Basket Challenge Quilt and Word of the Year

I belong to a quilt group that meets once a month. They do a yearly challenge and this year the challenge was to make a basket quilt, and the entire quilt must be made by you, quilted and bound by you. Well I finished my top last night at the Wed night group meeting. I am so lucky to have PTM as a friend. She let me come over to her house and cut, and sew on this top so I could get it done. Now I just need to go to LTW's to use her machine for the quilting. I designed it myself and I got the embroidery pattern from the Hoop Love Vintage Transfer group on Flickr. If you haven't found them and you like to embroider, you need to go and join the group. They have LOTS of fabulous free patterns.

I am especially fond of the scrappy flying geese and the rick rack handles on the baskets (thanks PTM). What do you think??

My friend, Cori, from Crazy Quilt Girl online quilt shop was at quilting last night too. She is testing my My Neighborhood patterns for me and as soon as she can let me know where the glitches are I just might get around to writing that thing up and putting it on ETSY! Thanks, Cori!! If you haven't discovered her wonderful shop you need to go and visit. Her prices on pre-cuts and Moda yardage can't be beat!!

On to the word of the year. Kelly, at Charming Chatter has challenged us to "choose a word the identifies what we'd like to see more of in our lives in 2011 - what we want to cultivate in our lives! It's a word to reflect on throughout the year - and to help us live our best life". I really gave this some thought and have chosen:

HAPPINESS

Why you ask? (Oh I knw you did ask that, right?) I am generally a happy person, but I see a lot of people that could use more happiness in their lives. I need to work on learning to be happy with the blessings that I have, and giving more to make others happier. I also need to work on living in the moment and enjoying the here and now and being happy with that. I am going to strive to make the people in my life happier too. Happiness emcompasses a lot of things. You need to do things like give, be kind, listen, have empathy, surprises, hugs, I find that for me happiness is a verb. What about you? Is happiness a verb in your life too?? If it isn't maybe you need to choose happiness and make it a verb too! I'd love the company!!!
XOP