One of the things I wanted to do before the old year was out, was clear a few quilting projects off my plate so I could start fresh in the new year.

First up was the Little Wishes quilt. Little Wishes started life as a Leader/Ender project, making scrappy nine-patches from 2.5 inch scraps. Last you saw it, I’d created all the geese I needed, but still needed to trim them up.

There were a lot of them – 116 to be exact – but I managed it with a little help from my friend.

After that, ever the hard worker, he helped me sew all the geese and nine patches into star blocks.

There was 30 in total and at 12″ each, that totals a sizable quilt. But I wanted it a little bit bigger. So the next day, I set to work on making corner star sashing. It took all day, but by the evening, I had the top complete.

Each one of those corner stars is unique – with a scrap pulled from my 3.5″ scrap bin. And it made the quilt nice and big – 78″ x 93″.

Anyway you look at it, Burton say “It’s a win!”

A few days after the Christmas storms the temperature shot up, the rain moved in, and all the snow melted. It made it clear sailing for a trip north, to finally celebrate Christmas with the family. Which we did on New Year’s Day!

We were having such a good time, I totally forgot to take pictures until it was all over!

All I got was a picture of poor Jem tuckered out from all the excitement! (She got a present to open too!).

I took a picture of these crazy shark pool slides I got the girls. These are Rowan’s. Paisley got a blue pair.

And speaking of those girls…

How and when did they get so freakin’ tall? I’m 5’7’… and both of them have at least 4-5 inches on me!

The day was a great start to the new year and I hope is the harbinger of many good things to come!

You know what they say.. .man plans, God laughs.

Looking back to last January, I’d say I accomplished about 50% of the things I’d hoped to.

• We didn’t finish the living room/studio as we wanted, but that involved putting in new windows. EVERY window in the house needs to be replaced, so I want to do it all at once (for time/savings/etc.) We didn’t have the money in 2022, but we have it set aside now, so come spring 2023, that will be put into motion. Ideally we will also start renovating the upstairs, but we’ll see how far we can get after the windows are done.
• I accomplished all I wanted to last year with the gardens, and then some. This year, I want to put in the veg beds, and move the fence by the maple and create my “woodland” garden at the side of the house.
• We got the sun porch leveled and repainted on the outside. As soon as it’s warm enough, I’ll be painting the inside.
• Dave didn’t do much with the garage other than add some much needed storage. If there’s any money left after getting windows, we will look into getting new doors, as they are in pretty rough shape.
• We did explore the area quite a bit, though mostly by car. One of these days I’m going to get Dave out hiking!
• Financially, I didn’t managed to pay my credit cards off, but I almost did! If I can keep from going crazy with the spending, I should be able to do that by June. To that respect… both Mom and I have agreed to a No-Spenduary. You’ve heard it here before – no spending on anything but the essentials! I did several big fabric orders, and a Knit Picks order in December, and the garden stuff doesn’t start hitting the stores for a couple months, so it shouldn’t be too hard… in theory, lol.
• I didn’t craft as much as I wanted to, so I’d like to spend more time doing that this year. There’s definitely lots to keep me going!

As always, I just hope for health and happiness and time to do the things I love. May 2023 bring you all you wish!

Looking back, I’d say 2022 was not a bad year. But it wasn’t a GREAT year either. It was a pretty mixed bag.

There wasn’t enough time to do the things I really loved, but there were no real hardships either.

Of course, the toughest part oof 2022 was the loss of Dave’s Grandma. But she was 93 (almost 94), and her passing, though emotional, relieved Dave of a very large burden, which had been made more difficult by the distance of the move. It’s been a big adjustment for him, but he’s done very well. He knows she was proud of him.

But 2022 also brought the reunion of Big Red and the Great White Whale.

A lot of work went into Red this year, and hopefully 2023 will afford him plenty of time to enjoy her out on the roads.

We didn’t tackle any huge house projects this year – just a lot of little, somewhat invisible things that add up to a much nicer space. Two of the most visible projects were revamping the shed, and the sun porch.

It’s truly amazing what a lick of paint can do!

The big accomplishment of this year was the kick off of the gardens.

Spring was small, but we still had many blooms to bring a smile and get us revved up.

Early summer brought more excitement as plants I’d brought from the townhouse really started to take off and thrive in their new home.

And of course, the catio got a proper makeover

And was transformed from a barren mudhole to a lush, beautiful playground for felines and humans alike.

I’m absolutely thrilled with how much I was able to get out of the gardens in just one year.

Next year will see those gardens get more established, and hopefully the addition of a woodland garden under the maple, and the addition of veg beds in the back yard.

Of course, all that time in the garden meant making lots of new friends…

And we couldn’t let 2022 end without the best part….

Our newest family members…

Newt Scamander

And…

Lemmy Purrmister! I certainly didn’t enter 2022 expecting either of these little blessings!

I’m excited to see what 2023 has in store for us!

For ages, I’ve been meaning to get a body pillow to sleep with to help with my back pain. I finally remembered a few weeks ago, and ordered the perfect one off of Amazon. It arrived just before Christmas

So when I say perfect, I really mean… PURRFECT.

The day it came, I fluffed it up and tossed it on the bed so it could puff our some more (it came vacuum sealed and all squished flat).

A few hours later, I came back upstairs to find this…

Do you think he thinks I adopted another ginger kitten he needs to make friends with???

If 2022 was lighter on quilting, the craft that REALLY took a hit was knitting. In 2021 I knit 26 projects (most of them socks). In 2022… just 17 projects. And all of those but one, were small projects.

The same reasons apply for the lack of knitting as it did for the quilting. Just too much time spent on other things. While knitting is usually my evening relaxing craft, by the time evenings rolled around, I was too tired to pick up the needles.

The biggest project I completed was my Hemlock Ring blanket

I’m still chuffed with the finish of this. It had been on my to-knit list since the pattern came out over a decade ago. And I’ve made good use of it this season. The office is quite chilly, so it’s almost always on my lap while I’m working.

The next biggest project was the Birthday bolero for Miss Wren. Can you believe that little stinker will be SIX in 2023? I have to start thinking about her next birthday knit soon.

After that… the rest of the projects were all wee…. baby things, or socks.

I only managed to knit four measly pairs of socks this year. And all of them were vanillas, and all for small lady feet. By comparison, I knit 15 pairs in 2021!!!

Yet… while 2022 was light on knitting, I did cross off a couple things I really wanted to knit… like Hemlock Ring AND…

Knitted pumpkins!!!!!!

I do really hope 2023 brings more time to knit though. If not only because I may or may not have lost my mind seeing Felici on sale for $3.49 a ball, and have a big Knit Picks order working its way to me as we speak…

Looking back, there’s no doubt about it. 2022 was a slow year in terms of crafting. And I don’t even have the excuse of the move this year.

In 2021, I completed 28 quilts. In 2022, I was down to 20.

I think it all comes down to just being busier at work. There wasn’t time during the week to sneak in and throw a few blocks together here and there. Getting the garden established also took up a good chunk of my free time in spring/summer/fall.

Still, 20 quilts in a year isn’t too bad. Nine of those were baby quilts, and two were Burton quilts.. but that means nine of them were lap-size or bigger.

The biggest, of course, was my cousin’s wedding quilt.

A big blurple batik beauty!

I made a couple quilts for myself too.

My gnomes for chilly evenings on the sun porch, and my retro Kitty Corn Hallowe’en quilt.

But I think, of all the quilts this year, my favourite was Fright Night.

This is one of those projects that came out looking even better in real life than it did in my head. It was also my first project that involved applique! So new skill added!!! I have enough fabric to make another one like this (though I’ll change kitty up a bit so it’s not an exact match), as well as fabric set aside to make a spring/summer version.

So while I might not have had as much output as I would have liked in 2022… the quality of that output was pretty pleasing!Still I hope 2023 brings me a little more time at the sewing machine.

Im happy to say, I’m in sight of finishing the Christmas Gnomes before the new year.

I got all my blanket stitch done. It did improve a little as I went along. After that I sewed the beards and noses on.

I added the bell to the left gnome’s hat, and some stripes to the candy cane. There was supposed to be some embroidery on the middle gnome’s hat, but as I said before, my embroidery skills suck… as evidenced by the terrible stitching on the candy cane. I decided the hat was just fine with out it.

The next step was sandwiching and quilting. If I was headed to Mom’s any time soon, I’d just whip it off there on the quilting machine. But I’m not. And there’s too much going on for much straight-line quilting.

So…

I put it in my big cross-stitching frame and I’m hand-quilting it! It’s the first thing I’ve every hand quilted. And my hand quilting skills are barely better than my embroidery skills. But still… I think it’s going to be fun!

Like many of you, we got hit by the big pre-Christmas storm. It started as rain Thursday night, and by Friday morning it was a full on blizzard. By Saturday things were calmer, but the wind was still high

The snow was light and dry, and with the wind that spells trouble for travel – especially in wide open spaces. Large parts of the area around us had roads closed due to whiteout conditions, and blowing snow.

On Christmas Day, we were supposed to head to my brother’s. He lives three hours north of us and the drive takes us all along the shore of Lake Huron. We were hoping things would clear up by Christmas morning, but about 70% of the roads we needed to take were closed. The other 30% were marked as snow-covered with poor visibility

So it was Christmas Day at home.

The snow might have changed our plans, but it sure is pretty!

Burton and I decided to take advantage of the unexpected free time, and work on some languishing quilts.

We had a marathon trim session and trimmed up all the flying geese for the Little Wishes nine-patches. It took quite a while (There were 116 to trim!), but we got them done and started sewing our blocks together.

And we just kept sewing. It took all day but…

We now have 30 big, beautiful scrappy blocks ready to be turned into a quilt top.

I’m sad we have to wait to celebrate, but I’m happy I made such good use of the time!

Wishing you all the very best today and the new year to come

Love Valerie, Lord Burton Bearbottom, Baron Rupert von Scrufflebutt, Lemmy Purrmister, and Relic!