Songbirds and Bluebonnets

New Year's Resolutions: Post more to this blog, learn to design quilts with my shiny new Electric Quilt 7 program, MAKE MORE QUILTS, do less housework (if that's possible!), and love the people in my life as much as I can.

Remember this? After a year's worth of frustration which culminated in a factory overhaul of my quilting machine, I finally finished this quilt in time to give it to my MIL for Christmas -- only a year late! I'm an absolute, wet-behind-the-ears, novice longarm quilter, but I'm pretty pleased with the way this one looks (except for the quality of these photos -- more on that complaint below!)

I stitched sunflowers in the plain squares, using a circle ruler and straight ruler for the centers, and free-handing the petals

For the star squares, I stitched a design that I learned in Deloa Jones class at the Houston Quilt Show this past November.<

Finally I labeled it for her -- "Texas Byrds and Bluebonnets" -- because our last name is Byrd. Corny, but she liked it. What warms a quiltmaker's heart is not batting and cloth, but appreciation and love! I am so very glad she loved her gift. (And here's my final New Year's resolution: to reinstall Photoshop on my computer -- which I lost after my computer crashed -- and take more photos with my Nikon. These photos were taken with my IPad and I apologize for the poor quality. The colors are not true, the IPad provides very limited ability to crop, and I think they are not as sharp as they could be. So stay with me, readers. I promise more posts and better photos of my quilting adventures and all the doings here at peaceful Slipper Moon!)