gift exchange this year and thought it would be cute to wrap her spice grater in an oven mitt.

The tutorial was written by Melissa at Happy Quilting (hop over right now to enter her giveaway). It was easy to follow. You can basically make two lengths from this tutorial. I made the smaller one and it's perfect. I forgot to account for the directional print of my fabric. In order to have all the coffee cups facing up instead of tipped over on their sides, I had to make a smaller one. I wish I would have thought to add a loop in there for hanging.

I put her spice grater in the oven mitt and tied a lacy bow and that's how it's wrapped. I'm not using wrapping paper this season.

For more FNSI results, visit here

Have a quilty weekend :)

I've been Charmed

Have you had fun hopping?!  I know I did.  I found a ton of new blogs to follow. My poor Google Reader is going to be so stuffed! 

I haven't sewn in two weeks! Yikes.  I have a Santa bag full of excuses though.  Holidays. Cooking delicious gluten free food.  My last test in Accounting was tonight.  We got approved for a home loan and now just need to house-shop.  Exercise and diet for next month's trip to Hawaii.  Plus the usual work!

That's why I'm signing up for Friday Night Sew In! What a wonderful excuse to get some Me time :)  I want to make Oven Mitts for Christmas presents.  I've been itching to start a new project.  I have so many in progress right now though.

I got this fabulous present from a giveaway hosted by Jeanette at Inchworm Fabrics. I won the book (by Me and My Sister Designs) and a Ruby charm pack. I threw in some extra money and bought two more charm packs. Can't beat that deal! Thanks Jeanette :) This package has been sitting on my cutting table, just mocking me.

Soon! I'll get to you soon!

Have fun at FNSI. Forget everything else and take a night for yourself. Make your husband cook dinner. Make the cats pick up the house. Skip your exercising and park yourself at your sewing machine!

Blog Hop Party Giveaway!

Welcome to the Quilting Gallery Blog Hop!

I'm so happy you are here! I'm Jen and I love everything Quilty!

I'm an advanced beginner. That means that I have a good idea of what I'm supposed to be doing and what it's supposed to look like when I'm done, but sometimes it looks like a kindergartner did it. What can I say? I'm a kid at heart. And a kid at art, apparently ;)

I'm not just talking little things either, like wonky blocks or points that don't touch. I'm a serious quilty transgressor. I'm guilty of sewing through my finger. Of accidentally sewing my back to the front during FMQ. Of sewing the same block wrong 3 times in a row. Of paper-piecing the word JOY completely backwards and not realizing until I finished it. My most embarrassing quilty moment was threading embroidery floss through my sewing machine. My pattern said to embroider and I didn't want to do it by hand, so I carefully threaded my machine! Luckily, I wasn't able to thread the needle. I can only imagine the mess I would have made had I actually started "embroidering!"

I know what you are thinking:

"What a dork!"

And

"Get to the giveaway already!"

Ok, ok!

I am giving away something that you will love!

Would you love one of these?:

Or how about two of these:

Or maybe a bit of this:

Because I'm giving away $20.00 to Green Fairy Quilts! You get to decide what you get!

Just leave a comment. Make it interesting! Tell me about your most embarrassing Quilty moment or your oldest UFO or your dream project.

Just make it A Quilty comment!

If you are a follower, leave a second comment. That way I can show my followers some love!

Happy Hopping!

Fun at Quilting Gallery

There's lots of Star Quilts at the Quilting Gallery today! This is most entries I've ever seen in a category. Quilters love their star patterns :)

I entered my  Bliss Quilt

And here are some of my favorites:

From Sew Much Better

From Jelly's Blog

From Quilts Sew Shabby

Cast your vote for your favorites at Quilting Gallery!

And while you're there...

Check out Blog Hop coming soon! I'll be signing up to give away a prize right here and I can't wait to pick something special out for you guys!

Have a quilty weekend!

OMG~ I totally just figured out how to center my post.  I've been blogging for 2 years and I'm still learning the basics!!  Happy Friday :)

2011 Christmas Quilt Show

I love Christmas! Santa Claus, snow, silver, trees, shiny stuff!!! Christmas quilts combine my two favorite things :)

Here's a close-up of the ribbon border. It turned out fabulous. It's quilted in gold metallic thread.

The rest of the quilt is a melange of quilt designs in different colored threads.

Do you have a Christmas Quilt? Come show it off in the 2011 Christmas Quilt Show.

Thank you SewCalGal for putting together this fabulous show!

Chronicle Books Happy Haul-Idays!

Chronicle Books is an independant book publisher of distinctive books. What are distinctive books? Books that make you want to sit down in the middle of the day, pour yourself a glass of wine, cuddle up with a quilt, and browse. Books with gorgous pictures of architecture, crafts, cooking, and art. Books that make you pause and daydream no matter where you are: reading on the bus, on your lunch break at work, or fighting valiantly to keep your eyes open for another hour before drifting off to sleep.

Right now, Chronicle Books is giving away $1500 worth of books. This is such an amazing offer! That's $500 worth of books for me, $500 worth of books for you, and $500 worth of books for my charity: Ione Library.

(Yup, that's it, the last door on the street)

Ione is my hometown. I used to spend hours in our one-room library, reading every book on the shelf. The librarian used to send me birthday and graduation cards. Ahh...the memories :)

So here are the books I picked out for us to win:

Cooking:

Kathy Casey's Northwest Table

Plenty

Blackbird Bakery Gluten-Free

The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook

Fun:

Airstream

The Life & Love of Trees

Oak

My Future Listography

Crafty:

Craft, Inc. - Revised Edition

Craft Inc. Business Planner

Creative, Inc.

PANTONE

French General: Home Sewn

Embroidered Effects

Applique Your Way

Whip Up Mini Quilts

Little Bits Quilting Bee

Sublime Stitching

Kids:

Olive, the Other Reindeer

Over and Under the Snow

Would you like to win? Simply comment on this post. If my name is drawn by Chronicle Books, then I can draw a name from my commenters. Easy Peasey!

In the meantime, check out these dreamy books. Making this list was the most most relaxing thing I did all weekend! Head over to Chronicle Books for more eye candy :)

Check out the Quilty Fun!

Do you follow SewCalGal? If you don't, RUN over there right now to see what she's doing! SewCalGal is always up to some quilty fun. She scours the web to share with us new books, classes, techniques, and notions. She is the brainchild behind such fun events as Pets on Quilts Quiltshow, Golden Quilter Awards, Quilter's with Tools database, and many more.

There are two major events coming up that SewCalGal is kindly coordinating.

I am super excited to be playing in the FMQ Challenge. Take the pledge, post the button on your blog, and wait until the first project is posted. I am determined to become an award-winning quilter one day! Thanks SewCalGal, for all the help you've given me to get closer to my dream :)

The second fun event is the Christmas Quilt Show! Yikes! I need to put my sewing machine pedal to the metal to get it finished to post in the show! Talk about Motivation!! As usual, SewCalGal has gotten a ton of sponsors for this show and there will be prizes. The show opens Monday, November 28.

I don't know about you, but I LOVE Christmas quilts and can't wait to check out the eye candy! Yum!

Thanks SewCalGal! You rock!

FNSI Results

Did you have a fabulous FNSI? I did! A little bit of wine, some fast food for dinner (Chipotle), and some quality spending time with my sewing machine :)

I have been quilting my Xmas Sampler. No real plan, I just pick a color thread and do whatever I feel like doing. BTW, if some of those rows look crooked and wonky, it's NOT my camera. They actually ARE crooked and wonky and I'm not apologizing. It happens.

My first meander. I'm pretty impressed. It's a bit choppy, so next time I'll work more on smoothing it out. Overall, great try :)

I love how this wreath turned out. I traced a pointsetta in the negative space corners and just did some flowing curves in the center. I outlined the applique with matching thread.

I'm getting better!

Here's just a photo to showcase how much better I am at backtracking. You can't really tell that I had to backtrack on these curves. Amazing how easy it is to improve FMQ skills, if you actually practice :)

This is the only project I've worked on all month so far.

How was your FNSI?

Do you Swag?

I've just recently discovered the world of Swag Bucks. It's so easy. Just install the Swag Bucks toolbar on your computer (it takes a few seconds, that's it), and start using it to search the internet for things you already search for. My SwagBucks search box sits right under my Google search box. I didn't have to change anything else.

Every day that I use my internet, I earn Swag Bucks. You can trade your Swag Bucks in for different items. The one I have my eye on is an Amazon Gift Card. They have all kinds of different prizes.

There are other ways to earn Swag Bucks, you can plan games, answer polls, or even complete offers. I usually answer the Daily Poll and earn the rest just by searching for things I'm already searching for! It's basically Free Money!

If you would like to sign up for Swag Bucks, you can use this code and I can earn a small percentage of what you earn through searching. Or you can go straight to Swag Bucks and sign up without a promoter.

So what am I going to buy with my Swag Bucks? Just take a guess :)

Playing Catch Up

Happy Friday! Today is UFO update day for all UFO Busters!

This has been a super busy week for me. For my husband’s birthday we spent a few days out of town. It was so nice to get away! Unfortunately, that means no quilting. Then I came back home to a big test in school and loads of homework to cram in before its due date. The homework is submitted and the test taken last night, thankfully! No worrying now, either I did good or bad, but at least I’m done studying!

Since my announcement of having to go gluten free, I’ve been going through some health issues too. Off-gluten, then back on, biopsy, blood draws, extreme fatigue, mood swings…the list goes on! Now most of the invasive procedures are done. I’ve officially been diagnosed with celiac disease, and have been off-gluten for a week now. It’s been a roller coaster and my poor body doesn’t know which way is up! These next few weeks I’m looking forward to healing my body, getting to know myself better, and enjoying my release from the grip of fatigue. I’ll be a whole, happy me!

I’ve been quilting on my Xmas Sampler quilt. I’m really pushing to get that done by December 1. No pictures to show (I’m writing this at work (on my break, I swear!)). But I should be finished soon. I'll be working on it tonight during FNSI! Sign up here if you would like to join me!

Here’s a finished flimsy! I did something a bit different with the borders. Do you like them? I do. This flimsy will marinate for a month or two before I get to it. My husband loves it, so I'll do something special for the quilting.

Hope you have a quilty weekend :)