Civil War Sampler Block of the Week : Week 1 : The White House

I spent a good bit of 2013 sewing, but I mostly sewed things that were FAST and sort of pattern-less. One of my (unspoken) goals for this year, is to spend some time making some more complex quilts. Things that require following a pattern and don't become a finished top in an afternoon or a week. It's because I want to expand my skills and grow as a quilter...

So late in the fall, I started thinking about this and realized a good way to do this would be to do some type of quilt-a-long or block-of-the week. I got really excited about it and mentioned it to my mom and we did some investigating and have decided to quilt-a-long to Barbara Brackman's Civil War Sampler as a BOW.

She chose her fabrics and I chose mine.

I'm going to use Dowry, AMH True Colors, Florence and Botanics.  I love mixy scrappy things, and all of these lines, so I'm excited to see how they'll look all together.

We've set out to sew this really cool sampler quilt, in fabrics we love (even though they aren't "civil war" fabrics).

Here's my block #1 :: The White House

Moving Forward! Exciting 2014 Plans

So we're about a month into 2014 (crazy, right?), and I think it's high time that I talk about the rest of the coming year. I'm so excited about the months to come and what this year means for my quilting journey. I have a number of quilts in my brain that I want to work on and some tops in my closet that must be dealt with, ehem... finished. Yay for the possibility of finished quilts!

I'm pretty excited about all the quilts I made and finished this year...and the fact that in the last month I have become increasingly confident about quilting on my domestic machine. (Yes, only straightish-type lines, but I happen to love lines, so that's a good step forward). BUT, I'm even more excited about what's on the horizon.

So let's talk about what's to come::

Category 1: Ready for quilting

1. Etchings Pluses
2. Ruby Curves
3. Scrappy Trip Along
4. A couple Santas I made

Category 2: Tops to Finish

1. A low volume
2. A quilt made with Happy-Go-Lucky and Simply Color
3. The X and PLUS along. (I only made one block for this one, so I'm kind of on the fence about moving it forward).

Category 3: Brand New Projects

1. QuiltCon 2013 inspired
2. Giant Star x 2 or 3 (?)
3. A super Swoon
4. Civil War Sampler BOW with G

Category 4: Surprises

1. Something of a curious nature
2. Something simple and sweet

I'm going to update this list quarterly... To stay accountable. I'm hoping to get Category 1 finished by the end of March. And have some of Category 2 moved into Category 1 by that time!

I'm in no rush on Category 3 (they are just like somethings I want to prioritize before 2015!) , and Category 4 has a definite finish date, but I can't share that or I might be giving away the surprise.

I'm going to try and be better at posting pictures of some WIPs.... BUT we'll see. :-)

Perhaps in the next year I can also tackle some more free motion quilting at home and maybe even take a long-arm certification course, for those extra large quilts, but let's just wait it out and see.