Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having a very wonderful holiday season.  We've been enjoying each day and spending time where cell service is nonexistant, much less internet so blogging and instagramming went out the window!  But lots of family time was happening instead, so I hope you'll understand.  :)

We spent almost a week at my Grandparents' home in Illinois for Christmas and I was busy preparing before that.  After arriving home last night, I'm really ready to wrap up Christmas as great as it was and get busy on finishing up some old projects and cracking into some new ones.  Does anyone else feel like the New Year is the perfect time to clear out old clutter and make progress on new?

So...here's what's on my plate:

Old Projects that need to be finished:
--d.Gs blocks for Heather.--It's Heather's month to choose our block and quilt and she picked this super rad quilt

in these super rad colors

I didn't start on it until now because I was a little stumped on the values.  Heather wants this to be a value quilt and I wasn't sure where to go with these colors.  So, basically I was waiting until a few other girls in the circle made some blocks to see what they did and now I'll go from there....

--Carrie's quilt--So, I promised my sister a quilt for Christmas last year. Usually I make one quilt for Christmas for someone in the family.  Well...I'm yet to finish her quilt so I didn't make one this year either.  Truth is, the top is completely done and the back is one step from being done, but JoAnn's has been out of the solid I started with and I've put it off while I ruminate on this.  This quilt will be done ASAP.

--Clothing mending--It's the boring part of sewing, but I've got a pile of shirts and pants that are missing buttons, have small snags, etc in my sewing room that I want out.  They are taking up space both physically and mentally weighing on me when I see them, so I'm going to take one afternoon and get them outta here.


New Projects to start:
--Oren's star quilt--When Emma turned 5, I promised her a quilt so when Oren turned 5 I promised him one as well.  The quilt theme matched their party theme and since he's turning 7 in March, I thought I better get on that.  Fortunately it took me that long to make Emma's as well I believe, so at least he's not waiting on me to finish it...  He had a Star Wars theme that year, so we agreed on wonky stars (one of my most favorite blocks ever) in a black, blue, silver and white color scheme.  I've got all of the fabrics ready so this one is a get busy and get done kind of project.

--Em's stargazing quilt--For my Modern Blocks Bee, I sent out Weekends fabric and directions on the Stargazing block from the book for my bee members to make for me in November.  I've received 3 blocks so far (I know, I was sad to be last to go, get every block back on time or early and then ahve to email the bee members to check on my blocks...) and am waiting on 5 more that I know are coming in eventually.  That leaves a lot of blocks for me to make...  But, this is for Emma's full-size bed, so I'm using it as an opportunity to try out a more modern arrangement instead of just the same blocks in rows...This will be an ongoing project.  Here's what I've got so far...  There will be the Kona Ash filled in the open spots between different-sized blocks as well as some bigger stars and little ones too thrown in for good measure.

--dgs quilt--I'm still waiting on 4 blocks and I've got to make mine (I waited to see what I felt the quilt needed), but then I'm going to row-up these babies and add some borders to get this quilt finished and sent out.  No more long-standing WIPs when not necessary (I hope!)

I apologize for the phone camera instagram shots, but my real camera is still packed from our trip and I didn't want to procrastinate this blog post any more.  ;)

So, that's what I'll be working on over the next week or so. What are you up to during this break as one year comes to an end and a new one begins?