A Lovely Year of Finishes: April Goals

April is a very busy month for me, so much so that I almost didn't want to set any goals, but I thought that would be wrong.  So I have decided to set a few goal, not big ones, but hopefully attainable ones.

1. My main goal is to finish pouches for Sharla and I.  I am doing Wide Open Pouches by Noodlehead. I started last week, and after making one, Sharla had the bright idea that I should make them for everyone for Easter.  So the I had to hurry and do 7 pouches for family last week.  I did get a couple of ours done as well.  Here are the ones I gave away today.  I need to do one this size for me, and then a medium and two larges for Sharla. We want them for our trip for Callie's wedding, so I have about 1 1/2 weeks to get them done.

2. My second goal is to get my bee block done and sent on time.  I only have two this month, but with everything else on my plate, I don't want them to slide.  I'm very excited because one is a Card Trick block, something I've always wanted to do and the other is the Autumn Chain block.  I would like to have these done before Callie's wedding, but I'm not sure that is going to happen.

3. Sharla's sewing machine cover quilted and completed.  She pieced the cover about 3 weeks ago and I've still not gotten it on to the machine.  I know this won't be done until after the wedding, but I am hoping to complete it the following week.

4. Cross Blocks.  I want to do at least 10 more blocks.  I would really like to get 20 done, but I don't want to push myself too much.  I have enough cut that I can easily do this, if I sit down and sew for a couple of nights.

Now that is the end of my sewing/quilting list.  I still have lots of other things, like taxes, doctors appointments and other fun and exciting events.  I'm a list maker by nature and I'm running about three simultaneously right now. Which I hope means I don't forget anything important. Today I am linking up with  Melissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs and Shanna of Fiber of All Sorts.

2015 Finish-Along: Quarter 1 Finishes

I will admit quarter one sucked for me. I did get a few things done, but not near what I wanted to get done. I had such lofty goals and they all went to poof. However, we don't need to be depressed about what I didn't do, let's look at what I did get accomplished.

1. Tessellated Leaves.  It is done, pieced, quilted and blogged about. I really love this pattern and will do it again in the future. I did this as a test quilt for Quilting Jetgirl and you can find the pattern here.

Now this is where everything went south. I did get one memory quilt quilted, but it isn't bound and the other three are just hanging over my head. And nothing else got quilted.

Now on my other accomplishments, I did a little better. All of my bee blocks have been on time, and I've even joined another bee. But last month was my last month of three bees since one is now finished. I've also done cross blocks every month, and in February, I made great progress and am just over 50% done. The moose quilt still sits waiting to be unpicked, but I did buy and battery powered seam ripper to help in the process. The sewing room has been re-organized and re-arranged. I still need to work on it some, but it is much better and overall it is more to my liking. My last goal was to get the blocks for Callie and Beau's signature wedding quilt done. I finished those and gifted them to her a week or so ago.

I wish I had gotten more don, but I'm alright with where I finished. I want to get more quilting done next quarter, but April is a busy month, so I will most likely keep my list shorter.  Today I'm linking up with On the Windy Side.

Quilty Thankful Thursday #16

Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you are having a wonderful day and didn't get pranked too much yesterday. Today I'm going to list 5 things for which I'm thankful, it keeps me grounded and in the right frame of mind.

1. Learning New Things.  I will admit, I'm a bit of an old dog, so learning new tricks is a reason to be thankful. I wanted to make a pouch for the new van to keep in the glove box. I want to keep things like salt/pepper/ketchup in it along with a couple of forks/spoons/napkins. So I went looking and found the Noodlehead Wide Open Pouch. Since I didn't want the pouch to be stiff, I didn't use any interfacing or stabilizer. I did learn to put a zipper in years ago, but my memory is bad. But I did muddle through and ended up with a cute little pouch. I have already made several more. It has been fun to start and finish something fairly quickly.

2. New Goodies.  Ok this is related to the pouch above.  After making the pouch, I knew I would want to make more, so I ordered some zippers.  Maybe a lot of zippers...ok a lot of zippers.  I'm not sure I will ever use them all, but they are such pretty colors, I couldn't resist getting one of every color.

3.  Hollywood. Not the city, but the crazy dog. He is weird, he is strange, but I love him anyway. Today a pet sitter came by to meet him, and it didn't go well. I don't know why he likes some people and doesn't like others. We were worried this might happen which is why we arranged for him to meet her. Since it didn't go well, he will be boarded at the facility where he goes to doggy daycare. I'm not sure he is going to like that much better, but he likes the people there. And since I love him, I want him to be safe and happy, because he makes me happy.

4. New Books. I have a couple that still haven't arrived, but I've almost finished this one. I love her writing style, but this book is as much about the practice as it is about the words. I really enjoy reading quilting books, I have a couple more on order and I can't wait for them to arrive.

                      
5.  Laughter.  Lately life has been topsy turvy for me.  Nothing horrible, but lots of stuff breaking down, too much to do and not enough time, etc.  But through it all I have always found something to laugh about, not always the situations themselves but laughter none the less.  Last week we found a new show called Repeat After Me and it is just too funny. I love to laugh, and I'm very thankful for my ability to see the humor in life.

Today I am linking up with Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl.  :)