Happy New Year

Gung hay fat choy! May your happiness be without limit. And may all of your quilts fall together easily and be admired the world over!

Chinese New Year begins today, and it’s the Year of the Dragon. Dragons are bold and assertive, driven, unafraid of challenges, willing to take risks and are usually successful. Predictions for this Year of the Dragon say that it will be a year of high risks and high returns. This Dragon finds itself in the element of Water, adding a higher than usual flow of communication between people. The addition of Water makes Dragons a little less impulsive and a little more thoughtful, and able to see things from other points of view. It also makes them more social.

It’s also a New Moon today, in Aquarius. Aquarius is a very creative sign and is often known for its eccentricity and genius, it’s willingness to step outside the box in its creativity, using the modern and unusual media to achieve its vision.

So there you go – create while you can! Mars the planet goes Retrograde tomorrow – a term astrologers use to describe a planet whose orbit has reached a stage where it looks like it’s going backwards. And so the energies of that particular planet are thought to be thwarted, going backwards. In Mars’ case, this means that physical energy levels will be low and internalized. But that’s a good time for resting and planning your next work of art. It doesn’t go Direct again until April 14.

I made a mistake in my last post (MOI?) when I said that my polyester Aurifil thread was shedding lint all over my sewing machine. It’s actually cotton Aurifil. I just assumed it was polyester – my bad – because other than the lint, it was sewing so nicely. None of the breaking that a lot of quilters have complained about with cotton thread, no tension issues. Just lint. That’s something I have to say about my lovely Janome Horizon – no nasty snarls, thread nests, eyelashes, centipedes or other ugly thread events. Nothing like my old mechanical Janome. Maybe it’s just me getting better, but I haven’t gotten “that” much better. I think the Horizon has definitely made the difference.

Been working on next year’s Christmas presents along with adding to the Mexican Star and practicing my FMQ. Before you get excited, I often work on Christmas presents months ahead of time. Then I put them away and pull them out just before the gift exchange or whatever, and work like a fool trying to finish them on time. Anyway, in this particular case, I needed some dark greens for the trees. I have a very well stocked green stash. I love my greens. I really, really like this green check too. It was one of the first fabrics I bought when I began quilting three years ago. I have two meters of it and I’ve never cut it, until now. It was hard. Why is it hard to cut pretty fabric? Surely I can’t be afraid of running out of it after using just a tiny piece for a little tree? Maybe it’s like breaking a $20 – it just gets spent so fast after that. Well, time to get over it.

I should mention that this pattern came from Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting Jan/Feb 2012 magazine, Feelin’ Frosty by Kelly Mueller. I did a little modifying to make them into mug rugs.

Until next time,