Happy New Year

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season.  I did.  Mr. Moose and I went to Vegas for a week (including Christmas Day), spent some time with family and generally spent 3 weeks away from work relaxing and being overly indulgent with ourselves.

The end result is that I got back into the office today and actually forgot a coworker's name, had a looooong list of emails waiting for me and generally feel all warm and fuzzy to be back at work. 

I look back at 2010 and like a lot of people, I'm not sure where it went.  I am glad that I got back into quilting late in the year.  I also rediscovered a love of fabric and colour - which is a bit hazardous to the pocketbook.  For example, in Vegas, I made Mr. Moose take me to a quilt shop.  Yeah.  I know.  I was in Vegas and I went to a quilt shop.  You can stop laughing now.

Are you done yet?  If not, please, take a moment.  Then come back and witness the beauty of my purchase at said quilt shop.

The Robert Kaufman Who's hungry fat quarter stack.  It was so hard to walk into a store well stocked with things like layer cakes, jelly roles and fat quarter bundles and walk out with just one thing.  Just ONE.  But I did it (and those owls are SO cute).  I really wish that the shops here would carry more items like that because I'm so indecisive with fabric.  I have no idea how I'll use this, but I'm sure I'll find something.

I've also decided that I need to challenge myself a bit with my quilting.  I'm pretty boring when it comes to colours and fabrics.  And awfully traditional.  I need to be more adventurous.  I've looked at my year ahead and decided that "change" is a good way to describe what my goals are in all areas of my life, but especially quilting.

Some of the challenges I see for myself in the upcoming months?  Use different colours in my quilts.  Yellow, pink, purple and aqua are colours I tend to avoid.  I also tend to avoid bright, happy colours, sticking with more muted, traditional fabrics.   Perhaps something like this (available in March?  Really?  What a tease!):

Or this

Ahhh so many pretty colours to play with, so little time!