2020 Hindsight

 I couldn't resist using the pun instead of year end reckoning! 2020 was quite a ride, wasn't it? I know a lot of people hold high hopes for 2021, but I don't think flipping the calendar is going to ease the world's problems. Since I don't hold the answers to the world's problems, here is my quilty year end reckoning.

My empty spools for the year-11.9 miles worth of thread used. 

My finishes for the year- 24 finished quilts, 9 were UFO's, 15 new starts.

How did I do on my 2020 goal list? Not that great. Of the three deadline quilts I started the year with, I only completed two of those, but to be fair, the wedding quilt I needed to make can wait, since the wedding was postponed until late 2021.  

I had four quilts I wanted to work on. Of those I finished one, started the second, and never touched the other two. 

I needed to make a couple weighted blankets, and I didn't make any.

My main quilty goal for 2020 was to finish all the quilts from my late sister's clothes. That I was almost successful on, let's just say I'm satisfied with how far I got. 

Today is the last day of the year, and I won't get any sewing done today, or this weekend for that matter. I did manage to get three finishes this week, and I have two more pinbasted and ready to quilt, so I will start 2021 with a couple easy finishes. 

Here's the teal-ish quillow I was asked for. The backing is teal at any rate, and a few of the fabrics are. 

The green quillow I had to add orange to to make enough blocks. I could have used 2.5" strips and gotten all the blocks, but this completely wiped out my green 1.5" strips, so I opted for that. 

Another blue quillow, and I was happy to use up so many blue scraps on all the blue quillows I've made in the last two years! I always have blue fabrics overflowing my bins, and I don't even like blue!

Here they are all folded up into pillows and ready to gift. I don't even think I'm going to wrap these, they pretty much wrap themselves, and no one else is getting a gift tomorrow so not wrapping them seems better. 

We are doing a small get together tomorrow, half of what we wanted to do, but safer for all concerned. I know in my head that eventually life will be "normal" again, but Covid really has made the holidays hard. 

I have been thinking about 2021 quilting goals.

As always, I have some deadline quilts.

I have two nephews getting married in 2021, so two wedding quilts need to be made. I have two grandsons that need big boy bed quilts. 

I REALLY want to finish the weighted blankets I need to make! I'd love to get that off my list for good.

I'll be continuing to bust scraps and work on UFO's, but I don't have any solid goals as far as that goes. I've found using UFO's and scrap projects as my leader/ender project works quite well to make progress on those. 

I'm hoping to finish the king size quilt for DD#1, which I didn't work on at all this year, and finish the quilt for our bed, which I finally started working on. 

My quilty focus for 2021 is going to be quilt kits. I bought a lot of quilt kits from Craftsy/Bluprint, when they had really amazing sales. Some of them I only bought for the fabric, and I've taken those quilt kits apart already and integrated the fabrics into stash. Since the new Craftsy isn't selling quilting supplies, any quilt kits I get sewn up aren't likely to be replaced, I don't normally even look at them. I don't have a firm goal for the quilt kits, aside from getting a few sewn into quilt tops in 2021. I think I have four bins in my cutting station filled with quilt kits, and that's certainly more storage space than I'd like devoted to that. On the upside, concentrating on quilt kits means I can start a new quilt any time I want! I could use a quilt kit for one of the deadline projects I have, but I haven't decided, I have another idea for that that might be better. 

I do plan on 2021 being a no-buy year for quilting. That's not for any reason other than I don't think I'll actually need to buy anything. I did just finish off a roll of polyester batting, but I have one more roll, and I have plenty of cotton batting. If I run out of batting, I'll buy more, if I need something specific, I'll buy it, but buying just to buy? No thanks. I have plenty to keep me busy as it is. 

Wishing us all a better year in 2021! 

Melodie