It's A New Year...

... and migosh, it's already February. Time moves so quickly these days. Last year was an extraordinarily busy year for me. Staying busy with the family accounts for much of that time, but I also worked two quilt shows during the summer and fall, and then the holidays. There simply are not enough hours in the day.

And soapmaking. I spend more time reading about soap than I do about quilting. I took a couple of adult ed classes in January and February last year and learned how to make cold process soap. I've been hooked ever since. I make it on a small scale for family and friends, and I really like experimenting with all the different ingredients you can add to soap. I've added body butters and lotions to my repertoire, and my extremely dry skin is so much better for it this winter.

This past Christmas, my son indicated he wanted to learn; so I bought him all the tools and some reference material; and he's as hooked as I am. Now my daughter-in-law has gotten in on the act, and my younger son told me yesterday he wants to learn too. I'm lovin' it.

This is a lovely batch of orange-scented soap with some marigold petals on top that I cut last week. I'm anxious to use it, and I wish I didn't have to wait for it to cure for four weeks. 

I managed to finish 12 quilts last year, some of which were in the works for quite a while. All of the ones featured in the last post, which was from May of last year, were completed. Nothing like commitment to display at a quilt show to motivate, and here are the others I finished last year.

Jungle Blooms was my first effort making a One Block Wonder quilt, from Maxine Rosenthal's book of the same name. I really enjoyed making this, and I absolutely love how it turned out. Can't wait to make another one. The cutting and piecing are not difficult, and moving the blocks around to create a design was absorbing.

I quilted it with something that looked like a palm frond, which I thought appropriate for the theme.

I was very happy indeed to finish Twisted Ribbons. I don't know how many times I blogged about it, and it dragged on and on. Decided it was time to knuckle down and get it finished, and it went in our chapter show in October.

Farm Girl Sampler from Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet was a fun quilt to make, but it definitely wasn't a quick quilt. All the blocks were made with rotary cutting instructions, no templates or applique; so some of them took a bit of time to make. I've already purchased Lori's newest book of sampler blocks, Vintage Christmas, and looking forward to getting started on that one.

Lori designed additional blocks that were not in the original quilt, so I subbed out the house for the cow block. There's a barn and a milking pail in the quilt, so I thought, why not?

I don't knit much anymore, but I was happy to include the sheep anyway.

I was also happy to see Lori included a spool block. The gingham plaid is cute enough to make a whole quilt with. Lori's book had quite a few other projects in it besides the sampler quilt, and blocks were all included in two sizes. There is so much you could do with these blocks.

This year will be another year with multiple charity quilts, and some golden oldies for a chapter UFO Challenge. This Quilt of Valor is from a kit that the state rep gave me to work on last October. The ribbon border was a pain but worth the effort. I've been trying to make time to get it loaded for quilting, but that hasn't happened yet... I've finished a few other tops that are also in the RTQ (ready to quilt) pile, and you'll see those eventually; but the Quilt of Valor is the next one I need to push to finish.