Out with the old in with the new!

Happy New Year to one and all, I hope you have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013.

New Year is so important to we Scots that we have an extra day's Bank Holiday to enjoy (or recover from!) the festivities. So, although I don't live in Scotland (yet, I am ever hopeful!) I am maintaining the tradition and having a day off from the clearing-up involved with having all of the family home for the holidays.

Fortunately I wasn't responsible for the clearing up involved after this visitor departed :)

Bam-Bam checking out the kitchen!

Another tradition, this time local instead of national, that I also enjoy at this time of year is the Annual New Year's Day wheelbarrow race held in the village. The race starts and ends at the local pub, which is also I think partially responsible for many of the entrants, who decide on New Year's Eve that pushing a friend round the village in a wheelbarrow sounds like a great idea!

These competitors racing towards the finish line look remarkably fresh, so probably didn't indulge themselves too heartily the night before. A very fit friend and his wife, who were watching with us, took part several years ago, and couldn't believe how painful running around with a fully-loaded wheelbarrow could be. Definitely an activity that is better watched than participated in I think, and as you can see so do most of the village :)

With the beginning of the New Year comes new challenges to sign up for and the completion of others, well that is the theory anyway. As someone who is prone to signing up for new things when I still haven't completed existing commitments, one of my resolutions for 2013 is to finish an existing project before starting a new one.

So, with this in mind I have been stitching away at the five remaining blocks from In Color Order's HST BOM. This was the first BOM I ever signed up for, with grandiose notions of having a completed quilt to give as a Christmas present, but that lofty ambition was reduced several months ago. Still, I am delighted to now have all 12 of the blocks completed.

I still have the sashing and borders to add, but I can't decide what to do with them, so if you have any suggestions please pass them on. I have enough of the gold background fabric for the borders, but don't really have anything suitable for sashing, was thinking of a mottled cream/ fawn for that but if you have a better suggestion I would be delighted to hear it.

Now that the HST BOM is out of the way in terms of a monthly commitment I reckon that means I can take on a new one! As it happens the paper-piecing queen, Quiet Play, has just (yesterday) started a monthly paper-piecing BOM, And Sew On, with a sewing theme. The first pattern, Measure Twice, is available for free in January from her Craftsy store so I will be heading off there soon. Having only learnt to paper piece in 2012 thanks to Katy's FPPFTTcourse, I am hoping that during this BOM I will finally crack the puzzle of cutting and piecing shapes at strange angles, which has eluded me so far.

I have just seen that The Littlest Thistle has also announced a new SAL today, called Everything and the Kitchen Sink, which I would really like to do. Looks like I will have to get another project out of the way before the 15th when the first block is posted!