Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays! All of that!

I have been a lousy blogger lately, but I'm resigned to changing that!  I have so many projects I'm excited to get working on this upcoming year!  I didn't accomplish everything I set out to in 2014, but I accomplished quite a lot and I'm very proud of what I did.  For a stay at home Mom who's focus is primarily on her children, and then next on her quilting - well I did a few things that's for sure!

How was your Christmas/Holiday?  Are you ready for 2015?  I am truly awed that the year has gone by so quickly...I do feel that "fresh slate" feeling this year.  I have been toying with a book proposal that is right now on hold because I cannot devote my full attention to it - and while I am still having fun dipping my toes in the show quilt waters...I feel like I'm sucking all of my limited free time into these very long intense projects.  Right now - with a little baby on the way - I'm nesting a bit.  I want some quick gratification quilts that I can quilt the daylights out of...and decorate our humble little home with.

I asked Santa for something this year and boy did he come through - he brought me an Accuquilt Go!  Woohoo!  Well - in this case Santa was Hubby and Hubby picked it up from a long distance sewing friend of mine who has more than one fabric cutter and was selling her Go! for almost half the retail with some additional dies.  I'm so glad he was able to get this!  What a deal she gave me and it was a bonus that it was from a trusted source.

I haven't had time to sit and play but the kiddos are going to Nana's today so I'm hoping to try and squeeze some me time in.  I have such high hopes for this gadget!!!  When I originally was thinking about the Go I was thinking in terms of appliqué...Patsy Thompson does some really incredible fusible with her fabric cutter (and has dies available that are Go compatible on her website by the way - on sale right now I might add!) and I have long been enamored with her creativity and bright color palate.  After research and talking with other Accuquilt owners I am finding SO many other uses for this little machine that I never had thought of!

I love love love making quilts but I hate hate hate cutting for them.  I can be a bit of an over achiever in the piecing arena and at times will over look quick pieced quilts as not enough of a challenge for me.  But with so much on my plate at the moment and not time to give to cutting quilts...I'm really looking forward to escaping some of the math and cutting.  I had no idea you could cut strips either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I mean - imagine, how often do you cut strips for quilts?  Like - 90 percent of all quilts start in strips...if you're paper piecing, cutting squares, strip piecing, cutting triangles, borders...imagine how much time you'd save if you had a stash of precut strips in different sizes?  A WHOLE LOT that's how much!  Or just knowing that you have a die in common strip sizes so you can quickly and accurately cut a strip...without a hump in it.  I know you have gotten the hump in your strips at the fold line - we all have!  I just love this thing.  I'm all about making life easier...and I'm also very interested in wasting less fabric

The dies that came with my machine bundle were the value die that comes with all Go's, a large half square triangle die, and a two and a half inch strip die.  Can you say - stash busting?  I have three large overflowing bins of scraps that I at one point attempted to whittle down into usable pieces following Bonnie Hunter's Scrap user system.  I love the way she stores her scraps - but honestly I got really bored really fast cutting all those little hunks of fabric!  I am guessing this will still take time even with dies...but if I can make it mindless enough that I can do it without doing any math, just matching up scraps to dies to make sure they fit...well I can imagine an hour every evening at my sewing table while the Hubby watches tv as I cut up scraps.  Woohee!

This hexie die was what I bought with a Jo Ann's gift card from my Brother in Law and his wife, and some Christmas money my parents gave me.  I desperately want the equilateral triangle die so I can pair it up with this one and make some pretty vintage stars.

I am having the greatest time thinking up uses for this machine and am feeling the "gotta have them all" urge!!!  I suspect there will be dies I'll use more than others but I'm so very excited at all the possibilities that lay ahead.

I think my biggest goal for 2015 is going to be to take it slow and make things that make me happy...even if they don't have a grand fantastic purpose.  I get the need to achieve things because I stay home and do not have a career outside of raising my children.  Quilting is where my accomplishments have been that the world can see...because not everyone sees or even appreciates the accomplishments of being a "just a mother".  Maybe I'm growing older - and not so much feeling the need for approval from the world!  :)  Or maybe I'm just satisfied with as far as I've come.  But for now - I just want to sew some pretty quilts.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday and have an even better New Year!  We will be slowly cleaning up, recovering, and getting back into a routine.  I'm darn near finished with Denise's stockings...they will be done this week and I will get a move on Joyce's quilt.  Just wait until you see it!  It's a real stunner!  :)