Goals for 2015

     When I look back at what I've accomplished in 2014, I am most proud of the 11 quilts sewn for the good of others.  It was toward the end of 2013 when I discovered Katie's Comforters Guild at Seattle Children's Hospital.  10 of the 11 quilts donated this year were given to Children's.  Here are most of the quilts I made over the course of the year.  Apparently keeping track of them all and uploading pictures was not a strong point.

 
1. MMMQG challenge, 2. Sunbeams in Perfect Pairings, 3. Sherbet Pips Charm Square baby quilt, 4. Pacific Crest from Beyond Neutral, 5. Plus, 6. Pink Plus quilt Modern Meadow Hope Valley, 7. Acacia Birthday Cake, 8. Acacia Birthday Cake, 9. Warm HST quilt, 10. Riley Blake leftover geese quilt, 11. tree pants, 12. Crazy Piece Purple Crossknot variation, 13. Icky Thump Modern Metallics quilt, 14. Values Whirlwind, 15. IMG_2273, 16. IMG_2248, 17. RBC challenge

     In addition to making clothes for my kids, I made clothes for myself that I actually wear.  I don't feel like posting pictures of me wearing those clothes so they have primarily gone unblogged.

     In January of 2014 I said

• sew more clothes for myself and kid 1.  Kid 2 has so many hand-me-downs that it would be foolish to sew much of anything unless I am asked to.
• Sew more quilts to donate using the fabric I already have.  
• Finishing the minky quilt for kid 2.  It has been waiting to be trimmed and pressed for more than a month.  Oops.

     Kid 2 did ask for clothes and I did sew for him.  Both Kid 1 and I had handmade clothing added to our wardrobes.  I sewed and donated quilts primarily using fabric from the stash.  The minky quilt was finished pretty quickly after this.

     New Year's Eve I spent time organizing my fabrics so I could find everything and put away the fabric for projects and clothes that I just did not get to.  Why leave them lying around visible if they make me feel guilty about what I didn't accomplish?  

     I do love that I generally clear the slate around this time so I at least don't feel quite as guilty about the intended or started projects that I didn't get to.  This winter break was not an exception as three projects got crossed off the list.  

     

The project list for 2015 seems to be big already.  I am not sure how I feel about tha,t but I do know that the challenge quilts will probably become donation quilts so all will be well in that realm.

• Firecracker by Jaybird Quilts using Freebird or possibly a churn dash quilt using the same fabric  (this has already changed to 20" star blocks)
• Hexagon quilt using Modern Meadow Jelly Roll (desire some assorted solids for this to pair with prints)
• Greek Cross quilt using Perfect Pairings leftovers from the Sunbeams quilt (recently ordered neutral fabrics for this at FQS clearance as I didn't like the solid I purchased originally so that will go on the back)
• Spring MQG challenge quilt 
• Fall MQG challenge quilt (assuming they have one)
• More quilts for Katie's Comforters Guild (using fabric given to me by the guild)
• SSMQG Arts Walk Solids and AMH quilt.  I think I chose a pattern for this and can get started.  And I feel content that I am using a pattern and not any original design or layout.  You can't win them all....We can use only solids and this AMH print.   
• Sew two blocks a month for the charity bee with the guild.
• Keep up with growing kids and their clothing needs but know when it is better to just purchase basics as to not go insane.

• Undecided whether I will participate in the Patchwork City BOM activity with the rest of the guild.  I have the book but I'm not sure if it floats my boat or if I want to use the quilting time I have for that.  Perhaps if I make it with the fabric from Katie's Comforters Guild
• Undecided about the Harry Potter Bookcase QAL.  This will depend on how interested my kids are in it.  I think this might be best done in the summer and not right now.

And if I do not hit publish now, I probably will continue to sit on this post for yet another week or so.  Here goes nothing....

Nearly a clean slate

     I don't do well with unfinished quilting projects.  Blue hourglasses, Purple Crazy Piecing and Blue HST have been bothering me for some time but I haven't done much to fix that problem.  Until the last week.  Hourglasses got pieced first, and then the purple one.  Finally I dug the blue squares out of the box, finished trimming those already sewn and turned the rest of the squares into HST yesterday.

     By late this afternoon, with the help of a wonderful spouse and a nice mother, I had the quilt top finished.  Color placement was nearly all random other than trying to make sure I didn't pair up too many dark squares at any time.  It wasn't until I had the blocks of 16 squares that I bothered to pay attention to placement.  Random is good.  Knowing that I would manage to mix up the order if I were to carefully place all 288 of the squares before stitching makes random sewing totally acceptable.  

     I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this quilt as I was piecing it together today, but as soon as I assembled it, I decided that I was going to keep it.  I really haven't kept many of my recent quilts.  The flannel backing I recently purchased for another project will now give me the backing without needing to purchase any more.  My mother was nice enough to give/loan me one of her batting packages so I could postpone the purchase of additional batting.  

     And although this quilt could be described as a bit chaotic, I calmed down other aspects of sewing life by sorting through all my bins and drawers and putting fabric away where it belongs.  I've been looking at bins with random bits in them and it has been irritating me but I feel much better looking at the more organized chaos of fabric bins.  So on the first day of the new year, I feel much better about nearly having cleared the slate of unfinished quilting projects.  Now to start working on those projects I intended to make but haven't gotten around to yet.