Dear friends, I have been neglecting you.  This year my only son, Colin, graduates from high school.  We went on a much needed vacation to warmer climes in February and then all the busyness caught up to me.  Let’s catch up with a quilting roundup from January – yes January.  That just means I will have a few more roundups to share to get us caught up to April.  January, it was cold outside so a good time to stitch away.  I worked on some old UFO’s, some newer things and some I even got finished.  I thought you might like a peek into the studio to see what I have been working on .

I saw this pattern for birch trees and red birds and I thought it would be perfect for a January wall hanging in my dining room.  The birch trees are pieced in black and white prints and then I quilted them with wavy natural lines.

The little cardinals are just machine appliqued onto a few of the trees.

Here it is finished.  Don’t the cardinals make it such a cheery winter scene?

I belong to the Stitching Sisters Quilts of Valor Group in Clawson, Michigan.  We have an Accuquilt GO cutter machine and it was my month to try it out.  I made this awesome eagle medallion and the scrappy log cabins using the cutting die.

Here is the center medallion being pieced in the center of the scrappy log cabins.  I added white fabric to make the medallion really stand out.  I did not think I would ever do a log cabin but the fabric die cutting machine made it so easy and really easy to cut up those left over fabric scraps.

Here it is all finished. I used up a lot of scraps and Katy S longarm quilted it with feathers.  It is beautiful.

These are the blocks from my Sit and Stitch group.  We have a group of seven gals who get together each month.  We each have a box with our quilt project inside and we pass the boxes around to each other each month.  This month I had Tina’s box of paper doll blocks.  She wanted each row a different color and I chose green for my row of dolls.

My Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild does charity bee blocks each month.  Then someone volunteers to make a quilt from all of the ones that each member made for the month.  Rebekah, our president, sends out a block design and a color pallette and we stitch away.  They always turn out great.

Here is the latest block that we did for January.

And here are the blocks on the table at my Detroit Area Modern Quilt Guild Meeting.

I also worked on some messenger bags and totes, but I will save that for another post.  Happy Stitching!