Happy New Year! It seems impossible that we’re here at a new year again– 2018 whizzed by — at breakneck speed! I guess that’s a good thing — at least we weren’t bored and wondering why time was passing so slowly. I could do with a happy medium though.
The normal custom here in ThimbleannaLand is to have a Kitty animal greeting and then look back on the year of travels and projects. The cats are just recovering from a major trauma — Winston AND his favorite two-year-old-tornado were here for the weekend. It’s funny — the cats tolerate Winston pretty well now — they’ll even lie down beside him. But the 2-year old? No Way! They hear her voice at the door and dive under the bed. She’s never hurt them or anything, I guess it’s just her volume that scares them LOL. Anyway, I decided not to bother them for a New Year’s picture this year so that they can recover a bit.
Here are my 2018 pictures in review:
It was a good year here in ThimbleannaLand! Our biggest excitement was the arrival of FinallyAnotherGirl. She’s three months old now and is the best baby. She’s MUCH easier that FinallyAGirl — she hardly ever makes a peep. Both babies are just happy as can be and SO fun to be around. FinallyAnotherGirl was preceded by my fun trip to Shetland and London — definitely a highlight of the year. There was some knitting (all baby!), sewing, and quilting (technically those folded memory quilts were made in 2017, but they weren’t posted until 2018 and they didn’t make it into the 2017 round-up, so I’m counting them this year LOL). It wasn’t all fun and games here this year though. Part of the reason blogging has been fairly light is because we’ve spent the year cleaning out MeMum and BigDaddy’s house. It’s been a huge job and tons of work. We started in February and spent a lot of weekends going through papers and closets and dishes and fabric and papers and more papers and … you get the idea. It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever had to do and I can’t even describe the sadness. So, that’s about all I’ll say about it ’cause I’ll start crying. This blog has been a record of our little family for quite a few years and the clean out has been a major part of our 2018, so I didn’t want it to go unmentioned. {Sigh.}
Anyway, you might have noticed some quilts up there that haven’t been posted yet — that’s because they were Christmas gifts and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. I broke into my hoard of Cat in the Hat fabrics (and didn’t make much of a dent LOL) and made FinallyAGirl a quick quilt. It was a last minute decision and having that big center panel made it go much more quickly. Hopefully she’ll have fun with it when she’s reading her Cat in the Hat books — it’s a great snuggle size — about 56″ x 70″. (It’s so hard to get quilt pictures this time of year — pretty gloomy and dark and too windy outside. So, I had to randomly stick them up around the house, but you get the idea.)
And then, the Christmas quilts. I loved the retro Santa by Urban Chiks from the moment I saw it and knew I had to make some. I actually made three of them (two kits plus an extra Santa panel will make three quilts, fyi) but couldn’t get them all together for a photo. I made them for MeMum, MyDadLovesMeBestSister, and SweetiePie.
These quilts were super fun to make. And, for the first time, I rented time on a long-arm to do the quilting. It took a day and a half (with the lesson), but so worth it — I’m thinking it would have taken me 2 or so days each to quilt them on my regular machine. I did an overall stipple on the log cabin blocks, and then did a few different things on the Santa. Everyone seemed to like the circles on the cheeks the best.
Now to plan for the new year. Are you a resolution maker? I’m not really, but I do like to plan my next quilting and knitting projects. Hopefully, between a little cleaning and organizing around here, I can do just that.
Happy Planning and Dreaming — I hope all your New Year Wishes come true!
XOXO,
Anna
Love your collage of photos Anna! I’ve been wanting to do that but haven’t googled how to yet. Today I was thinking – I haven’t finished one real quilt in the past year, unless my feeble memory is failing me again. I have finished a few smaller projects though, but the clock’s ticking. I need some of that Anna-banana determination!
I hope you get your parents house finished. Makes me more determined than ever to declutter now rather than leave it all to the kids when we’re gone!
Happy New Year. I hope you’ll be back to your old level of blogging soon!
I too would like to declutter before the girls would need to do the job, but I tell you my husband holds on to everything – it is hard to get him to part with the simplest of things – I’ve actually gotten rid of some things over the years that were packed away that he has never noticed were gone and most likely had forgotten – unless I had brought it up – then he would have insisted he had to keep.
I feel your pain – but so glad my parents took care of all that stuff before they parted from this earth.
I hope you New Year will be easier and that your cats will stop being afraid of the little ones LOL – looking forward to more post from you this year.
So fun to see all your makes and memories put together, 2018 looks to have been a pretty good year. I hope 2019 is even better.
Amalia
xo
Such a busy, wondrous year! So sorry about the house clean out, but glad there have been happy times to balance it. Love the pink star quilt! I don’t do resolutions, but since I’ve gotten nothing accomplished in the past few years, this year I did make a list of projects I would like to finish and make start to finish in 2019. We’ll see what happens! Happy New Year and all the best to you in 2019…hopefully there will be a lot more snuggles with your little girls!
I definitely feel your pain – such a horrible job.
You make such lovely things! The happiest of New Years to you, sweet friend.
(Peter and Amy are having a boy!)
Impressed with your pictures of 2018 finishes and do love the jolly Santa quilts. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year
what a fun year (except for the cleaning out) it looks like you had.
Have 2 little girls at Christmas must have been really special.
Love the trio of Christmas Quilts. and the Cat in the Hat.
I wish you all the best in 2019.
xo
What a Big Year! You achieved so much too! Great fun quilts. Hope 2019 is kinder and less speedy! X
I’m feeling a lot lazy. You put me to shame. You got so many projects done! I love them all. Everyone’s gone home now and things are quieter here. I’m concentrating on a silk knit dress for the flower girl for our wedding. Crossing my fingers and toes that I get it done.
Happy New Year.
Oh, Anna, you amaze me. And I love the Cat in the Hat quilt. What fun she will have with that one! Lots of interesting things you’ve participated in this year, and lots accomplished! Yay!