November Goals

I didn't get all my November goals finished - I never do - but here are a few things I did this month.

I carpool to my quilt guild meeting with four other ladies. We're doing a Christmas block exchange for our Christmas present to each other. I know this doesn't look like much now but....it will eventually! This is a machine appliqued Santa from the "I Believe" book by Art To Heart. I have him all fused on five blocks (I did one for myself) and am ready for the machine blanket stitching. He's going to be so cute. :)

These redwork letters are from a pattern called "Alphabet in Bloom" that I borrowed from a friend. Eventually I'm going to do the whole alphabet but these four are the initials of my four granddaughters. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to use these but in a Christmas present of some kind - maybe a sachet bag?

These are old-fashioned white tea towels that I found at Maggie Mae's Quilt Shop in Estes Park, Colorado. I loved the quality of the towel and they are huge...maybe even too big! I embroidered a different fruit on all eight of them and these will be Christmas gifts for friends.

This was a Christmas panel I bought from our local quilt shop. I added borders, machine appliqued an extra bird on the top, and machine quilted it. It's already been mailed to a blog friend.

And as promised, this is Winter Wonderland completed and hanging. This is the last time you will see it hanging because I learned a huge lesson from this quilt. I'm not a good piecer, let me make that clear up front. I can never seem to get that really good consistent quarter inch. Therefore, I cut off points or leave them floating all too often. I'm good at other things so I live with the piecing problems. When I want a quilt done on the longarm with a pantogram I take it to a local quilter. She's reasonably priced, does a good job with pantograms and I want to support the local quilt shop. She's done a lot of quilts for me. When I got this quilt back from her she had trimmed it to where she cut off some of the blocks...just a little. Normally she trims to just beyond the where the quilt ends. That, combined with my poor piecing, meant the outside edges weren't good. In fact, I couldn't square up the quilt which had somehow become "warped" in the quilting. When I put the sleeve on and tried to hang it, oh my goodness, it was lopsided. At first I was really upset - I put a lot of work in this quilt. And then I thought ok I'll take the binding off, put on a wide red border that I quilted prior to putting it on - sort of a quilt-as-you-go concept, and then square it. And I may still do that someday. But for now I'll lay it on my bed where it's imperfections won't show. What's the lesson I learned? I'm not perfect. No one is. This quilt isn't perfect....but it's beautiful just like it is. And so is the friend who quilted it. Life isn't about perfect, it's about love. I love my friend and I love my quilt. I want to always remember to look beyond imperfections and just see the love.