to ring in the new

This year has been a bit of a blur. I have spent the last couple of months just tying up all the loose ends from all the projects and life stuff that's been building up at a frenetic pace. I think we're just about all caught up. Or at least, we are closer to being there than we were in September.

I'll spare you the long stuff and give you the short of it. I made this quilt and even wrote a pattern for it:

The plan is to finally go over the pattern with a fine tooth comb, edit the hell out of it, and make it available for purchase through craftsy, etsy, whathaveyousy.

I worked on stuff for classes and had a blast teaching at gather here:

There was knitting again:

pattern: Cladonia
designer: Kirsten Kapur, Through The Loops
yarn: madelinetosh merino light in Clover and Kelp
needles: Addi Turbos US size #5

Amazing that I still remember how to knit. Heh. This pattern is a breeze. I adore Kirsten's clear and straightforward instructions. And so pretty! I gave it to one of Matt's aunts for Christmas, and she loved it.

Also, besides teaching the class for the third Christmas in a row, I finally made a proper tree skirt for myself - not a prototype, not a class sample. I couldn't be happier with it!

And we adopted this awesome dogger from the Maine Sheltie Rescue:

Welcome to the latest addition to our family, Toby. He's 11 months old, and he is trying to "make fetch happen" in my world and succeeding at it. He loves playing fetch more than anything! I am looking into flyball training for the spring and just general obedience training come January. He is smart as a whip, super-clever, and so focused. I adore him.

Playing fetch a gazillion times a day has not slowed the sewing down (running the kids all over town has - haaaaaaaaaaaa!). I was able to squeeze in two more quilts for the year. The first is something I started years ago, hence I am relieved and overjoyed to have finally quilted and bound it. You may remember this little quiltalong? What?! You don't? Yeah, that's because it was YEARS ago.

The Colorist, by Lizzy House, is such an fabulous design, and it comes together quickly (when you don't set it aside and wait years to quilt it). It is one of my favorite quilts I have made this year.

Another favorite is this one:

I was inspired by the palette of this pretty tea towel by Avril Loreti. Originally, I was going to make a HST quilt replicating that design, but then I started sewing Drunkard Path blocks as the concept started to morph and I imagined a new design. It kinda came together when I was not thinking about it at all. I saw this quilt by Cortney Heimerl and thought it would be interesting to make something similar using both the HSTs and DP blocks. I also wanted to fade the colors out at two corners but in a more exaggerated manner in order to make the patterning shimmer. I'm calling it "sunrise-sunset" because it reminds me of the colors in the sky during both. (I know! You kinda want to hire me as a copywriter for that nugget of brilliance I dropped on you. Titles that bombastically creative don't just write themselves. Unless they do.) It has the honor of hanging in my bedroom as wall art because I love it so much.

And with that, I bid you all a fantastic New Year. Happy New Year, folks! May 2014 be full of all that is wonderful for you.