December 2013 – A Lovely Year of Finishes Winner

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Melissa Dunworth

Time to announce our lucky winners from December, though let’s face it, with each finish we are all winners!

We had a great turn out even being the holiday and all.

Let’s see who won our 2013 December prizes from our fantastic sponsors!

December Prizes Include:

1, 2,3, & 4.

3 Thread Packs and one special thread pack from Aurifil Threads

Kell from flickr

Heidi from On the Banks off Frog Creek

Ella from Throw a Wench in the Works

Amy from Cloud Cou Cou Crafts

5. Choice of $15 or 2 charm packs from Stitch n’ Giggles

Mariana from Coser Tejer Crear

6. A Paper Piecing Kit from Paper Pieces

Allison from flickr

7. A Fat Quarter Bundle from Moda United Notions

Sharon from Forget Me Not Stitches

8,9. TWO winners each getting to choose one pdf pattern

from Sew BitterSweet Designs

($10 value)

Rachell from Claddaghs Quilts & Stars

Karen from Capitola Quilter

10. Quilting Patterns designed by Quilting Lodge

Patty from A Stitch in Time

~~~

Going on NOW!!

January 1-7 {the last day is TODAY} Shanna and I will be holding the 2013 year in review party with additional prizes. For those that finished 6 or more months worth of your goals. Link up your 6 or more Lovely Year of Finishes projects HERE.

Also you can also set your 2014 December goal. This is open for a few more days as we know it’s crazy the first month. But this will resume it’s regular scheduled 7-day open period for the remaining months. You can find your January link up here.

It’s a whole new year of lovely finishes.

Posted in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Fiber of All Sorts | 3 Comments

Guest Posting Today – Persimon Dreams

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Melissa Dunworth

Hi Everyone! I am not here today, I am somewhere else!

I’m over visiting Kim at Persimon Dreams and giving a quick embroidery tutorial for the Back Stitch and for the French Knot. Those are the only 2 stitches that I used to create this lovely design which will soon be framed and given to a friend.

This design (minus the words) and many others, can be found on my embroidery board on Pinterest.

So if you would like to learn 2 very basic stitches that just might come in hand during Kim’s 52 Blocks – Twisted Tradition Along.

Posted in Guest Post | 1 Comment

Christmas 2013 Sewing Reveals

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Melissa Dunworth

A family picture from Christmas night 2013.

We spent 11 days in California over the holidays and had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I did some crazy sewing!

On Christmas Eve I gave Anne her very special jammies. She picked out the fabric, you will recognize at once her unique flare!

Here she is next to the Christmas tree, she had just put out cookies with milk for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph (both of which were eaten, I am happy to report!).

The week before we left I decided to make a quilt for my Godparents. They were happily surprised.

This is the Charming Christmas Quilt – I am very happy with how it turned out, and even happier that they liked it!

My dad got the big surprise of the year:

I loved that he liked it so much. I hope it keeps him very warm!

Finally I gave my mom a sewing machine cover for her new Janome and did some hand stitching for her. She asked me to hang it on the tree.

The vast majority of the gifts we gave were handmade. I am not going to lie, I still have 2 left to mail and one left to make, but hey, being late just means the holidays get to continue on for a very long time!

Posted in Christmas | 13 Comments

Looking Back 2013, Moving Forward 2014

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Melissa Dunworth

2013 was a big sewing year for me. I tried a lot of new things and I released 4 new quilting patterns. Very exciting! At the end of 2012 I set some sewing goals for myself, you can read about them here. Today I wanted to check on how I did.

2013 Sewing and Quilting Goals

12 months – 12 finishes – Join me in A Lovely Year of Finishes – Update: I aced this one! 12 goals and 12:
Start My Crazy Quilt – I’ve been collecting fabrics since I was a pre-teen (and many were gifted to me by a wonderful family friend), it is time to do something with them! Update: I didn’t cut into my crazy quilt fabrics but I did make lots of progress. I started a crazy block and learned a ton of embroidery stitches. I also collected more fabrics while I was in CA for Christmas.
Do something with all my Hexies. Update: I finished 2 hexie projects. A Hexie Pillow for Anne and a journal cover with hexies for my mom. I am still making hexies for my ultimate goal of a hexie quilt using Simply Color and Simply Style.
Make pajamas for Anne – UPDATE: I am happy to report that not only did I make her one pair of pajamas, but I made her 2 pairs! I also made her a pair of pants (with no pattern!), 3 skirts, 2 dresses (one with a button up back and one with an invisible zipper), and her Halloween Pink Tiger costume. I feel like I made a lot of progress in the area of clothes sewing!
Learn how to use my Ruffler Foot – UPDATE: I did not do this. Bummer! However, after inheriting my new to me Featherweight, I did purchase a book on sewing with different vintage feet, so I am looking forward to conquering this one in the new year!
Sew a dress for myself – UPDATE: I did not sew myself a dress but I did sew myself a beautiful skirt, which I wore on Christmas Eve. That’s like sewing half a dress…right?!?

Sewing & Quilting Goals for 2014

12 more months – 12 more finishes!!!
Publish 4 more patterns – 1 per quarter would be my ideal goal, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t do 1 per quarter, so long as it is 4 total.
Continue plugging away at my crazy quilt.
Work on restoring the Vintage Singer 99K that belonged to my Great Grandmother. First order of business will be taking her in for a cleaning and to check the electrical – which I am by no means qualified to do myself.
Continue sewing clothes for Anne – so long as she will let me I want to take advantage of being able to sew for her. It really does bring me a lot of joy to see her wearing things I have made for her.
Sew from my stash as much as possible! I started doing this in October and didn’t buy any new fabric in November and December. I would like to continue this trend of not running out and buying the latest (gotta have it) fabrics. I will still buy fabrics and batting to finish projects (like quilt backings) but I would really love to just use what I have.

Have you set any sewing and quilting goals for the new year? What are yours?

Happy New Year!

Posted in Goals | 9 Comments

January 2014 Goal Party – A Lovely Year of Finishes

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Melissa Dunworth

2014 is here! Time to start setting some sewing goals. If you are new to A Lovely Year of Finishes, we like small, achievable goals. We want to set ourselves up for success. Each month we will set one goal that we want to accomplish. The goal can be anything you like: cut out an entire quilt, piece a top, bind a quilt, sew an outfit, etc. Shanna and I are all about our sewing and quilting adventures, so let’s try to keep the goals on topic.

At the start of each month you will set one goal, post a picture and link up either here with me, or with the wonderfully talent Shanna. During the month you work on your goal and at the end of the month, write a post about your finish and link up to our finishes party. Easy Peasy!

My January goal is a simple one. All of 2013 I was a stripper. I stripped with a wonderful group of ladies and this is my stripper quilt:

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic but it is all I’ve got since I’m traveling for the holidays. (And I’m only lucky enough to have this one because Shanna had it saved on her phone from when I emailed it to her last month – Shanna is a stripper too!)

My goal is to make my in between rows. I want to make small rows of geese to go between each stripper row. I have no real plan yet for the rows but I think that is achievable for me.

1. Link-up {on this post} the first 7-days of the month

and

2. Link-up in the last 7-days of the month.

Add your blog post or flickr photo (with appropriate descriptions) to the linky party below.

Please grab a button or link back to Shanna and I so other people can join in the fun!

**Please note, the linky party is the same here and over at Shanna, so there is no need to enter twice **

For those unsure of how to link up go check out our Q&A Page for A Lovely Year of Finishes – there are instructions on how to link up from a blog and from Flickr.

Grab a button from my sidebar and spread the LOVE!

Oh yeah and there are prizes this month (as always!), here is what our fantastic sponsors are offering.

January Prizes Include:

1, 2. TWO winners each getting to choose one pdf pattern
from Sew BitterSweet Designs ($10 value)