Wrapping up January with a date with my seam ripper

I know I have been quiet lately...I actually haven't been crafting so much.  I have been working on cleaning out the guest room closet in preparation for our new shelving that we are installing to organize all my fabric.  I am thrilled!  I lost much of craft room storage to our new wine closet.  Although I was completely supportive of altering the storage closet for a wine cellar, which we desperately needed, I didn't quite think through where I was going to relocate all that I kept inside the closet.  Hmmm.  Sounds like me...Not thinking everything through!  So, for the past couple of years, I have been continuously piling fabric, batting, and all my other craft goodies inside the tiny craft room, which doesn't allow me to work in there...much less walk inside (its kind of a hop, shuffle, duck, and balance on one foot to obtain anything in there).  So, needless to say, this project closet-clean-out is much anticipated and needed for me to get my craft life under control.  Plus, this hasn't really curtailed my fabric purchasing habit, so even though I have no room to store it, I keep accumulating.  This is not making Ryan happy...so it is necessary to get this mass chaos under control.  So, in an effort to help, I spent the past couple of weeks at Ikea and Bed, Bath, and Beyond to find other stylish, storage solutions for my stash of crafty crap.  I found a really cool storage unit at Ikea that was quite affordable that looks absolutely fantastic in the bedroom.  I even adorned it with baskets and green boxes to punch it up a little more.  I am planning on using it for pending quilts, scraps, batting storage (which really takes up a lot of room, surprisingly)...and I am feeling quite "Martha Stewart"-like by labeling each container in cute font and awesome little, metal label holders affixed with ribbon.  Maybe if I make it look cute, I will use it, eh??????

So, to finish out the quilts that I had quilted at Cornerstone Quilt Shoppe before Christmas, I saved my Dragonflies to time it with Chinese New Year.  This one I will have the hardest time parting with because I love dragonflies, and I totally dig the colors in this quilt...vibrant greens, purples, blues, and black.  My kind of colors.  But, I foresee this as a problem with many of my quilts as I love most of my fabric and I love the simplicity of the modern patterns that I have been trying as of late.  So, I will just take some pictures and send this one on its merry little way.  Now...who will get it?  I don't know that just yet.  I think someone special should get it...mostly because I love it so much.

I have several quilts still pending....I have featured some of the quilt tops that need to be quilted.....YIKES!  I have a few penguin quilts that just need to be finished, but the rest need quilting.  I am up to the task, but a little nervous about quilting myself.  They're small-ish type quilts, so I should have no trouble at all manipulating the fabric through "Estelle" (the sewing machine), but I am nervous.  So as I fret about free quilting my own work, I am busy ripping out seams from scraps that were cut off some of my recent quilts.  And, I am taking apart a quilt back I originally made for the Dragonfly quilt, but I ended up not using it because I didn't care for the center fabric that I used....so I am ripping it out.  I will use the fabric elsewhere, but until I get up the gumption to quilt on my own, this is a great distraction and use of my time while I sit watching stupid TV on Bravo.  I admit, however, that I am distracted by all the quilts I want to make, and these cute little lined bags that I want to make for Valentines Day, but I must FOCUS!!!!!

I managed to kidnap Ryan when he was home last weekend for a quick trip to the Arboretum for some pics of the Puzzle and Butterfly quilts.  The ones I posted earlier sucked, but I was so excited that they were done, I took pics quickly with no consideration for light, location, or even focus...so I decided to do these quilts justice, I took them out to the Davis Arboretum for some pictures in natural light.  I am not too sure Ryan thought this was a natural act by any means, but he humored me nonetheless, and trekked out there in between running errands so that I could get my shots.

Thanks for your help, honey!  They turned out great!  Happy Chinese New Year everyone!  Lets make this year of the Dragon a great one!!!

Happy Crafting....