A Brand New Year and Plenty of Happy Sewing

Happy New Year!!

I love this month just because it's a fresh new year, which means new beginnings.  It also means letting go of all the things I don't need.  This year I'm letting go of thoughts of things I cannot change no matter of much I want to.  

My changes this year:

1.)  Don't bring home work issues.
2.) Sew more.
3.) Blog often.
4.) Smile.
5.) Believe in my abilities.
6.) Laugh.

Out with 2012, In with 2013!!!!

I'm on a great sewing roll right now.  Last year I learned English Paper Piecing and love sewing this way.  I like that it's portable and I can do it almost anywhere.  I have chosen a huge EPP project this year, a quilt:

(image from Trueup.net)

This is a really cool kit that I purchased from Pink Chalk Fabrics.  

The kit cost $89, a real steal if you ask me since it's all precut!

The fabrics in the kit are from the Salt Water collection from designer Tula Pink.   The prints feature a maritime theme: shells, octopi, waves and lifebouys. It's colorways are aqua, coral and seaweed.  The fabric included 24 different prints and 12 different solids and came all pre-cut (who doesn't love that!) in 1 1/4" hexagons.  There are approximately 28 hexagons per group, adding up to a total of 1008 precut hexagons!  OMG, that's a lot of hand sewing!  I added up the number of stitches and came up with a rough estimate of 72,000.  At first, I thought I could finish this in about a year but now I might want to give myself more time!  The size is 43 x 60 but I may make it bigger by adding borders.  I am making this quilt for me.  I don't think I could part with it after sewing so many stitches!

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

I just finished this top for a table runner using the EPP method:

Star Blossom Table Runner

I'm trying to figure out how I want to finish the runner.  I would like to try hand-quilting the top. I'm thinking of sewing around each of the stars.  Because of the pattern the quilting will make, I think I should use a solid color fabric on the back; the stitches then would make a nice pattern.

This pattern is from  Stitched in Color blog  by Rachel Hauser.  I took a class from her and was introduced to hand sewing.  I almost love it as much as machine sewing!