Great start to 2015...

Happy happy New Year, everyone! Hope your year is off to a good start, like mine is! Began the day with brunch at my favorite breakfast place with my quilty friends for company! Good food, good conversation. Then back to my house where the quilty gals critiqued my rearranged living room, and they like it as much as I do! After that some quality time behind my Juki and now I've got my butt parked in my comfy chair and I'm enjoying the bright sunshine! Every day should be a copy of this one!

And to start off 2015, I want to share the last quilt I finished in 2014. I gave this quilt to my son and future daughter in law for Christmas, and they were very pleased with it.

I chose this line of Zen Chic fabric because it included lots of turquoise and orange which are the colors of their upcoming wedding. I have never worked with as much gray as is in this quilt but I am definitely changing my tune about gray... I can see where it is a very effective complement to the brighter colors. The pattern is call Scrappy Trails by Carlene Westberg and you can find it here.

Here is a straight on view. The pattern calls for one jelly roll and one charm pack. I had two of each and while I didn't use all of both of them I did use a chunk of the second jelly roll and charm pack to make it bigger - about 75" square.

I was able to purchase yardage of the collection so I used it along with leftovers from the front to make a rather arty back! I love the quilting on this one. Terry Finnerty of The Walking Needle did it, it is a kinda squared spiral that reminds me of a paver stone.

and here is the glamour shot! Isn't that railing wonderful? Wish it was on my house. It belongs to my next door neighbor, Jane, and she says I can use it any time to stage a quilt...Thanks Jane!

Now this quilt had a lot of serendipity in it. I picked the fabrics based on the colors as I thought they would like them, I paid no attention to the name of the collection when I purchased it. It wasn't till I got home that I realized it is called Barcelona by Zen Chic. Here's the kicker... they are going to Barcelona for their honeymoon!!! How cool is that???

The yardage on the back is this print which is a line drawing of the street grid of Barcelona. I was able to use the turquoise, orange and lime colorways of this print.

Well, now I'm off to do a little cross stitching and then some knitting. I think you should do a little of all of your favorite activities on New Year's Day to start the year off right!

happy stitching-
carol fun