Progress on my ambitions this year has been a mixed bag. Here's the progress to date.
1. Make quilts. The focus for this year wasn't just on finishes, moving quilts along in the process was also a goal. The plan at the beginning of the year looked like this:
In my original 2024 ambitions post, I stated my goal was to move the bar closer to finished quilt for each project on the list. There was definitely progress on that front so far this year.
Only four projects on my list have bars at the same spot as the original graph. I still have 3 months to move those bars a bit. Probably won't move all of them, but I know there will be progress on at least one more. Not bad performance for three quarters of the year.
2. Learn to Quilt: The plan is to try quilt as you go on a set of blocks to ease my way into the learning process. I finished all the blocks in August.
Diann, who blogs at Little Penguin Quilts, has been working on a quilt as you go project this year. I can't find the exact posts, but she alerted me to Hobbs 80/20 Fusible batting. I didn't really want to use pins, but don't have any place to safely use the adhesive spray technique. The fusible batting sounded like a good solution, so that got ordered.
I've been reading the various books I have on quilting technique, but haven't actually done any quilting yet. I have some quilt sandwiches made up, the plan is at some point before the end of the year is use those to figure out my machine settings and do a bit of practicing. So it's been slow progress on this ambition, but at least there's been some progress.
3. 15 Minutes to Stitch: The goal is to stitch at least 15 minutes a day, plus host a linky party so others can share how they are doing at finding time to stitch. My goal was to stitch at least 75% of the days in 2024. I'm blowing this goal out of the water this year!
At the end of September, I was still at 100%. I've spent at least 15 minutes with needle and thread every day so far this year. My best year prior to this was a 92.9% success rate. I'm on track to beat that. Can I keep 100% for the whole year? Unlikely, but I'm motivated to try.
The second part of this goal is to post a linky party every week. So far there's been 39, one of each week from January thru September. Usually I miss posting at least once each year. Hopefully I can keep my 100% metric here too.
4. Stash Organization: It's a mixed bag on that front for this quarter.
Scrap Organization: Almost no progress on this front during the third quarter. There's been no progress on the #2 big scrap bag. And I've gone backwards on the new scraps in the working scrap bin. I've finished quilts, but haven't done anything with the left overs.
I really need to get back to the scrap trimming during the 4th quarter. I've done a bit to empty the scrap bins over the last month or so, so there should be some room for what's in the working scrap bin at least. Any of the 2.5 strips of all those blues from Diatom can go directly onto the pile for the Simply Sensational Summer Scrap quilt that is my current leader and ender project.
I did better on the fabric pressing and refolding this quarter.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through the third tub refill. We were gone for three weekends in September, so I didn't have as much time this last quarter to push towards an empty bin. I've found so many fun fabrics as I've worked through these bins; so many ideas for new quilts.
The fabric closet has been reorganized a bit. The addition of the wire cubes on top of the wire rack has give me more space for storing fabric. Though all the extra storage is just about full.
It's much easier to see what I have now. There is still a bit of space, but that's going to fill up quickly. Some additional reorganization opened up a bit more space. I didn't use all the wire cubes that I ordered, so I did some reorganizing on the left side of the fabric closet.
I'm really bad about forgetting to take before photos, so this is a partial before photo on the left. The bins that show on the corner of the wire cabinet were over in the corner of the shelf. The fat quarter boxes got moved to another location in the sewing room and I added some of the left over wire cubes. The fat quarter bundles and any other precuts, were moved to the corner. It's a much more effective use of the space now.
5. Stretch Goal: Consider if pattern editing/creation is something I want to do? Rather than go this route, I had the opportunity to utilize my technical skills and decided that was a better fit for me at the moment. So not a fail, I just decided to go in a different direction.
This year has been a productive one on several fronts. I never get to all the things on my lists, but I'm happy with the progress so far. Fourth quarter is going to be challenging. Lots going on, but hopefully that won't derail me too badly.
8 comments:
Wow!! Look at you go - I am always impressed with you spread sheets - and all - but that closet!!! Oh man - you can totally tell how hard you have been working in there!!!
I really like the way you track progress on each of your projects visually through a bar chart, and it's impressive to see how much progress on the projects you've made in 9 months! I hope that the quilt as you go project sets you up for more confidence quilting and look forward to seeing how that project continues to evolve. Thanks so much for linking up!
You’ve made a lot of progress, and there’s still plenty of time in the year. I had ideas about designing patterns, and that’s why I purchased EQ originally. Then, I decided I didn’t want to spend that much time at the computer. I’d rather sew, and I’ll leave the designing to others.
Well I was impressed with the spreadsheets (have saved the photos for a guide!) then I saw your closet! Nicely done! Organization, whether it is by spreadsheet or by physical folding and rearranging, always spurs my creativity.
I love your colored bar graph for tracking your progress! Good luck with learning to quilt - it took me many quilts to get comfortable with it, but I’m glad I stuck with it!
I hope you like the fusible batting! This is my first time using it, too, and it works pretty well. I've ended up using a few pins here and there, especially in the outer corners of my sections that I've prepped to quilt. But the quilting looks good on it!
That's a huge improvement in your fabric closet! Reorganizing always takes longer than you think it will.
Congratulations Kate, you're having a great year! When you start your quilt-as-you-go, remember to link up at Free Motion Mavericks. We'll all be encouraging you :-)
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