my crafting year in review . . .

My first quilt of the year was this one for Craft Hope to raise money for Haiti. I listed my price (which I hummed and hawed over and then finally punched in the 3 digits) and gave a happy squeal of relief when it sold the next day.

My 'mandatory' quilt project of the year was this trio of matching quilts ~ one for our little guy, one for my nephew, and one for my niece. I still am so in love with the All Star line ~ it just screams BOY to me.

Then there were some quilts that were made just because I had the time and wanted to play with the fabric :) But after finishing them, I really didn't have a home for them, so they went in a little Etsy shop that I started up this past Fall.

And I made a few more things for the Etsy shop with all my leftover scraps from projects, like soother straps, bibs, aprons . . .

and doll quilts! I LOVE these little things! I'm hoping to keep adding some of these excess projects to the shop this next year, in the hopes of paying for some more fabric to play with. But, I must confess that I often get side-tracked to sew for my kids and their friends when a birthday invite comes home. So I'm not being as aggressive with filling up the shop as I could be, but I want to keep sewing fun too. Oh, and some of my favorite projects this year are dresses for my girls. I LOVE dressing my girls up for church and they LOVE picking out fabric almost as much as I do. And the gracious Samantha at the Handmade Dress lets me review the most adorable and simple patterns and then rewards me with free copies when they're printed :) And I have an order of some beautiful new Riley Blake prints on their way to me so I can make a bunch of Spring dresses for the girls and some nieces soon!

And another favorite from this year that I get to see every day . . . is the curtains and rug for my daughter's room ~ and it was a great way to use up a tonne of pretty scraps. And there was also some swapping this year, a set of 3 little dresses and purses in exchange for fabric! And I'm open to this kind of offer again . . .

And a baby quilt for another little niece rounded out my crafting for the year . . .

One more thing I haven't mentioned is that a couple quilts ago, my sewing machine broke down *again* and since it's just a basic machine that I've had since I was 18, I decided an upgrade was in order. And I was planning to go by myself that day to buy one, but somehow my hubby came with me and well, if you know my hubby, he's kinda easy to talk into bigger and better or did he talk me into it? . . . and somehow I ended up getting my dream machine. It's a longarm, it's digital, it has an automatic thread cutter, it winds my bobbin for me, and it even threads my needle. It has so many stitches that I don't even think I've tried out half of them yet, and I'm trying! Yes, I'm in love with my new machine, and I'm planning to spend lots of time with her in the new year . . . and this is also a sneak peak of my latest quilt ~ it's for my talented sister the photographer to thank her for our family pictures we had done this past Fall.