Year End Sales

So as most of you know, many of the online and also "brick and mortar" quilt shops had a year-end sale.  Did any of you take advantage?  I sure did. 

The phone rang this morning and as I didn't recognize the caller ID, I let the machine pick it up and it was the fraud dept of our credit card company!  I called back and they had a suspicious charge they wanted to inform me about.   Now the funniest version of this story would be that all of these online fabric purchases set off the warning bells, but of course, with my credit card history, no charges to fabric/thread stores would be at all "suspicious."  It was a fradulent charge, however, (to a music store in California) and in going over recent charges and statements, we found several more.  Luckily, the credit card company is taking care of it and we are getting new cards.  The bonafide funny anecdote to this was when the fraud guy and I were going over the recent charges.  It went something like this:  "How about this charge to...  The Fat?...  Quarter?...  Shop?  in the amount of   YES, that is mine.  Next is Thousands of Bolts for YES, that is mine, too.   He said, "Wow, that must be a big fabric store!"  I replied that I had no idea--it's online.

Meanwhile, I have been doing some quilting.  I did not participate, but lurked, most of last year for  A Year of Schnibbles  but this year I would like to challenge myself to take part.  I have already finished my quilt for January, but I will blog about it at the end of the month for the parade. 

I have other projects in mind to make and just a few to finish, but I'm thinking I would really like a great applique project to work on.  I'm sure I'll be moving this year and will be w/o my machine (and let's face it:  a home, too!) for at least 2 months, so having an organized, complex, hand project is just the ticket.  I love needle-turn applique, especially with my favorited technique, back basting.  Have any of you tried it?  I love it. 

This is the project I'd love to do.  I have never done a genuine "block of the month" kit before because I really don't like the idea of doing a quilt that will be just like lots (hundreds?) of other ones.  This is worth it, though!  My favorite color is red!  I've been waffling on committing, and I think I finally decided to go for it!  But wait, Oh no!, I'm going to have to wait 7-10 days until my new credit card comes!  Shucks!

Aloha,
JoAnne