2024 Quilting Ambitions 2nd Quarter Check In

The end of June marks the end of the 2nd quarter for 2024.  It's a good time to check in how I'm doing on my quilting ambitions (goals) for the year. My quilting goals are much like my work goals used to be. I'd write up the goals at the beginning of the year and then forget about them. At work, my supervisor would schedule a midyear goal review, I'd look at them just before the meeting and inevitably there would be one or two goals I'd forgotten about completely.  My quilting goals are pretty much the same, I don't look at them often so forget what I promised myself. It's a good thing that Yvonne over at Quilting Jetgirl reminds you to look at your goals and link up with her 2024 Quilting Q2 Check In to report on your progress.  

So how am I doing on my ambitions?  

1. Make Quilts. This goal wasn't just about finishing, it was written to include making progress on a number of projects.  I'm a visual person, so the best way for me to gauge progress on this goal is to look at what my progress graph looked at the beginning of January versus how it looks now. 

January 1, 2024

June 30, 2024

There's been good progress in the quilts to be finished, blocks to be finished and new projects.  But there is still a long way to go to get more of those color bars farther across the chart. Several projects are close to meeting some of the milestones in the graph, so there should definitely be less white space by the end of third quarter. 

2. Learn to quilt.  I finally decided that a quilt as you go project would be a good place to start with this goal. Grandmother's Choice is one of my oldest UFOs and seemed to be a good candidate for quilt as you go. I'm working on finishing up the blocks. 

Once that's done, I'll focus more on doing some quilting exercises to build up my skills. Hopefully by the end of third quarter I'll have started quilting the blocks. 

3.  15 Minutes to Stitch (Stitching Stuff Linky Parties).  The goal was to stitch 15 minutes a day at least 75% of the time.  Amazingly, I'm still at 100% at mid year.  

This year is by far the best year I've ever had with getting in some stitching time most days.  It's become much more motivating now that I've kept it up this long, we'll see how long my 100% streak lasts.  

The unstated ambition here was to post a linky party all 52 weeks of the year.  At the end of 2nd quarter, 26 linky parties had been posted for all 26 weeks of the first half of the year.  So 100% on that goal as well.  Being retired has helped on this front. I'm not traveling as much and have more time to plan for busy weekends and get a post mostly ready to go so I'm not having to come up with a post when I'm pressed for time. 

4. Stash Organization.  There's been a lot of progress on this front during second quarter compared to almost none on this front during first quarter.  My focus is on scraps, yardage and organizing my fabric closet.  

On the scraps front:

The working scrap bin is empty, scrap bag #1 is empty and there has been some progress on scrap bag #2. So good progress there. 

Pressing and folding fabrics so they will fit on the fabric closet shelves has been a work in progress since last year.  It's been going pretty well this year. 

The bin filled was on March 31st and it was empty by May 25th.  The bin was refilled on June 9th.  It was still a work in progress at the end of June.  

The fabric closet was overflowing at the end of last year. 

 

It's still far from perfect, but there is some improvement. The fabric on top of the shelving unit was washed and pressed for storage in Texas, but needs to be refolded to better fit on these shelves that were added when we moved to Oklahoma. That messy pile on top was all moved to some empty drawers in Grad Girl's old room. That's the fabric going into the to be pressed bin for a quick retouch with the iron before refolding it. The wire cubes on top of the shelving were added at the end of 1st quarter.  They were almost empty then but are slowly filling up with the refolded fabrics.   

The fabric in the gray bin and on the floor hasn't been washed (I prewash my fabrics).  As I've moved the older fabrics out of the drawers, I've moved that fabric to the drawers. It's easier to get to the top two rows of the shelving now.  

This goal is still a work in progress and will likely continue into next year. But it's been nice to get the fabrics better organized so I can see what I have.  

5. Stretch goal: Consider if pattern creation/editing is something I want to do?

I've been busy working on my UFOs and getting the stash organized. That seems to be enough for me at the moment.  I have made the decision to take on a role that will allow me to use my chemistry and statistics know how. I'm still considering these options, but since I'm happy with where I'm at, there probably won't be any action on these this year.  

How would I do at a mid-year review of my progress?  There is progress on each of my goals.  Even if goal #5 isn't going to move ahead this year, something else took it's place. That's OK, life changes during the year and sometimes you end up going in a different direction. I'm a type A personality and always feel I could have done more. But considering all the knee problems that bothered me most of first quarter and having knee surgery during second quarter, I'm pretty happy with how things are going this year.