The Year that Was 2011

Wow, what a year 2011 has been! Last year (pre-blog), I made a commitment to quilt more and do something quilting-related everyday. I wanted to take advantage of my leave of absence to learn as much as I could about quilting.

Then I hosted our guild's Tips and Techniques table in the Spring. I chose to show members a variety of options for documenting their quilts. One of the options I wanted to show people were blogs. I started checking out blogs at the end of March and my world changed. I learned how to free motion quilt with the help of Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project. I found Modern quilts, tutorials, quiltalongs, linky parties, giveaways, and lots of quilters my age! Oh my! It was a whole new wonderful world.

A year ago, I also never would have predicted that I'd have my own quilting blog, let alone be addicted to reading so many other blogs! I feel so fortunate and thankful to have found this online community.

I still think it's so cool that I can chat with Lucy in the UK, Laura and Erin in Perth, Australia, Cindy in California, Lynette in Florida, Rhianon in Scotland, Shanna in Texas, to name but a few!

And I've met wonderful Canadian bloggers too. Kit in my old stomping grounds of Toronto, Tabatha just outside of Toronto, Monika in Saskatoon and Michele and Ginette here in Ottawa(!) are just some of the awesome folks I've 'met' this year.

Thank you all for all for reading my blog and for giving me your ideas, encouragement and support so freely. You have no idea just how much it has meant to me! I've learned so much from all of you and look forward to learning even more in 2012.

I also wanted to thank Laura from Quokka Quilts for starting TGIFF! with me and to all of our hostesses this year - Erin, Tabatha, Lucy, Jess, and Shanna! You guys rock! This project has already surpassed my hopes for it and I'm looking forward to 2012 -- more parties, more touring, more finishes!

While I got a lot less sleep in 2011 (hard to believe considering that my kids started sleeping through the night this year!), at least I have a fair number of projects (finished even!) to show for it. Here are some of my finishes for 2011.

And while I finished a lot, I also am still plagued by my crazy-ass list of WIPs working on a bunch of projects that I hope to will finish in 2012.

As I think back on this past year, I've also been thinking a lot about what I'd like to do in 2012. I've picked out some projects and challenges that I'm VERY excited about and I'll share more about them with you tomorrow and over the next week.

Happy New Year everyone. Here's to more quilting in 2012!

Cheers! Santé!