A new year; another chance

I wanted to say Welcome 2017, but I'm not sure at all I can be optimistic about what is to come this year.    On the sewing front, however, I am starting out with enthusiasm! 
My online group is doing (yet another) UFO challenge.  I counted up to 36 before I decided to quite.  Last year I started with 12.  I did finish 7 of them, but 36 is a bit insurmountable!  How it works is the organizer calls 2 numbers a month. You get out those items from your numbered list and assess them.  Maybe all you will do is that much, but at least the project saw the light of day.
Here are mine for this month.

This one (#3) began as a swap with a different online group.  I wanted it to be queen sized, so I added the alternate blocks, but it still needs borders to make it big enough.  The second border will be pieced using the same sized squares as the four patches in the blocks- so a lot of small piecing.  That's where I got stuck before.  We'll see how far I get this time.

This is #20.  It's so old, I don't even know if I was using a pattern or not.  I have always enjoyed playing with fussy cutting for the kaleidoscope effect.  When I ran out of the focus fabric, I played with ways to make it a lap sized quilt and came up with this.  The big green spaces will be fun to quilt now that I have some free motion experience.









As always, at the end of the year, I have counted up the 2016 projects.  Here are this year's results:
14 knitted projects
12 general sewing
27 quilted items (this includes 10 things like the stockings from a panel and some placemats)
20 opulent ornaments
a few pieces of jewelry and assorted coloring pages finished, plus 26 kittens fostered.
A pretty good year.

I was thinking yesterday as I saw numerous "buy yourself another gift" advertisements, that this is how we are trained these days- to buy stuff we don't need because it's on sale, or because we deserve it, or...
It's sad that we as a society no longer consider need when we shop.  Everything is disposable.  Just one mindset that will have to change for the planet to survive the human infestation.  So, just once in a while, consider if you NEED it, or maybe the old one can be repaired (good luck finding a repair shop, though), or you can just make do with the same one a little while longer.

I am grateful for:
A lot of time with Kiara this week
Lots of kitties found homes for the holidays!
Some quality sewing time this weekend (it's challenge time!)
I had a gift for the sweet neighbor who stopped in Saturday with a gift for me.
Leftovers- not cooking gives me more sewing time!