Ringing in the New...

It is time to get ready to welcome in 2022 in a few days...and I am trying to do it with lots of colour and pizzaz.... to perk myself up, but also to give 2022 a heads-up that more is expected of it than what we got in 2021!

We welcome you 2022, but our expectations are high. Be prepared to add some colour to our lives...we need some upbeat razzle dazzle..some "joie de vivre"...something to sing about..and for heaven's sake, bring us some light at the end of this darned tunnel!

Part of my getting ready ritual for the new year is choosing a January quilt for my living room wall, and today was the day. Being fed up with yet another gray, dreary day, as well as this entire past year of isolation and doom and gloom, I was drawn to the most brilliantly coloured, happy, joyous, I-don't-give-a-darn-if-I'm-gaudy quilt in my collection! I pulled it out and up on the wall it went..and already I am uplifted...

I started this joyful quilt in a workshop with Kaffe Fassett..and a workshop with Kaffe is no place for sissies...none of that namby-pamby matchy- matchy conservative, comfortable choosing of colour and pattern - Go for bold. Go for colour. Make living-on-the-edge choices! Not easy to do when one is normally a namby-pamby quilter who likes everything to nicely and timidly go together...But Kaffe's concept of "go-together" was totally the opposite to that...so it was with trepidation that I took his advice to use that lime green-orange fabric that borders the centre and the outer edge of the quilt. I tried to say no - but just could not argue with someone like him..He said my quilt needed something to punch it up.I cringed, but did it..and you know what? He was right - of course he was right..and that day I learned to be brave and daring..... and to have fun with fabric..and that was well worth the price of the workshop! 

Now, if 2022 is anywhere near as upbeat as my quilt, I will be a very happy camper! And on the next plane to Europe!