The beginning of April is also the end of the first quarter of 2025. The year is already one third over. At the beginning of the year I wrote up my ambitions for the year. It's easy to get caught up in the every day and completely forget what you actually intended to do with your year. So it's definitely time to look back and see if I'm on track and following the plan. To do that I'm linking up with Quilting Jetgirl for her 2025 Quilting Q1 Check In.
The first few months of 2025 went by quickly. Most of that time was focused on finishing up quilt alongs that started either last year or early this year. So some of my goals didn't get much attention during first quarter, but that seems to be my normal. I'm slower out of the gate on some. Here's where things stood at the end of March.
Ambition 1: Make quilts. The goal is to actually make as much progress as I can on my quilt plan for 2025. Here's the plan for 2025.
Here's how it looked at the end of March.
Three quilts have moved to finished quilt tops and a fourth is at the assembly stage. Not bad progress for the first quarter. If I can move every bar even a little this year, it will have been a good year.
Ambition 2: Learn to quilt. I've been challenging myself with this goal for the last 2 years. I'm going to get serious about that this month since I have a break in quilt alongs. My fingers first typed that there was no progress on this goal yet, but then I remembered Grad Girl's second "learning to sewing" project.
Back at the guild retreat in January, Grad Girl used this cute little kitty pattern to make a trivet. I layered it with backing and batting and tried quilting it just using my normal machine set up. It ended up being a bit wonky and we had to trim a bit off. Still it doesn't look horrible. I did learn why a walking foot is recommended for quilting. She made two of these, the second one still needs to be quilted. That will likely be my first practice project with the walking foot once I finish practicing a bit. (By the way, she loves this trivet and uses it all the time in her kitchen. She wants to make some for her dad for next Christmas. Hopefully, I'll be up to speed by then).
Ambition 3: Fabric Organization. I've been so busy with quilt alongs during the first quarter that I've done nothing on this goal. Last year I didn't make good progress on this goal till second quarter. Looks like that will be the case this year too.
Though I didn't have any official ambitions around new experiences, I do have two for the quarter. One is learning how to write quilt patterns. I started that process back in December with doing a simple block pattern. A whole quilt pattern is more of the same, but has some unique challenges. The second new experience is going on a shop hop. It was interesting, but it was a lot of driving!
This year is off to a good start on the goal front. Hopefully I can keep it up. Second quarter will be over before we know it.
5 comments:
I think your year is absolutely off to a good start. If goals don't push you a little bit, they probably are less goals and more just a to-do list (and I think I'm guilty of falling into a to-do list for the year). I look forward to seeing your work evolve!
I love your graphs! Any progress is good progress, in my book. Starting with smaller projects to do your own quilting is a great idea! Have you seen the walking foot quilting books by Jacquie Gering? I learned a lot from her book, "Walk."
I haven't a clue what I have done this first quarter of the year - I'm not paying close attention to that anymore I guess.
I like how your spreadsheet is organized. I've been using the doll quilts and placemats for more practice quilting things myself. Maybe I'll graduate to the door hangers. LOL
You are off to a great start, and it was hard to read that the year is 1/3 over! So sweet that Grad Girl uses the kitty trivet every day and wants to make her Dad some. :)
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