2025 Quilting Ambitions: 1st Quarter Check In

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.  

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 Party. I 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..  

2024 Quilting Ambitions: 3rd Quarter Check In

With the end of September, also comes the end of the third quarter of 2024.  Just three months left in the year!  It's a good time to look over what the plan was for this year to see if there are any goals that need some attention. Quilting Jetgirl has a 2024 3rd Quarter Goal review linky party to encourage us to do just that.   

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.  

June 2024 PHD Report

Hard to believe that we've already passed the half way mark on the year.  June was busy with lots of non sewing stuff, so though I managed to keep up with my stitching time, there's no progress in my PHD Report. 

No new starts, so that's a positive.  But no new finishes. Even so there was good progress towards making that happen in July.  

My second oldest UFO was moved along and underwent a name change as well.  What started as the Grandmother's Choice quilt along with Barbara Brackman is now Kate's Choice as I've been picking the blocks for this sampler. 

Almost two more rows of blocks have been added since the end of May.  Just two more rows of blocks left to make.  The plan for this quilt is to finish it as a quilt as you go.  I'm hoping to get to the quilting part before the end of third quarter.  We'll see how that goes.  

We went to Texas for a conference and some kitty sitting, so the travel project also saw a bit of progress. 

Since we have family time planned for the 4th of July holiday, it will see some additional progress in July. 

Work on the Wild and Goosey blocks (Bonnie Hunter) continued with the addition of a few new blue blocks.

I've been making these blocks in the RSC colors (So Scrappy).  July's color is teal.  Hopefully I can make some good progress on those.  

My one hope for a finish was the 2023 SAHRR (Quilting Gail).  But the USPS delivered my check for the quilter to the wrong address, so that delayed the shipping back to me.  

I did get the binding made and attached to the front, but there wasn't enough left of the month for me to finish the hand stitching to the back.  There will definitely be a finish for July.  

Indigo Way (Bonnie Hunter) inched along in June as well.  

The last 4 setting triangles are not quilt assembled, but I'm getting close.  I discovered as I was putting these blocks up on the wall, I've been laying out the rows incorrectly.  I'll need to stay on top of that when I get to assembly. 

The 2024 SAHRR was given a good press and de-threaded last weekend.

It was packaged and shipped out yesterday. So hopefully it will be quilted and back before the end of July.  It would be nice to have another finish before the next PHD report. 

I didn't quite get the Guild BOM caught up for June. 

July's block will be one of the 12" blocks, so it should go a bit faster than June's did. 

The June progress tracker shows one more bar almost all the way across the chart.  

Not much movement on the rest of the chart, but not all progress shows up well in a chart.  Next month there should be some more obvious changes in this chart (fingers crossed). 

Linking up with P Designs USA for the June PHD Report.  

2023 Quilting Ambitions Q2 Check In

Way back in December of last year I posted about my 2023 quilting goals and linked up with Quilting Jetgirls 2023 Planning Party.  We are a little more than halfway through the year, so it's time to take a look at how those plans are going and to link up with the 2023 Q2 Check In.  

2023 Ambition #1: Finish some quilts, make progress on some quilts and start some quilts. 

I've moved a few projects along this year, but no finishes yet. Back in December this year's plan included 4 new projects, but I ended up adding a 5th.  Not much progress on the older UFOs, but there has been some good progress on projects started in 2021 and 2022.  I still have a little over 5 months to get in a few finishes.  I've done a much better job of starting new stuff than I have finishing off the old stuff so far this year. 

2023 Ambition #2: Acquire a new skill. 

My plan was to learn to quilt my own projects now that I'm retired. I've not done anything on this front as yet.  

2023 Ambition #3: Stitch 15 minutes a day and post associated linky party.

So far there have been 25 linky Stitching Stuff linky parties with an average of 12.6 link ups so far in 2023.  I've managed to stitch 85% of the days in 2023, which is much better than I did last year. My goal for 2023 is to stitch at least 75% of the time.  

2023 Ambition #4: Sewing room clean up.  

• Press, cut and sort scraps: progress
• Organize yardage: no progress

I did really well during first quarter at taking a half day on Sunday to work on the sewing room clean up.  I've not done so well at during the 2nd quarter.  Something to refocus on for July, August and September. 

So I need to refocus my efforts for the later half of the year if I'm going to achieve all my quilty goals for 2023.  

2023 Quilting Ambitions

With just three more days in 2022, it seems like a good time to set my ambitions for the new year.  Plus it's time for Quilting JetGirl's 2023 Planning Party. 

I usually review quilting accomplishments after the year ends, so I'm going to jump right into my ambitions for 2023. 

Ambition #1.  Finish some quilts, make progress on some quilts, and start some quilts.  

The last couple of years I've focused almost 100% on my UFO list. That hasn't produced the best results. The plan for this year is to focus on finishing off the 2021 and 2022 mystery quilts first. I've also picked three UFO's to make progress on, but not necessarily finish. The plan includes 4 new quilts for 2023.   

My goal is to finish some old stuff, but play with some new stuff too. My new project diet the last few years just hasn't been a lot of fun and may be one reason why my enthusiasm for the quilting room took a nose dive earlier this year.  Looking back I finish more when I have more new projects on the list. We'll see if this approach leads to more finishes or if it just ups the UFO count by the end of the year. 

Ambition #2.  Acquire a new skill.  Now that I'm retired, I'm hoping I have the time to quilt my own projects.  Plus with the reduced budget that comes with retiring, it will be more cost effective. I probably won't quilt all my projects, but will be more selective as to what goes out and what I keep to do myself.  But first I need to learn how. I'm not sure if I'm going to try for a quilt as you go for my first effort or if I'll jump right in on one of my throw sized UFO's.  I'll decide that later. 

Ambition #3. Continue to strive to stitch on something for at least 15 minutes per day and keep up the associated linky party.  I designed a new button for 2023. 

I'm hoping to do much better on keeping up with my stitching time next year, my goal is to stitch 15 minutes a day at least 75% of the year. 

Ambition 4.  I really need to do a good sewing room clean up, which means getting control of my stash.  My plan for 2023 is to press, cut and sort my scraps. 

I don't have as much as many do, but some of the scraps have been sitting in the bags for 16 years.  

I also want to organize my yardage.  I've been building my retirement stash for years, but a lot of it is in plastic bins that I can't see. Getting it all sorted and into the stash closet would really improve my ability to select fabrics for new projects. 

There is no stash usage goal for 2023. I long ago learned that it's just not a meaningful metric for me.  Maybe that will change this year, I've been tracking my usage for years, it's just never that impressive.  

Those are my main ambitions for 2023.  My work status isn't completely resolved. Right now I'm thinking my retirement is permanent, but things could change on that front. Even if I do go back to work, all the ambitions should be doable. Though my motivation to learn to quilt could be lessened a bit with less available time and a higher budget.  

Linking up with Quilting Jetgirl for the 2023 Planning Party.  Good luck with all your ambitions and goals for the new year. 

The 2019 Quilt Plan

The year is winding down, so it's just natural that we start to think of what's the plan for next year.  Well at least it's natural for me to do that, I'm a planner.  Plus American Patchwork & Quilting has kicked off their 2019 UFO Challenge.  

Deciding what's on the quilt plan is my first step in setting the quilty ambitions for the next year.  So here's my list UFO list for 2019

For the 2018 challenge, a new number was picked each month and that was the quilt I worked on.  My problem with this system is that it's very rare that I finish a quilt in a month.  In 2017, the finished quilt list included 7 quilts, some of which were started from scratch.  In 2018, the finished list has only 4 on it.  Looking back, in 2017 I stuck to my quilt plan, finishing the first quilt in the list before moving on to the second quilt on the list.  I'm going back to that strategy in 2019. 

In picking the quilts for the list, I started with the quilts closest to being finished, then from oldest to newest.  Here's the quilts for this year.

That takes care of the UFO part of the 2019 plan.  Now for the new project part of the plan.  I tend to do a pretty good job of finishing off my starts each year (well maybe not the Bonnie Hunter mysteries).  But what's the fun in not starting a bit of new stuff? 

1.  Rainbow Scrap Project:  Wild and Goosey blocks
2.  Meadow Mist Designs Mystery
3   Bonnie Hunter 2019 Mystery
4.  Quilter's Hideaway mystery series
      a.  Patriotic (May to July)
      b.  Autumn (Sept/Oct)
      c.  Christmas (November)

That's six new starts.  Hopefully I can finish 7 quilts so the quilt list will go down by at least one.  

Now that both those lists are drafted, it's time to decide on my other quilty ambitions for 2019.  How are you plans for 2019 coming along?

Edited 1/1/2019:  I'm also planning on participating in Quilting Gail's PHD in 2019. Not sure I can finish all my planned starts in 2019, but I'm hoping to make some significant headway on the UFOs.  

Ambitions for 2017

As the year winds down, it's just natural to start looking towards plans for the incoming year.  I've taken a bit of time the last few days to assess how my 2016 went and where I'd like to see things go in 2017.  I've had the extra advantage of reading many of the posts over at Jet Girl's 2017 Planning Party. 

Now I'm finally ready to post my ambitions for next year.  Mine are rather plain Jane vanilla, but they focus on where I want to go next year. 

1.  Finish a few quilts.  Participate in the One Monthly Goal and UFO-2017 to help with this effort.  My 2017 quilt plan can be found on the 2017 Quilt Plan tab.  The "have to" finish quilts are Bejeweled, Geometry, and The First Amendment Quilts.

 2.  Participate in challenges and mystery quilt alongs.  These are some of my most favorite quilting and blogging activities.  Yes I have a long UFO list, but saying no new quilts just takes the joy out of the sewing room.  Plus planning which ones I'm going to participate in drives me to finish the quilt along projects from the previous year.  Here's next year's list:

     1.  RSC 2017 - Fan and Log Cabin blocks
     2.  2017 Meadow Mist Mystery
     3.  2017 Bonnie Hunter Mystery

3.  Manage the stash/organize the sewing room.  This is an ongoing battle for me (like most quilters I think).  I have lots of pretty fabrics, but not all of it is where I can see it and use it. 

     1.  Use 70 yards of fabric
     2.  Spend 30 minutes per week on sewing room organization
     3.  Make Wild Goose from Bonnie Hunter's book Addicted to Scraps (I have a ton of scraps that need to get into a quilt and this one looks like a good one to make that happen).  

4.  Make time to sew.  Seems obvious, but with a full time job, a husband and a daughter, there are lots of other things in my life too.  Making a conscious effort to get to the sewing room for 15 minutes will make a big difference in fulfilling my first ambition of getting a few quilts finished.

5.  Work on my blogging skills. The blog community functions as my quilting guild since the local one only meets while I'm at work. The quilty blogsphere is a wonderful source of friendship, feedback and inspiration.  This year was my worst in terms of posting and content since I started blogging 7 years ago.  So it's time for some refocusing here.

     1.  Post three times a week
     2.  Improve my photography intended for the blog
     3.  Write 4 tutorials this year
     4.  Review progress on these ambitions at the end of each quarter and report the progress or lack thereof on the blog.  

Those are my ambitions for the year.  Putting together the list is a good start, but sometimes the implementation doesn't go so well.  At any rate, good luck on your ambitions for 2017.  We'll know in about 12 months how we all did.  

Linking up with Jet Girl's 2017 Planning Party.  

Where Was I?

It was a short week for me.  Even so, it feels really good that the weekend is here now.  I mentioned last week that between work, Internet issues and family stuff that there just wasn't much to post.  The source of my Internet issues was my computer, but it was aggravated by the fact that I was trying to connect to the hotel wireless.  The family stuff going on was our summer vacation, which is why I was trying to connect via the hotel wireless.  The computer never would connect via the hotel.  Thankfully the Internet was stable and connectable at the house we rented for the last half of vacation.  I was able to do a little posting and a lot of catching up on everyone's blogs last weekend.  

We got home on Wednesday, but I didn't make it back to sewing room till Thursday.  After being gone for 10 days, plus being sidelined due to the long hours at work the week before we left, I had to spend a few minutes figuring out where I was on everything. This month's one monthly goal is to get Zombies in Paris to the finished flimsy stage.  I found those blocks, plus the parts and pieces for three other projects that were laying around the sewing machine.

So the plan for this afternoon is to make a bit of progress on these four projects.  

That's it for the quilty content for this post. I took a ton of photos during our vacation and decided to share just a few.  So continue on if you want to check out a few scenes from the Upper Peninsula and northern shores of Michigan. 

We started out in Traverse City, which is close to Sleeping Bear Dunes.  We spent our first morning climbing and hiking in all that sand.  From there we drove up the coast to Mackinaw City. 

Our hotel room there looked over Lake Huron, which was peaceful and gorgeous at sunrise.  

You can't go to Mackinaw City without taking the ferry over to Mackinac Island.  The Round Island Light house marks the entrance to the docks.  

We rented bikes and rode around the island.  But our favorite spot ended up being a coffee shop looking out over all the sailing boats. 

After the detour to Mackinac Island, we took a day trip up to Tahquamenon Falls in the Upper Peninsula.  

   

The golden yellow water is due to the high level of tannins that come from the surrounding vegetation.  The water really sparkled in the sun.  After our day trip, we headed back towards Traverse City, but spent a few days in Charlevoix.  We spent one day hiking along the Lake Michigan shoreline.  I've not been able to identify these pretty wildflowers, but they were everywhere. 

Our last day in Charlevoix we headed to Boyne City for a kayaking trip down the Boyne River. 

This was the calm part of the trip, it was a lot more exciting upstream of here.  Let's just say that we spent some of the trip hanging on to the kayak rather than riding it in.  The end wasn't completely without excitement.  In order to reach the dock, we had to go under the bridge where the flowers are sitting.  It looked like this:

We had to lie down in the kayak to get through that.  But it was pretty smooth sailing after that.  

Our last day in Michigan found us back in Traverse City where we had the most distinct feeling we were being watched.  

It was a very relaxing vacation.  The Great Lakes are beautiful, the food was really good (I have enough pictures for post just on the food) and the people were really friendly.  We had a great time.  But now it's time to get moving on back to school stuff for DT and on finishing up a few things before a big project deadline on Thursday.  I'm already ready for next year's vacation!  

2016 Quilting Goals

Before writing this post, I looked at last my goals for 2015.  To be honest, I haven't looked at those since I wrote them.  But, I did regularly review and generally stick with my 2015 Quilt Plan.  Stash management was also a focus in 2015, but what I worked toward wasn't really in my goal.  So I'm taking those lessons to heart in writing my 2016 quilting goals. 

1.  Follow my 2016 Quilt Plan.  
            Finish 8 UFOs/WIPs
            Start 7 new projects

2.  Use more fabric than I buy.  

To make both 1 and 2 happen, I need to get into the sewing room more.  Which leads to me goal 3.  

3.  Sew for at least 15 minutes every day.  

Here's my UFO/WIP/New Project List

The quilts listed in red are the ones to be completed next year. My basis for choosing these quilts is that they are the UFOs closest to completion or are currently WIPs.  The seven quilts at the bottom of the list are the ones I plan to start next year.   

Wish me luck, I've never completed more than 7 quilts in one year and the 2016 plan calls for 8.  I used more fabric than I bought in 2015, that the first year that's happened in the 6 years I've been tracking stash in and outs.  Can I repeat next year?  I'm going to have to keep deleting those fabric shop emails to make that goal again this year. 

I'm linking up with Val's Tuesday Archives, as she's bending the rules a bit this week to showcase future efforts rather than past achievements.