Year End Reckoning and 2023 Goals

 I hope everyone is having a great holiday season, no matter which holidays you celebrate! Christmas Day was pretty quiet around here, my sister came over and had a nice meal with DH and me. 

The day after Christmas a bunch of us went to ZooLights. We piled all the grandkids we had with us on a crocodile statue to snap a pic. A couple of our grandkids spent the night and we played games, and had a good time. 

I hadn't planned on getting much of anything done this week. Our big family get together will actually be January 1st, so I've got stuff to do for that, and I knew there would be several interruptions because the grands are out of school for holiday break, and I'll take time with the grands over quilting every time. 

I did get all of my clue five blocks done for the Chilhowie mystery. I'm hoping we make a lot of progress in the next two clues, because my murder mystery quilt starts the second week of January! 

I was trying to tally up things for 2022. I didn't bother figuring out how much yardage I used on quilts, because I think it's safe to say I used 100 yards of fabric just on the non-quilty things I made this year. 

2 pairs shorts, 2 dresses, 23 pairs of pajama pants, 2 nightgowns, 61 rally bags, 34 bowl cozies, and 88 luggage tags. Add the 24 quilts I finished in 2022, and I am way over the 100 yard dash! 

Here are my empty spools for the year. One of them only has the bottom, because I used up the spool during the month I stayed at a hotel, and I tossed the tube, but kept the bottom to remind myself I finished another spool. That small number of spools represents 9.5 miles of thread. The big cones don't look like much, but they are 2-3 miles of thread each. 

Of my 24 quilt finishes, 11 were UFO's. I'd like to get more UFO's finished in 2023.

Goals for 2023? I've struggled with this one. I do have a few deadline projects. I have at least one baby quilt to make, but I'm expecting that number to go up. I have at least two rally quilts to make, plus the rally bags and whatever other projects I do for that. I also have two grandkids who are wanting new quilts for their birthdays. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how I worked this year. I allow myself as many starts as I want as long as it's using stash, preferably scraps or a quilt kit. If I need to buy for a specific project I will, but overall I'd like to buy less in 2023. To be fair, almost all my purchases in 2022 were either for a specific project, or they were basics like solids and blenders, or it was fabric from a thrift shop that was dirt cheap. 

I think my biggest goal for 2023 is actually just to empty some project bins and totes. I don't have any empty bins or totes right now, and I'd really like to have a few empty. I have several that I could empty just by assembling the quilt that's in it. For the past couple years I've made it a habit to baste at least one UFO for every new start or deadline quilt I baste. I think I'm going to have to make it a habit to do the same with assembling quilts. Quilt tops don't stress me out, but piles of blocks or quilt parts can. I've gotten pretty good about looking through my quilt closet first when I need a quilt to gift. At least two quilts I gave as gifts this year, I just grabbed quilt tops from the quilt closet and quilted them when I needed them. That's an easy finish, but somehow if I have a quilt top partially done and need a gift, I'm more likely to start a new one than finish the one in pieces for that gift. I'm glad I figured that out about myself, because it rings so true, and now I know I need to get a quilt top assembled before I will count it as an option for a gift. 

If I had to sum up my 2023 goals in a phrase, I'd probably choose,

Keep Calm and Quilt On! 

Really, if I just keep doing what I've been doing, I'll meet my goals. I need to focus a bit more on getting things to quilt top stage, but that's more of an adjustment than a big change. I've been using UFO's and scrap projects as my leaders/enders for the last couple of years, and that's been a huge help. 

I'm calling 2022 a quilting success for me, and I'm hopeful for 2023! 

Prepping for 2023

 It's been a good week of finishing 2022 projects up.

This is the quilt I finished last week, but couldn't show until it was gifted. It should be on the recipients bed by now. 

I've also finished all the Christmas pajamas, be it pants or nightgowns. 

I've got clue 4 done for Chilhowie Mystery quilt too. Here's a couple of the units, but they are all finished.

I also played with the cutoff triangles from clue two, and I made three of these blocks.

This block looks big in the photo, but it's 7" unfinished. I think I'm going to frame with teal to make it a little bit bigger, then make the three blocks into potholders. I don't usually save cutoffs this small, but there were so many of them, I just couldn't throw them away. 

I got my Christmas present from DD#2 and DSIL already, and it was exactly what I wanted, and I couldn't be more excited about it! I've done several mystery quilts, but they gave me a subscription to the Murder Mystery Quilt For 2023 it's a Viking themed mystery, and every month  they send you a chapter or two of the mystery story, along with the directions to a quilt block. As the quilt comes together, the designs give you clues to help you solve the mystery! I started pulling some fabrics for that mystery, but I'm not sold on what I pulled, so I may just wait and pull fabrics as the blocks are made. 

Have you ever heard of a Temperature Quilt? I started hearing about them in 2019 or so, and it sounded fun, but I was swamped with wedding quilts at the time, so I put the idea aside. I already have a lot to do for 2023, but I do have a bit of extra time right now, and I knew if I get get the prepwork done now, I could probably make a Temperature Quilt in 2023.

If you google Temperature Quilt, you'll get a lot of different hits and different ideas of how to do one. Most temperature quilts I've seen follow the highs and lows of each day during the year. Some only use the average temperature for the day. Some people add a lot of detail, and add markers for record temps, or track precipitation too. How many colors of fabric you use, and what your temperature spread is varies widely too, and a lot of that is determined by where you live. 

I pulled a rainbow of colors from stash. I've since eliminated one of the greens because I realized cut small they would look too similar. I still have 22 fabrics in play. I needed to figure out what unit I wanted to make, and how I wanted to divide the temperatures in Tucson, Arizona so it would work with 22 representative fabrics. To help me out, I checked out the record highs and lows over the last few years.

Tucson, Arizona record temps in Fahrenheit degrees

2017- high- 116   low- 28

2018- high- 112   low- 26

2019- high- 110   low- 27

2020- high- 113   low- 24

2021- high- 115   low- 30

2022- high- 111   low to date- 26

Tucson's highest temperature ever recorded was 117 degrees in 1990, and the lowest ever recorded was 6 degrees in 1913. We had an outdoor pipe rupture in 2011 when it hit 13 degrees at our house, which is a bit cooler than the airport and the official temperatures. 

Since water freezes at 32 degrees, and we don't usually get much colder than that, my first category (dark purple) is 32 degrees and below. Other places I've lived would need many more cold categories, but for Tucson, I think it will suffice. If we have any crazy single digits in 2023, I may just add another fabric. 

Once I decided the lowest category, I needed to figure out how many degrees each color should represent to get close to our high temps with the remaining 21 fabrics. I chose 4 degree increments. 

Since I really hate hot weather, you better believe I'm hoping to not need the darkest red fabric, 113+. 

As far as what unit you can use for temperature quilts the sky is the limit. Since I know 2023 will be a busy year, I wanted to keep things simple. I am going to make flying geese units, one per day. The main goose will be the high temp of the day, the corners will be the low temp. If it's sunny per usual, the flying geese will point up, if we get rain, it will point down. If we get snow, which does happen occasionally, it will point down and I think I'll applique a tiny snowflake on the goose. Each month will be a column of the quilt. 

I've already cut my fabrics into 2.5" strips. I know I cut way too many strips, but they are jelly rolls sized, so using the extras will not be hard. I don't know how many of each strip I will need, so cutting too many seemed wiser. I didn't want to use one of the fabrics for something else, then not have enough. 

I've got my mini companion angle and mini easy angle packed up with the strips and the color key, so that 2023 project is ready to go. I don't think making one flying geese unit per day will be that hard, and by going simple, it should be easy to catch up if I get sidetracked. 

If I like doing that, maybe in 2024 I'll try the Itty Bitty House challenge, where you mkae a tiny house block every day, or even combine the two, high temp for the roof, low temp for the house....hmmmmm....we'll see! 

24 Quilts Finished in 2022

 If I had to throw out a number of how many quilts I'd like to finish in any given year, I'd likely say 24. There are years I've finished more, in 2019 I finished 37 quilts. There are other years I only finish 3 or 4. 24 is a good number though, it's an average of two per month, and given how many UFO's I have lying around, it's not an unreasonable number. 

I'm a little surprised I actually finished that many quilts this year. I wasn't home two months of this year, and there was another month I couldn't sew due to other obligations. I think the only reason my number is that high is 11 of the quilts were finished quilt tops at the beginning of this year, so all I needed to do was quilt them. 

I can show you number 23 now.

It's such a cheery quilt, it was a good one to quilt in the several cloudy days we've had lately.

I often choose a backing based on what color quilting thread I'm going to use, but this time I backed with teal and quilted with pink. Wow, does the quilting show up on the back! Every mistake shows up too, which is why I often match the backing to the quilting thread. 

The color of the fabric is more accurate in the first photo, but in this one you can really see the quilting in a different color really jumps out at you. A busier backing would have hidden the quilting too. My FMQ has gotten better over the years, but there's still a lot of the time I feel like hiding it is the safer option. 

The 24th quilt I'll show in a week or two, it's a Christmas gift so I won't show it until it's gifted. I have no qualms about it being opened early, so maybe next week. 

I've got all of clue 3 of Chilhowie Mystery quilt finished. Since I'm not going scrappy there's no reason to show them all. I looked at clue 4 and I have the Accuquilt dies for that step too, so it will be an easy week for me. I saw so many women struggling with the quarter square triangles, and when they are die cut, they couldn't be easier; no dog ears to trim, no sliver trimming, just perfect little blocks. 

I'm still not done the Christmas pajamas! Part of that is because I made finishing the quilt my priority, and part of it is because I've found out that due to growth spurts, the pajamas I already made aren't not going to work for some kids. I've cut out new pajama pants, and now my goal is to get those done and they'll either fit or they won't. I've learned my lesson, I'm never making everyone pajamas for Christmas again. That's not to say I'll never make pajamas again, just not for Christmas. My family is really big and to make that many I had to start too early. If I do it for a birthday or something that's spread out and I'm only making one or two at a time, it's much more reasonable, and less likely to run into these kinds of complications. The good thing about growing kids though, someone will likely grow into the ones that aren't working now. 

Pajama pants and nightgowns are my only before Christmas goals now. The other quilt I would have liked to finish can wait. With only two weeks left of 2022, I'm not going to make myself crazy and be all stressed out for the holidays. Now to come up with ideas for next Christmas that aren't size dependent! 

A 30 Year Search Finally Comes to Fruition

 Compared to kids nowadays, I had few toys as a child. I had a LOT of stuffed animals, and we had some family board games, and I had a couple dolls, but compared to what today's kids often have, it wasn't a lot. I'm glad my parents didn't save all my childhood toys, there was no need to do that. They did save the doll cradle my grandfather made me, which my girls played with, and now it's going through my granddaughters. That was worth saving.

There's only ever been one toy I wished I still had, and I've been looking for it it for 30 years or so. I wished I could have found it when my kids were young, because there's really nothing like it. So what was it? A set of stencils. I know, you're probably thinking you can get stencils everywhere, even a dollar store, and you can, but not like THESE stencils! 

These stencils don't look like anything, you can't always tell what you are going make. I've searched for them in thrift stores, antique shops and online, but the thing is, I couldn't remember the brand name. I used search terms like "turning stencils" or "stencils by the number". The other night I was up late, and I tried "vintage rotating stencils" AHA! that was it! The toy I was remembering went by Rotodraw in the USA, but Rotadraw in the UK. There were various versions of it as well. I saw Rototot, and Rotaword. Once I knew what they were called, finding them on ebay was a breeze.

I ended up buying a lot that had both the regular Rotadraw discs, and the Rotaword. I think I only had three or four discs as a child, maybe even five, but certainly no more than that. Now I've got plenty to share with my grandkids. There is still a Rotodraw set being made, but it's very simplified compared to these. These you have to turn the discs and line up marks multiple times, the version being sold new now only has four settings, and the crank moves the disc the right amount for you. I've always had a hard time explaining how to use these, but thanks to YouTube, Here's a link of how to do it.

https://youtu.be/blI1iSawb0A

This is a close up of the first one I did with these discs. I know stencils are a weird thing to long after from childhood, but I actually think it's the same reasoning behind why I love quilting. You take a bunch of seemingly random shapes, and you put them all together, and it makes something amazing! 

Speaking of amazing, I made it to my sister's craft fair, even with two of my grandsons in tow. 

She had worked hard for months making stuff for the craft fair. Unfortunately, it was raining the day of the fair, and people in southern Arizona aren't used to the rain, so not many people made it out. It was such a shame because she had some great stuff!

I finished pressing all of clue two of the Chilhowie Mystery quilt. I swapped the orange and purple placements from Bonnie's choice, and teal is my neutral. Other than the mystery quilt, everything I've been working on is for Christmas, so no pics of that! I'm not going to be accused of perfection on this quilt, there's a bit of wonkiness going on in these, but nothing so drastic I am going to redo them. They are just my leader/enders for my Christmas project, which takes precedence. I don't like doing knocked off corners as leaders/enders, I find I'm not as accurate as when I chain piece them. Still, I want to play along, and I've got deadlines on other things, so I'll take some imperfections. I'm good at fudging during assembly, so I think it will be fine. On the upside, I'm loving how my colors are are looking together! I've got a guess on what these units will be, but I'll keep my guesses to myself. 

Mystery Quilt Beginnings

 I have two mystery quilts that aren't fully assembled yet, which of course didn't stop me from starting another one. Last year's Bonnie Hunter mystery I changed up quite a bit, and I'm making one quilt into two. One of those is almost a top, one of them I still need to make alternate blocks for. 

The Ruby Jubilee Mystery from Quiltmaker magazine I have yet to assemble, though I do have all the parts finished. I think I'm going to change it up a bit too, and I've been too busy to plan that out. 

UFO's don't stress me out enough to stop me from starting something new, so here I go on the Chilhowie Mystery.

I finished Clue 1, and since I'm not going scrappy You get the idea from just a couple of each unit. On this step at least, I'm happy I swapped the purple and orange placements. When you switch up the colors, you never know how you did until the end. I know Bonnie often lures us in on easy step 1's, and I've done enough of her mysteries to know it won't stay this easy. I did find it intriguing that the amount of one of the units she had us make is a prime number....Makes it more mysterious I guess. 

Besides working on clue one which didn't take very long, I made the "last" of the pajama pants. I put last in quotes, because now that I see them done, I think I should have made one persons a different size, so I might be making another pair just in case the ones I made don't fit. I started one of the nightgowns I need to make, it's about half done. 

I've also been working on a couple quilts I want to get done in December. Two are memory quilts, and I thought I was so smart and had it figured out how I was going to make it, until I actually went through the clothes again, and realized my perfect plan wasn't so perfect after all. Now I'm back to square one on those. I think I'm just going to cut apart the clothes and start prepping them with French Fuse, then I'll see what options I actually have. 

The other quilt I want to finish in time for Christmas is coming along nicely. I need to get the border cut soon, because it will be a pieced one, and the blocks are finishing up quickly. 

This weekend I'll have a couple of grandkids and a granddog, so it will be a no sewing zone for a couple days. If I manage any time at all in the studio, I'll try cutting the second clue of Chilhowie once it's out. 

When I came upstairs from sewing one day this week, I saw a coyote napping in my neighbor's driveway. He's a really healthy looking one, and from the reduced number of rabbits in the neighborhood, I have an idea how he got that way 😉 I went outside to take the photo, and he was completely unconcerned about me being out there.