It's New Year's Eve, last day of 2008, and time to reflect on the year that was. It's been a fun year for me, with travel and meeting up with friends and business acquaintances, but also lots of time spent at home doing what I love best - sewing, quilting and gardening.

This time last year I had no idea of what the coming year would bring, and I certainly never anticipated anything as exciting as owning a 98 year old building. 2009 will be interesting, as we take possession of the lodge and set it up as our teaching venue. We hope to spend many happy hours there with new friends and old. It seems fitting that it will be a Girls Club after 98 years of being a 'men only' zone.

I've been sewing in odd moments, and have a few things close to finished. There is such a pile of new tops waiting to be quilted that it's quite daunting, but I will be brave next week and work my way through a few of them. I'm hoping to finish two more tops tomorrow, and start the New Year off on the right foot; I may even load a top onto Millhouse.

My Sisters Choice blocks are all put together, and just waiting for the green borders, which is what I intend to work on tomorrow. It turned out nothing like I imagined, but I just had to do what the blocks wanted. I've been working with strong colours for quite a while, and I think my next project might be a more subtle blend.

While I was in the garden the other day this arrangement of colours caught my eye, and made me think of the PA Dutch top I recently completed. It's not hard to see where the inspiration came from; quilters have always taken their cue from the gardens around them.
I'm about to go round to Mereth's place, where I will do some hand sewing, drink some wine and wait to see the New Year in. I made sure all my dishes are done and the kitchen clean; I can imagine nothing worse facing the new year with a pile of chores to do. At least I will be able to get straight into the sewing room in 2009.

They say that the rest of the year will be like the first day, so I intend to make it count. I want to work on something old, something new, something finished and something fun. (I know, it should rhyme to be catchier, but I can't some up with anything else.) I will put some stitches into an old project, try a new technique, finish something that is close to completion anyway, and do something purely for fun. That should keep me gainfully occupied for the first day of the year, and if the rest is just like it, well I could hardly complain.

Oh and those boxes that were delivered before Christmas? They could have contained a lot of this....How are we going to stashbust that lot?