My own DAGMT commitment statement and what's up around here

By now you probably have heard - Drop and Give Me Twenty 2015 is well into the commitment and planning stages for over 50 participants already! With two weeks to go until February, when all of the official fun starts, I'm very proud of us. If you haven't heard about it, and would like to know more, pop on over to the official page here and also check out the new for this year Facebook page, where we will be sharing our photos of finishes and progress all month long! Also, if you have a blog and want to grab the button up there at the top of this post, I would so love it. Let me know you did so, too - there's a special prize drawing for PR Angels.

As for me, if I ask you do make an official commitment statement, I feel like I have to do the same. So here is mine:

"I, ( Beth Helfter, creative disaster and easily distracted quilter) am joining Quilting Hottie Haven's fourth annual DaGMT event, and pledge to quilt for (at least 90 minutes while the children are at school, and if they are home for vacation, snowday, or weekend because really, let's be honest, they are never in school, to quilt for 95 minutes just to prove I can) every day of the month of February, 2015. In doing so I hope to (complete 3 current UFOs, start two new projects, and turn the candlewicking project I made at age 11 into a pillow 34 years later) and I think Beth Helfter is brilliant for coming up with this concept and inspiring me to join."

Your own pledge can mirror this one, especially that last part - or if you want to go the extra mile and call me a Goddess of Creativity, I'm good with that too -  or you can make up your own entirely. Post it in a comment here, on the FB page, or on your own blog and you are ready to go!

In other news January is always a fun month for me as I leave the holidays behind and run myself slam into the wall that is the Annual Group Project, getting DAGMT up and running, and considering my overflowing bin of business receipts and getting my books together for the tax guy. This year I decided to add a test of a new pattern in there as well. Clearly I was not wearing a helmet when I threw myself at the wall.

I love this new pattern, the cover quilt for which I am currently working on myself, but I want one of my tester quilts, which are in the baby size, to be on the back cover. However, how can I choose - they are all so lovely! Plus in all honesty, my taste isn't always the same as the rest of my audience, so I need to see what you all love. Now through Sunday, January 18, please vote for your favorite (A, B, C, D, or E in order shown) on my EPQD facebook page. The post with the photos of the quilts is pinned to the top of the page for easy location. I am nothing if not trying to make this user friendly for you! The winner and the names of all the creators will be announced Sunday evening, and the winner will receive $50 toward the quilting and will have their quilt on the back cover of the pattern with full credit as the maker. Thanks to all who have voted so far.

In other random news, because what would a blog post by me be without some really random news:

• Picked up this free crib off the side of the street one day last spring. Husband immediately had heart attack. But my purpose was not to expand our family because FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT we are JUST FINE with the three, but I wanted to use it as a quilt display rack. Finally yesterday I gave up on the idea of hanging it on the wall, which had slowed me down for six months, and I think it looks adorable just as is. 

  

  Hey look! I made a baby size sample too! And also I have to remove those Shrek-ear-like things from the top of the rack.

• My final Scrap Squad project is blogged and in the queue for next week, which will be my final appearance on Quilty Pleasures. I'm a little sad about that, because it's been a really fun year, but if I'm being totally honest, I'm ready to have that time back to pursue my own designs full time. It was a great diversion in a year where I was feeling a little burned out in the design ideas department, and has renewed me and my creativity, and for that I am immensely thankful!

  

  That's all I can show for now, but I love love love this quilt.

• I've been working on a swap with several other ladies this past year, and needed to find some "large bright florals" for one of them in my stash this week. Granted, I don't buy a lot of yardage, and my scrap bins are by color, not style, so I didn't look in them, but THIS is all I could find and they aren't even bright.

  

  And yes, that is an open rotary cutter. No judgements, please, unless you want to mock my fabric with me.

   All of them squarely in the "old lady wallpaper" style and not one of them something I would use in a quilt in 2015. That top one there was even part of a kit I offered for my Confetti Toss pattern several years (but hardly several DECADES) ago. I guess it is just amazing to me how quickly styles change, which is another reason among many that the whole "modern" label annoys me. But that is an tangent for another day. So I headed to the store and fixed that problem.
  
  

  

  My world is right again.

    So that's what's up around here this week. Hope you'll join us for DAGMT 2015 and have a great weekend!