My One Year Blog Anniversary

I made it!  A year of blogging.  A year without quilty shopping.  A year of making new on-line friends.  A year of using my stash.  I'm thrilled - I just wish we could all celebrate this day together, in person, and not just through the blog.  I want to thank you all for stopping by to visit here when  you have a chance, and for leaving sweet comments (which I especially love).

Okay, so here are my BIG announcements:

1.  My first purchase.  Drumroll, please.  I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I've made a lot of quilt tops this year.  Quilt TOPS.  As in, they're not finished.  So to solve this problem, today I'm ordering this.  It's the HQ Sixteen Sitdown quilting machine.  I'm too excited!  I'm already used to moving the quilt under a machine (as opposed to moving the machine over the quilt as you would with a longarm machine).  Plus I just don't have room for a longarm unless I don't mind my quilting spilling into another room in the house.

When I cleaned out my studio earlier this summer, I cleared away a special area for this new machine and it's table.  I've been planning this purchase for several months now, but I wouldn't let myself do it until today.  I'm buying the machine from a local quilt shop and it will be shipped directly to my home in about a week.  CAN'T WAIT!!

Are you surprised?  Did you think I'd buy fabric first?  

2.  My next quilting adventure.  Another drumroll, please.  I'm coming out with a new book next year!!  Plus an acrylic template to accompany the book!!  As the publishing date draws near, I'll start showing you what it's all about.  For now, I can't go into the details.  I can tell you that it has nothing to do with my first book, Fabric Photo Play.  It's an entirely new technique.

So in addition to making all these commission quilts (which will help pay for the new machine), I'm busy making samples for the book.  There's lots of sewing going on around here.

3.  The winner of my giveaway.  Congratulations to.... another drumroll....Susan!  How fitting for you to win since you were such an inspiration for me in starting this blog in the first place. Susan, I'm going to mail the gifties to you soon!

So I'm ready to go for another year of blogging.  I'm still debating if I should change the name of the blog, since I'll be shopping again.  Maybe I should name it something to relate to the new book?  Or maybe something else entirely?  What do you think?