PHD in 2021: December Wrap Up

Year three of Stitching Gail's 2021 PHD program went pretty much like the first two.  I didn't manage 12 finishes, I didn't finish what I started, but at least my UFO count stayed the same.  

There were three finishes this year, I only started 3 of 4 planned starts, and I made progress on 5 other projects.  So it wasn't a horrible year.  

So though it's not PHD worthy, I'm happy with the progress in 2021. 

Cabins and Fans finally made it to the Post Office and Trudy is working her quilting magic on it.

 

Hopefully I'll have a finish before the end of January.  

Unity, the Bonnie Hunter Sew in Place quilt along from 2020, is moving along slowly.  

The top border is almost done.  Since the end of the year, I've finished the last star.  Unity should be a finished quilt by the end of this year. I can safely count on at least 2 finishes for 2022 

The Macaron Mystery from Meadow Mist Designs is almost caught up. 

The square in a square blocks are almost finished. Those should be all finished up the Thursday when the new clue comes out.  

The 2021 Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt along, Rhododrendron, isn't in nearly as good of shape. 

Step 1 is the only clue that's finished.  There was progress on steps 2, 3 and 4 before the end of the year.  I've since made some progress on steps 5 and 6, but I'm a long way from caught up.

Potions was started just before the year ended. It's a graduation present, so needs to get started so it can be finished by May.  

I managed to finish the first test tube. These are going to be fiddly blocks. I'm probably going to have to put some of my other projects on the back burner to get this one finished in time. This needs to be a finish before mid year, so that brings the total to 3 probable finishes for the year.  That would be at least as good as 2021.  

A few more alternate blocks for Scrappy Butterflies made it to the design wall. 

These blocks have been returned to the project box for now.  Potions took it's place in the rotation. Hopefully I can get back to this one later in the year and make some more progress.  

My embroidery project didn't progress much over this Christmas.  

I was finishing reports and then got sick the first week of Christmas vacation, so I didn't have much of a chance to do any handwork while we were off visiting family this year.  I won't be looking for a traveling handwork project any time soon.  

The other project that I made progress on in 2021 is Chocolate Marshmallow (Quilt along from Seabreeze Quilts). 

Back in August I finally decided on a setting. I don't have enough of the dark brown print to do that dark border, so I went searching for an alternative and found one that's almost an exact match to that brown print.  I struggle to figure out how to set some of my finished quilt along blocks, so having the setting all worked out and the fabric in hand means this one is ready to start once I get that far in my PHD list.

There were three finishes.  

Picnic Stars (Red, White and Blue Stars) which was self designed

Fritillaria (Bonnie Hunter's 2020 Grassy Creek Mystery Quilt along)

Wrapped Sweets (Meadow Mist Designs 2019 Morewood Mystery quilt along.

So though I didn't meet my PHD goals, there was still good progress on several projects this year. So I'm going to claim success and cross my fingers that I can do as well in 2022.  

Best of Life in Pieces in 2021

 This is the 7th year that I've played along with Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs Best of series. It's fun to look back at some of the high points posted on the blog this last year.

  

1. Most Views (400): Stitching Time: Week 2 of 2021

I'm not sure why this one had so many views, though it's one of my favorite posts from this last year.  The Scientist in Training took a few stitches on my traveling cross stitch project while we were visiting family last Christmas. From that she decided to give embroidery a try.  She had finished two projects by the second week of the year and hasn't looked back since.  She's been designing her own projects for months now.  

2. Second Most Comments(23): The Oldest UFO

The post with the second most comments documented the finish of what was then my oldest UFO.  Picnic Stars is one of my favorite quilts. The blocks had been finished for years, but I could never figure out how I wanted to set them.  Having finally decided on a plan, it took still took me a couple of years to get it finished up. The post with the most comments (27) was my #1 in this list. 

3. Most Link Ups for the 15 Minutes to Stitch (18): Week 1 and  Week 4

Both weeks had 18 link ups. That's one less than the maximum in 2020. But on average there were 13 participants who stuck with the stitching time goal for 2021, which is up from 9 last year.  Thank you to all the bloggers who stuck with me this year, especially since most of them were much better at blogging about getting in their 15 minutes of stitching time than I was.  

4.  My Favorite Finish for 2021: Grassy Creek ( Fritillaria)

Grassy Creek isn't my favorite Bonnie Hunter Mystery, but there were several other factors that made it my favorite finish for 2021.  The colors are out of my comfort zone so normally I would change them for the mystery, but decided to just stick with them to see how that worked. I like the end result. Another reason it's my favorite finish is that this mystery was finished well before this year's started. That's a first. 

5. My favorite family photo challenge post:  Week 23: Fire or Something Burnt.  

The Family Photo Challenge started as a Father's Day Gift for My Guy.  I bought him a card deck full of photo prompts. We draw a new card every Friday (lately it's been a bit later in the weekend as life has been busy). We've had such a great time with this challenge. We didn't think the Scientist in Training would play along each week, but she enjoys it too.  It's been a really fun family thing we can do even though all of us aren't in the same place. It's hard to pick just one favorite from this year, so I just picked the last post for week 23, Fire or Something Burnt.

That's my Best of Life in Pieces for 2021. Linking up with Meadow Mist Designs Best of 2021. 

2021 MidYear Quilty Ambitions Check In

Back in December 2020, Quilting Jet Girl hosted the 2021 Planning Party to give everyone a chance to think about goals for the new year.  Well, 2021 is more than half over and it's time to check in on the progress (or lack thereof) on My 2021 Quilty Ambitions as part of the 2021 MidYear Checkin. 

2021 Quilty Ambition #1: Finish 8 Quilts in 2021

I'm not doing so hot on this one.  As of July 1st there are only two finishes in 2021. 

My May and June were pretty crappy months at work, so I didn't get much done in the sewing room. That's disappointing.  But in 2020 there were only 2 quilts finished by 7/1/2020, but there were 7 finished by the end of the year. So there is still hope to meet this goal.  

The other part of this goal is to play along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2021.  

The biggest achievement here is that there are no new projects started so far this year. That will change, but limiting the new starts will help me focus on finishing off the older projects.  

2021 Quilty Ambition #2: Stay Focused

To move quilts to finished, I have to stay focused on just a few projects.  What's worked for me on that front is to limit my weekly to do list to just 3 projects.  If I'm trying to finish up a quilt, I'll let the number of focus projects increase to 4. There are 3 focus projects at the moment.  

Beginning of the year to end of June progress on
Unity (Bonnie Hunter), Morewood Mystery (Meadow Mist Designs),
Cabins and Fans (self designed)

Unity, Morewood Mystery, and Cabin and Fans are the current focus projects.  Morewood Mystery should go out for quilting this month and I'm hoping to have Cabins and Fans ready to go out next month.  Unity has been my leaders and enders project. I'm hoping it's ready to be finished up in September. That will get me to five finishes for the year. 

2021 Quilty Ambition #3: Continue to Host the 15 Minutes to Stitch Linky Party 

As of week 27, there have been 26 weekly 15 Minute to Stitch linky parties. I only missed week 14 (due to work trauma, it's been a bad year on that front).  At the end of June, my success rate at finding 15 minutes to stitch was 85.64%.   My goal is to stitch 85% of the days this year, so I'm on track with this goal.  

Not a bad first half of the year, but I'm hoping for better the second half.  Linking up with Quilting Jet Girl's 2021 Midyear Checkin.