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!
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