Sunday, November 19, 2017

Stash Stuff for Week 46

Yesterday was cold and windy.  Overnight we went from colorful vistas to views of barren branches.  It's like that in Oklahoma.  It was a perfect day to stay in and sew.  Which I did in the afternoon.  Though you can't really tell it from the stash numbers. 

Used last week:  0.46 yards
Used year to date:  53.07 yards

It's been slow going on the stash busting lately.  I've mainly been working on those 4 patches for the En Provence borders.  It takes a lot of 4 patches to add up to much in the outgoing column.  

I did mange to find 15 minutes to sew every day last week. That puts my success percentage at 90.99%.  It will be challenge to stitch over the Thanksgiving holiday as we'll have family around.  I should locate my embroidery stuff and have it ready to work on when everyone sits down to just talk.  

I'm a bit late posting this morning, mainly because I got caught up in working on something for next year.  It's not a quilt project, but it's related.  I used a purchased project planner this year and really liked it, but only part of the planner saw heavy use.  A lot of the planner is empty.  So spending another $40 for a new one just doesn't appeal.  But I really want one for next year.  After checking out a number of free printable planner documents from Pinterest, nothing struck my fancy.  My skill with Microsoft Publisher is pretty minimal, but at worst trying to create my own would result in a bit of wasted time.  Here's what I have after a couple of hours of playing around with the software. 

Weekly calendar pages (The heavily used portion of my current planner)

I don't see any changes on these pages, unless they don't print right  as double sided sheets.  

Project Summary/2018 Quilt Plan
I like the 2018 Quilt Plan, but not sure I'm thrilled with the My Projects summary page.  I've seen some bullet journals on Pinterest where the status or stage of the project is tracked. That would be cool to do, but would require a different orientation on the page.  Something to consider.  

Project Planning/Documentation
Status/stage of the project would be good to add here too.  Something else would have to go though.  

These pages were all created in Publisher using the tables function.  I could probably do the same thing in Excel.  But since Publisher is meant for creating documents, it seemed like the best way to approach making my own planner.  None of these pages have been printed yet, so I'm not sure how well they work.  I'm going to try that before I do much more fiddling with the layouts.  

Linking up with Quiltpaintcreate for this week's stash report.   

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never used a planner for my quilting projects. I did start keeping a list of what I've made by year, maybe four years ago, mostly to help me find things in the blog history. I have a small notebook where I write down The Short List. That's about all the planning I do.

AnnieO said...

Good idea to create your own quilting trackers. I've been using a bullet journal this past year and it's been fun to add my own doodles, colored marker highlights and notes. I've always made lists, but most planners seem to have pages I would never use. It's also fun to look back at ideas and remembered inspiration!

Sandra Walker said...

I like what you've got! I'm sure you'll tweak it before January and then want to tweak it if you go this route for 2019---good lord how is it we are that close to 20 years in on the millennium?????

Katie Z. said...

What fun! I buy notebooks with a variety of features. I carry my book with me, since I use t also to keep track of “life” things too. I really like your pages, and you’ve done well stitching.

The Colorful Fabriholic said...

Genius! You get pages that exactly meet your needs. Congrats on your 15 minutes progress and good luck over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Cathy said...

Like you, I’ve used a quilting planner this year, but only certain parts. With that in mind, I bought a generic planner cheaply at Barnes & Noble with my member discount and am designing my custom/additional pages in Excel. I don’t have publisher but am well versed in Excel. I think it’s smart to customize for our own particular ways of doing things!

Emily said...

These pages are awesome! I also bought a Quilter's Planner for 2017 and while I really like it, I basically haven't used it since March or April. I bought a pretty blank book recently and plan to use it instead. I'm not sure I have your patience with Publisher, but I love this idea.

What metric do you use to track fabric out? I've been wanting to track that but don't really know how, especially since a lot of my quilts are scrap quilts or from some other form of already cut fabric.