December (and 2023) Wrap Up: PHD in 2023

We are already a couple of days into 2024, so it's definitely time to review my progress on my PHD projects this year and link one more time with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023.  It definitely wasn't one of my more successful years in terms of finishes and my report shows that. 

  

I was able to add one more finish before the year ended.  That brings my total for the year to 3.  Not stellar, but it's one more than I finished last year.  I'll take an incremental increase. I finished three of the small projects I started, but none of my new quilt starts in 2023.  Malted Mystery and Indigo Way don't count as clues are continuing into 2024.   

However if you look at my year in terms of progress, I did pretty well on that front. 

There'd been no progress on this embroidered panel since 2021.  It only saw progress in November and December. But now it's more than half way finished. It's not on my official UFO list this year, but it is my travel project. I'm going to try to do more on it when I'm on the road this year. 

My oldest unfinished Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt, Scrappy Butterflies, saw a lot of progress this year. 

Another project that hadn't seen any progress since 2021.  All the alternate blocks were finished in 2023, set together with borders added.  The last step was to finish the backing.  That's done, so the plan for January will be to get this project prepped so it can go out for quilting.  Fingers crossed this is my first finish for 2024. 

I also struggle to finish the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts.  But the 2021 version, Rhododendron, is getting close to being a finished top. 

It's took most of the year to finish the last block, cut the setting triangles and assemble the top.  Only two more borders are needed and then this project will be a finished quilt top.  With all the new stuff in the works, I may not get back to this project till March or April.  

The last finish of 2023 was Melodic Mystery.  

All the clues for the 2022 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery hadn't come out for this mystery as of the end of last year, so it was still in bits and pieces last January.  The quilt top was finished in August, but it took me a couple of months to get it sent out for quilting.  I'm happy with how it turned out.  The pink and green color palette is a new one for me.  This quilt will be donated to one of the family support charities in our area.

There was good progress this year on the 2022 Bonnie Hunter mystery, Chilhowie.  We didn't have all the clues by the end of of 2022, so it's not surprising that it wasn't finished by the end last year. 

Chilhowie has been my leaders and enders project for most of 2023.  The component parts are under construction, I'm still short one block before assembly of the quilt top can happen.  I'll just keep plugging and hopefully this one will be completed before the 2024 BH mystery starts up.

Malted Mystery is the 2023 Meadow Mist Designs Mystery.  It started in July with fabric selection. 

I'm still working on the December clue. The January clue comes out tomorrow. So I'm just slightly behind on this one.  

The 2023 Bonnie Hunter Mystery, Indigo Way, kicked off at the end of November.  This one is a lot harder to keep up with.  

Bonnie had released clues 1 to 6 by the end of December. My version of clues 1 and 2 are finished.  Clues 3, 4 and 5 have pieces sewn, but I was still cutting out the pieces for clue 6 on New Year's Eve.  Bonnie released clue 7 on New Year's Day.  I can't tell if I'm in any better shape this year versus previous years. We'll see where I'm at on this on at the end of next year. It would be nice to have this one as a finished quilt top before the next mystery comes out.

I didn't set up a progress bar chart till May of this year. 

 

There was much more color in the December version.

Definity no PHD this year, but I'll take all the progress. I learned a lot in 2023 about how to manage my projects. How to make progress on the ones that are closer to finished, while still working on newer projects.  I'm hoping that will translate into more finishes this year.  

Thanks to Gail for sponsoring the PHD challenge for so many years.  I've played along for the last 5 years and it's been a lot of fun and a great source of motivation. Now that Gail has her UFOs under control, she's passed the torch off to Ms. P Designs USA.  As my UFOs are definitely not under control, I'll be playing along again in 2024.