Having some fun

I was looking up something on my blog this afternoon - going through the archives to find out when I'd pieced a still unfinished quilt (!) and I came across a fun little thing I did at the end of 2010 which was my first year of blogging.
It's something Leanne of Cottage Tails did (way back then) and encouraged others to do too.
This what I said at the time —
On her blog, Leanne rose to the challenge of going through the past year's posts and pulling out the first sentence from each first post of each month... She also said — "do join, it really was fun looking back over last years blog posts."

SO without further ado, here are my first sentences of each month from 2019, plus the post title —
January

My first.....

My first...Friday Night with Friends of the year!
My first...One Monthly Goal of the year!

And first photo of the year.... the last stitchery on Ruth's Quilt, and I've just discovered I haven't posted a picture of the completed flimsy yet - so here is one pic of it assembled —


February

Turnabout Patchwork Bloghop (and giveaway)

I'm happy to be amongst the bloggers involved in promoting Terersa Mairal Barreu's new book, Turnabout Patchwork.

I took part in two bloghops promoting newly published quilt books this year and Turnabout Patchwork was one of them.



This was the quilt top I put together.... I really wanted to get back to it and add another row of butterflies. I know that when a baby girl is nearly due, I have this ready to pull out and finish!



March

Weekend foxes and chocolate

You may remember that I have started Foxley Village this year. 

I am still working on Foxley Village, a Australian Homespun magazine BOM. I've been happy to do it at a pace that suits me, without working to a deadline.

(Hmmm the chocolate mentioned in the post title was for the MOML's birthday cake - covered in small Easter eggs.)

April

Slow Stitching!

I feel like I've been working on this block for ages!

So this was the third block of Foxley Village - it had a lot of satin stitching on these leaves and I really wasn't enjoying that aspect.






May

Gifts and giving

I keep on discovering more to talk about after my trip over to Baradine for the Scrubstitching retreat.

Oh my trip to Scrub Stitching - the bush retreat in NSW (Australia). This was one of my highlights of the year. Kiwikid Sue and I roadtripped up from Melbourne and had a lot of fun.
It was wonderful to meet some lovely blogging friends but oh so heartbreaking to see the drought so closeup, and really come to some understanding of the effects of it on so many lives. And now, happening in Australia are the horrific bush fires. Such a tough time for everyone involved.

June

Scrappy sewing Saturday at the Chookshed

Every year about this time Chooky celebrates her Chookshed's birthday by spending the weekend sewing with real and virtual friends.

I was delighted to meet Chooky when I went to retreat - she is the main organiser of the Scrub Stitching retreat - and Sue and I also stayed with her a night. And we visited the Chookshed - her sewing room out in a specially built shed. So when she held her annual virtual party to celebrate its birthday, I was keen to join in.

July

A new One Monthly Goal

After success last month with meeting my goal of getting a quilt top together, I'm keen to sign up with the Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal again.

Each month Patty hosts a One Monthly Goal party to encourage us to set a goal and, by the end of the month, meet it.
I didn't sign up every month and when I did, I didn't always meet my goal, but during July I got this far on my " 'twas the night before Christmas" which I decided was a stellar effort.




August

Weekend knitting and stitching

By the time Friday night came around I was more than happy to collapse into my chair to take part in Friday Night With Friends, hosted by the lovely Cheryll over at stitching cubbyhole.

Gosh another sign up that I've taken part in! I managed a bit of knitting over the winter months for the growing grandies.
I enjoyed knitting three pairs of these sheepskin lined slippers and was happy to report, after a while, that George had even worn a hole in the big toe of his pair! Always nice to see items we've made being worn!

September

August OPAM in September

As the end of August approached I realised that I would once again have no finishes for the month, and nothing to report to Kris for OPAM (one project a month).

This post reported how I quickly spent a day making tote bags from used chicken feed bags so that I had something to report for my August One Project A Month commitment. I haven't done a tally yet but this year is probably my lowest number of finishes as I've really struggled to find time to do as much handwork as I would like to.

October

A bit of this, a bit of that

When I threaded my needle for some more stitchery the other night, I lamented (to myself) that I don't seem to be making much progress on my current block of Foxley Village.

August and September are always really busy months on the farm so I often find myself lamenting the lack of progress at this time of the year!

I did finally finish the block I was talking about!





November

USA Part One

In my last post I hinted that I was off on an adventure! Well I'm home sweet home now - I had a great time away.

I didn't get my first post for November written until the 21st - but I had a really good excuse, as I attended Quilt Festival in Houston and then my niece's wedding in Nashville. I was away for two weeks and had an amazing time :-)



December

A post a day and a monthly goal

OK, so I've done something crazy!!

Haha and now we're up to this month!! The first of December was my first blog post in my challenge to write a post a day for the month.
This is my 27th day of blabbing - only four more to go and I'm feeling that I might actually pull this off!

The first sentences of each month give a bit of an idea of what I got up to this year but there are still lots of gaps! Amazing though how we all keep finding plenty to talk about.

'til next time,

happy stitches,