Friday, January 3, 2025

ChookShed Challenge

Dreamworthy Quilts is sponsoring the Chookshed Challenge again this year. 


The challenge has you pick 10 quilting related goals for the year and then uses a random number generator to pick which project you work on for the month.  I like challenges that help me stay on top of my to do list for the year and the monthly accountability helps with that. But I don't work well with random, I'm just not wired that way.  So I'm going to pick my list of 10 goals to play along, but I'll decide which one to work on during any given month.  

The first 6 goals for the year is to make backings, quilt, label and bind all the finished quilt tops from last year.  


From left to right, top to bottom

1. Chocolate Marshmallows 

2. Squared Away

3. Chilhowie

4 Malted Mystery

5 Indigo

6 Betty

Here's the remaining 4 goals

7. Learn to quilt as you go by quilting the blocks for Kate's Choice.



8. Finish On Ringo Lake as a gift for one of Grad Girl's chem buddies


 

9. Start and finish the 2025 SAHRR as a gift for Grad Girl's roommate

10. Finish the blocks and assemble my oldest Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Celtic Solstice. 


These will be on my 2025 PHD plan as well, but it doesn't hurt to the same entries in multiple challenges. Hopefully that means I'll actually have double the incentive to make progress on these projects.  

Thursday, January 2, 2025

PHD in 2024: End of the Year Wrap Up

It's always an adjustment to move from the previous year to the new year.  Mostly it's a mind reset, but it did take me the better part of the morning to reset my quilting tracking spreadsheet for the new year.  That first meant making sure all of the quilty stuff that went on in 2024 was captured. With that all done, it made pulling all the information for my end of the year PHD report easier. 




The year ended with six finishes, six projects moved to finished quilt tops, progress on the rest of the UFOs on the list and six new starts.  So I broke even in terms of finishes and starts for the year, there was no net change in my UFO numbers. But I finished double the number of quilts in 2024 than I did in 2023.  So I'll take that as successful year even though I didn't earn my PHD for the year.

The finishes this year ranged from some of the oldest on my UFO list to one of the new starts. 

First row: A Flutter (self designed), Blue Birds (self designed), Shadow Demon (self designed)

Second row: Rhododendron (Bonnie Hunter), Diatom (Quilting Jetgirl), String Lights (Meadow Mist Designs


The projects that became finished quilt tops also range from some of my oldest UFOs to one of this year's new starts.  


First row:  Chocolate Marshmallow (Seabreeze Quilts), Squared Away (So Scrappy), Chilhowie (Bonnie Hunter)

Second row: Malted Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs), Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter), Betty (Meadow Mist Designs)

There was good progress on a few other projects this year as well.  



Grandmother's Choice (renamed Kate's Choice) was supposed to be my quilt as you go project. It hadn't been touched in twelve years. I finished all the blocks, but didn't do much on the learning to quilt part of the project. There's always 2025 right?   


I didn't do as much on the Butterfly panel this year.  One butterfly and some of the fill in foliage got finished.  This is my travel project. It went on a few trips, but this year I was able to take quilts that needed to be bound on a number of trips away from home. So I still got a lot of hand work done, just not on this project.



Wild and Goosey (Bonnie Hunter) has been on the active list for the last couple of years. I make a few blocks each week.  This year all the orange blocks got finished. I only need to finish 3 more of the red blocks to be done with that color.  That should happen this month, then I'm left with all the cool colors to finish. 




The Simply Sensational Summer Scrap quilt (Kevin the Quilter) wasn't on my PHD list for 2024, but it became an active project when I needed something that would empty out my scrap bins a bit and be a good leaders and enders project.  I need over 200 of the blue 4 patches and over 100 of the yellow. There's ten 4 patches in each stack, so I'm a long way off from that.  So this will probably be my leaders and enders the rest of the year.  

Of the six new starts for 2024, one is a finished quilt (Shadow Demon), one is a finished quilt top (Betty), the remaining 4 are in various stages of completion.  




I hadn't planned on doing the guild BOM, but it was such a different design that I decided to go for it. I mostly kept up, except for December.  All the blocks are made, all that's left is assembly and cutting all the sashing and border strips.  This should make it to finished quilt top before the end of the first quarter this year.  



Marble Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs) was going along pretty well until December. I've made some progress on the last clue but, didn't get it done before the January clue came out this morning. This morning's clue includes the instructions for final assembly and I'm excited to see how my version comes together.  




Old Town kicked off in late November.  A month and a half later, I've finished clue 1. Made decent progress on clue 2, but am way behind on all the other clues. There is some of each clue finished, but not enough for more than one block I'm guessing.  We'll see what I can get done before Friday's clue comes out.  




The last new project wasn't planned for at all.  But when I agreed to take on the guild BOM this year, it meant I had to have the January block ready to show at the December guild meeting.  I've made this quilt before, but with the same background for all the blocks. This time I'm going scrappy on the background as well.  

That pretty much wraps up my 2024 in the sewing room. I'm hoping for a successful 2025.  Linking up with Miss P Designs USA for the 2024 PHD Wrap Up.  

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

2025 Quilting Ambitions

Happy New Year! A new year needs a new stitching plan.  The end of the year is busy, so I've been letting things percolate in my brain a bit before I get serious about writing out my goals for the new year.  The year that was 2024 was one of my better sewing years.  It's a bit daunting to think about how to improve my performance for the new year. But if I don't plan, I don't achieve. It also helps if I look at my goals more than once after I write them. Thankfully, Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl reminds us to look at our goals every quarter in follow up to her 2025 Planning PartyI need that accountability. 



 
 
I'm so happy with how 2024 worked out in the sewing room, it's hard to think of ways to improve on that. So if I can keep up the momentum through 2025, then I will  have done well.  

1.  Make Quilts. My plan last year was just to make as much progress as I could on as many projects as I could. That goal worked out for me so well that I'm keeping it for this year.   This is the quilt plan for 2025.  




The goal is to move the color bar for each project closer to finished.  I'm starting this year with more quilt tops that need quilting than I did last year. I'm hoping to move all of those to finished this year.  Just two quilts that need assembly, but lots of quilts that need the blocks finished and assembly into quilt tops.  I have 4 new projects for 2025, one of which I had to start a bit early. It's probably not the most balanced list. If I can finish more than I start, it would help work down the number of UFOs.  

2. Learn to Quilt.  This has been on my goals for the last 2 years.  I did make some progress on the goal last year. Some of the quilts on my quilt plan are pretty small, definitely doable on my sewing machine.  I've bought the batting and have fabric sandwiches made to practice on. I've been reviewing my books on quilting, now it's time to actually practice and give it a go. It may be all straight line quilting to start, but that still works to finish a quilt. With all the new starts at the end/first of the year (Old Town, BOM, SAHRR) this is definitely something that I won't focus on till second quarter. 

3. Fabric Organization.  Last year was pretty good on this front, but I still have a lot more to do.  I'm down to one bag and one drawer of scraps that need to be processed. 




I also need to continue to work on my fabric closet(s).  There is still a pile of fabrics that need to washed and pressed in my main fabric closet. 



I've taken over one shelf of Grad Girl's closet (she's not using it).  




It definitely needs to be organized.  I'm not really sure what I have in here.  This is probably a second and third quarter priority.  At least that's when I had the most time to work on it last year.  I won't finish the project, but hopefully I can make as much progress in 2025 as I did in 2024.  

In an effort to keep it simple, I'm going to limit my quilting goals to just these three.  I do have some personal goals this year and those are pretty typical.  Get active, lose some weight, declutter the house, and get some house repairs done are the big ones for this year.  I'm hoping to spend more time practicing photography this year, so there will still be a few photo blogs posted this year.  

I'm hoping for a productive year on all fronts.  Happy New Year and best of luck with your own ambitions..  

Happy New Year!