Happy New Year! (and belated Christmas Blessings....)

Happy New Year Card  <click here>

Happy New Year to you and all I also hope you had a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Our Christmas was not wonderful, unfortunately. LOL!  I ended up in the ER on Christmas Day with chest pain after a nasty cold that started the beginning of December and just knocked me flat.  The hospital staff was wonderful and acted very quickly...lots of tests...and the diagnosis was acute bronchitis.  I am finally finished with the nasty drugs and although I am still really tired out, the coughing seems to have subsided.  I was coughing so hard that my throat was going into spasm and I could not catch my breath.  Very scary.

Anyhow!  I am on the mend but very tired out so I have decided to take the month of January off from customer quilting.  I am still taking in quilts but will not touch the machine until the end of January.

I have called the customers that have quilts waiting here and have been very touched at the concern and the kindness from most of them.  It is not easy for me to not quilt almost every day but I will take the time to do my inventory and to organize my UFO's and do lots of hand work while I rest up.  Every new year I decide that this is *the year* to finish lots of my old projects and this year I am going to do it!  (famous last words)  ;)  I have already hand quilted a little miniature quilt and decided to get back into hand quilting.  It has been very soothing.  And I am also getting the urge to get back into bobbinlacemaking.

Since being in this studio this year, I have seen that my business has turned mostly into a service business with all the customer quilting.  The machine sales have continued...and thread sales.  But the other retail inventory, like books and patterns, kits, finished things, are just sitting around looking pretty.  Before Christmas I put a lot of things on ebay and have been selling them off and will continue to do so this winter.  I will continue to bring in and sell threads (I put in an order the first of every month!) and hope to add silk thread to the shelves.  And I am playing around with the idea of adding a few bolts of Radiance fabric.  This is a blend of silk and cotton and has a lovely sheen...great for wholecloths and hand quilting as well as art quilts.  Will see how things go.   But I do have the continued urge to do some silk wholecloth quilting and to use silk thread.  Cindy Needham is a favorite quilter of mine and I am working up to doing some wholecloths using old linens and the Radiance fabric.  I absolutely love her things.  She also has classes on Craftsy.

http://www.cindyneedham.com/

And here is my Ebay Store...had closed things while recovering but will be opening it back up today:
http://www.ebay.com/usr/bobbinsnthreads

Also, this week (Thursday) I will be changing phone providers.  My phone and internet have been having problems so I hope that by Thursday all will be well when the tech person comes out to make the change.  If you have problems reaching me, please be patient...it will get sorted out.  And this is a good time to do it.

Here is the url of a fabulous and FREE class on feathers!  I took this class several years ago and am thrilled to bits that Suzanne is offering it for free..it is very generous of her.  And it is a wonderful class!  So, check it out:

http://www.suzanneearley.net/feather-boot-camp/

And...here are the quilts I finished last month:

Well, it is time to close and get this sent out.  And time to go and sit in my chair for a bit.  Thanks for your continued support and I look forward to seeing what this year will bring!

Blessings,
Jude