Is it too late for a New Year's Resolution????

First, I'll start out with some halloween pictures of the GKs. Miss P was a unicorn this year! Gotta love that cute little 3 yr old face! She was going to be a princess - but we HAVE been watching a unicorn cartoon movie alot lately and the babysitter had a unicorn costume - the rest is history!











Believe it or not - Mr M, the 'bat boy' is only one year old this month! Okay, maybe the binky gave it away! He didn't like his costume, so a binky kept him in it long enough for the pictures. His haircut makes him look like he's three! He just went thru another growth spurt but I can definitely see 'shades of things to come'!!!

Yesterday, M over at Stashbusters, lamented that she has so many books that if she just made one from each it would keep her busy for years. The light bulb went on!!!

Using the books we already own to make something!

What a concept! LOL! I made that resolution a few years back - I think I made ONE! However, that was one more than I had made before!

I'm in - let's finish a project every quarter, from a book, pattern, magazine or kit we own! Now referred to as "resources"!

That would be 4 or 5 projects - [see below], I know it's only a start - but hey! We have UFOs to finish too. And we know life is going to intervene! We COULD combine different resources and redesign something. I even have a quilt I charted out on graph paper oh-so-many-years-ago that I named "Red Wagon-ish"! I think I combined designs and layouts out of 3-4 of their books.

Linda Brannock was at our retreat once and she said something profound that I never forgot. She said, "Just because we design it that size, doesn't mean you have to make it that size!!!" WOW! Freedom! I immediately took her very large 'donkey cart' fall quilt and made it a 20 x 36 wall quilt. It's one of my favorites! In fact, I think we made 3 of them!

If you combine patterns in different resources - well, you are using them - so it counts for each resource. You might tell us which resources in your post or comment here. There was a pumpkin quilt I finally finished last July that used pumpkins out of 3 different books. AND following the edict above - I reduced them to 'play nicely' with each other!!!

Okay - there are two months left this year - anyone game to try to finish ONE by the end of the year? It might make a great holiday decoration or a present!!! If we don't get it done by December 31st - hey, we have a great start on the first one for next year!

So the challenge is: make 1 project this year and 4 projects in 2010 that are from books, patterns, magazines or kits you already own. It doesn't have to be exactly what is pictured: You can make a pillow, you can make a notebook cover, you can make a charity quilt, a miniature or adapt the idea to your own design. Just make a note of which resource you used/were inspired by. I'm going to write it in my book - inside the front cover! A post-it added to the pattern or magazine would work too!

Definitely document it in the journal you document your quilts in - you DO do that - don't you!! Okay - another resolution for you!!! LOL!

So, who's in????

PS - don't be discouraged if you're inspired to make two things from the resource! I know you don't get to mark off another resource that you used ... but you just confirmed it was a great buy!!! LOL!