Birthdays and newly found Wisdom

My wonderful friend from down under sent me a lovely message about my recent birthday:

"... we have to celebrate our birthdays even more as living longer is a

privilege in this world of so much violence and illness."

I find she is very much right.
As I get older (how did that happen???) I find that I do not take as much for granted. At the same time I find freedom in many things. 

Little Black Dress Quilt

I finally (almost) finished my first quilt using the Little Black Dress line from Basic Grey. I found the instructions amongst the many tutorials of the Missouri Star Quilt Company and whipped the top up very quickly. Then follows a rather long and unproductive period before I gathered up my courage to start the quilting process. I anchored all the blocks using stitch in the ditch followed by yet another unproductive period before attempting FMQ.
Through my quilt guild, FRMQG, I was able to attend a class held by Angela Walters and that gave me enough inspiration and confidence to finally finish my quilt.
Here are just a few photos:

 ... here you can see some of the FMQ designs I used. Please keep in mind that I am a complete beginner. I am not staking any claims on quality even though I am actually seeing slight improvement.

One of my quilting goals for this year is to just.do.it. when it comes to FMQ. So, I am trying to find designs that are not too intimidating. Another great source is the Free Motion Quilting Project by Leah Day. I also signed up for a FMQ class with Leah via Craftsy. She has great tips and tricks and knows her stuff.