Year End Reckoning and 2025 Goals

New Year's Eve and/or Day is a great time to go over my goals, whether I met them or not. 

These are my empty thread spools for the year. They represent 30,002 yards or just over 17 miles of thread! I finished 40 quilts in 2024, 30 of which were UFO's. That is a personal record for me, one I do not plan to break in 2025.

So how did I do on my 2024 goals?

1) Make bed quilts for four of my grandsons ☑️

2) Two baby quilts ☑️

3) 40 finishes ☑️

4) Make quilts for my nieces and nephews that don't have one from me- Not finished, but I have one done, one ready to quilt, and several ready to assemble, so well on my way. 

5) One empty hanger in the quilt closet 🤣 Not even close! The problem is I'm making quilts faster than I finish them! I know at this rate I'll never catch up, which is why for 2025, I'm making several non-quilty sewing goals. 

So what are my 2025 goals?

1) I'd like to finish all the niece and nephew quilts.

2) I'd like to finish all the queen/king sized quilts that are started.

3) I have at least one scooter quilt that will be a new start, and I'd like to make DH a quilt from his scrub tops to celebrate his retirement. 

4) I'd like to make 100 pillowcases to donate. I certainly have enough fabric to do that easily, and once the pillowcases are cut out, they don't take long to sew up. I made about 36 this year, in about three weeks from start to finish, so I don't find this an unreasonable goal. 

5) I have a goal to make at least 200 scooter themed luggage tags for DH to use as giveaways at Scooter Zine events we have planned. 

Besides the big quilts in progress I want to get finished, I have no goals for UFO's next year. Will I work on them? Absolutely, but I don't care how many I get done. I think there is 0% chance I'll end 2025 with an empty hanger in the quilt closet. I started 2024 with all the hangers full, plus a huge laundry basket filled with quilt tops. Even with 30 UFO finishes, I have five quilt tops not on hangers, plus some hangers have 2 quilt tops on them. I finished three quilt tops in the last couple weeks, I have another on the design wall, and I have piles of quilt blocks everywhere waiting to be assembled. While the weather is cool, I hope to assemble as many of those quilts as I can. I hate assembling quilts in the summer, since those long rows are always piled up on my lap. I don't mind quilting during the summer, partly because the quilt is only on my lap for a day or two while I'm working on the center, and probably mostly because I quilt by timer and limit FMQ to an hour per day. I can handle it for an hour. 

I'm hoping that by working on pillowcases and luggage tags for a bit of next year, while still doing my hour of FMQ per day, I'll slow down on the piecing, and possibly start catching up on the quilting. I did stock up on quilting thread, but I've been avoiding buying fabric, so maybe I'll see some overall progress. I think 2025 will be quite a ride, so besides finishing things already started, I'm opting for quicker goals. Granted, I'm making a lot of pillowcases, and a lot of luggage tags, but those all take a much shorter time than a quilt. 

All the Christmas gifts have been given now, but I think I'll share pics of those next week! 

Mystery Quilt Surprise and Finish #40

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! Yesterday was a low key day for us, my sister came over for lunch, and we opened the things in our stockings.

DH put some fun fat quarters in my stocking! We're actually waiting until Sunday to open the bigger gifts, that's when we'll have family Christmas with the local kids and grandkids. My sister couldn't wait anymore for one of her gifts. She knew I was customizing a denim jacket for her, but she had no idea what I was doing on it. 

My sister is very creative, and unlike me with my quilting obsession, she does all kinds of crafts. Besides a brief interlude with ceramics back in the 80's, all of my craft endeavors have been sewing related, but my sister does it all. She can draw, paint, make anything out of paper or cardboard (She's made baskets and flowers out of toilet paper tubes!), and she can also sew. I decided to celebrate her creativity on her jacket. Most of my grandkids are also getting customized denim jackets, but not all of them have received them yet, so I won't show them yet. 

Last week I was talking about how to me, the Greek mystery quilt didn't seem cohesive. On Christmas Day, I found out the reasoning behind the designer's thoughts. The entire quilt is actually a game board and she gave us printables for the cards and pieces should we want to play! That was quite a surprise, and a fun idea for a quilt. I'm not a big board game person, so I don't plan on doing that, but it was a good surprise. 

This is finish number 40 for 2024, so I met my goal! It is a king sized quilt, 108" x 108", and will be my last finish for the year. The only other quilt I have basted is also a king, and I'm not even sure I'll have time to start it before the new year starts, never mind finish it! I do not have a longarm, and I need a lot more days off when I'm quilting the huge quilts so my RSI in my arm doesn't get too angry. With twin sized quilts and smaller, I can keep my RSI under control with setting a timer and only FMQ one hour per day. With the bigger quilts, there is so much pushing and pulling the bulk, that even a timer can't completely keep the pain away. Why don't I just pay for longarm quilting? For a quilt that size, it would cost me $350 to get it quilted, and that's just a pantograph, no custom quilting. That's just not an amount I'm willing to pay.

I have several more queen/king quilts I want to make, and those will be my focus for next year. Most of them are already started, in fact, most are ready for assembly or waiting for borders. I'm perfectly OK with getting a only a few finishes next year, if I can knock the largest quilts off my list. I know I only have so many queen/king sized quilts left in me, before I will have to switch to having them longarm quilted, or only make smaller quilts. I figure if I concentrate on the largest quilts next year, I can get those crossed off my list, and take my time quilting them, giving my arm as much rest time as needed. 

I've got a busy schedule for a while. Right now I'm dogsitting, I'm hosting the Family Christmas on Sunday, I've got grandkids spending a couple nights next week, and a bunch of us are going to the zoo to see the Christmas lights there. The first weekend in January, we are cohosting a party for my MIL, and the second weekend in January, I'm hosting a birthday party for the grandtwins. I'll be dogsitting my sister's dog somewhere in there too. I won't get much time in the sewing for a while, so instead, I'm working on some project prep. 

We have several events in the works for DH's scooter magazine next year, and I want to make at least 200 scooter themed luggage tags. I finished tracing the scooters for applique this week, so now it's a matter of getting them all cut out. I've been hunting for a scooter silhouette die in the correct size, but I've had no luck with that. This template will fit on a 2.5" square, and that's about perfect for the size luggage tag I make. If we keep doing events, I may eventually have a custom die made which would save me many hours of work. 

I may not be sewing much right now, but I'm always busy!

Murder Mystery Reveal

 Doing quilt mysteries is a risk. Sometimes I love the results, sometimes I don't. Sometimes, if I had seen the quilt ahead of time, I never would have made it, and THAT'S OK! By my thinking, every quilt you make teaches you something. 

Sometimes you are forced to do techniques you don't know how to do, you may like it, or you may hate it, but it still teaches you that about yourself. When I do Bonnie Hunter Mysteries, I usually change the colors, but I am very familiar with her quilts, and I've mostly liked my changes. I can only think of one time I wish I hadn't changed the colors. Even on her quilts, I've changed the layout several times. 

This is my second year of doing the Murder Mystery Quilt. Last year I had a lot of fun, and although I wasn't thrilled with the final layout, I modified it to be a quilt I like quite a lot. I enjoyed the story and knew who the killer was. 

This year I was doubting the quilt less than halfway through the year, I still have no idea who the killer is, and I wasn't thrilled with the layout as I expected. Whether I am buying a pattern, or doing a mystery quilt, I know the final quilt is my own, and I don't see anything wrong with changing a pattern to better suit my taste. Sometimes what I like changes quite a lot based on what is going on in my life. Right now, there is a lot on my mind, a LOT of changes are coming, and I've been attracted to simpler quilts. This year's murder mystery quilt is not simple, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not my thing right now. When I saw the layout reveal, I actually debated on splitting the blocks into two quilts, and actually tossing a few blocks, but then I realized I didn't want to do that much extra work on this quilt right now, and if I abandon it, to work on "later" I know I'd never go back to it. 

I decided the most efficient way to deal with this, was to finish the quilt center mostly as the designer intended, then change the borders. I felt like there were just too many colors in the quilt, which is weird since I love scrap quilts so much, but with a very scrappy quilt, the colors are distributed all over the quilt, or they are done in gradient or colorwash fashion, something that makes sense to my mind. In this quilt the colors are concentrated in specific areas, and to me, it seems pretty random. I did change the center block, but I used the designers colors, I just used a different block. 

I looked through my stash to see if I had any fabrics that had a good number of the colors in it, because to me, the quilt was not cohesive. I found one fabric that had most of the colors in it, but not all of them. It was a busier print than I would have preferred to use, but since it was my only option without shopping, and I'm not shopping for this, it will have to do. 

Do I like it? No, I don't. Now that it's together I like it better than when I first saw the reveal, but would I have made the quilt if I had known what it would look like? No. Do I feel like it was a waste of my time? Not really. 

The best thing about doing a mystery quilt, especially one that takes place over a full year, is it reminds you to think about the process. I am a prolific quilter, and I can get overly distracted by the finishing, and forget to enjoy the process. 

Want to know what I learned while making this quilt? The center block was supposed to be paper pieced, and it was the only block I didn't finish on time. I was going to do the paper pieced block, but I don't enjoy paper piecing, and I couldn't make myself do it. When I totally double downed on NOT doing the paper piecing, I realized that it's not something I'm even remotely interested in getting better at. I CAN paper piece, and if I really loved something I might do it again, but if I never do it again, that's OK with me. I can make a lot of quilts with traditional piecing. 

I learned that I am picky about how color is used. I've already mentioned how I almost divided the blocks into two quilts, and tossed a couple blocks. I would have used all the blue blocks in a blue quilt. Sure, I would have added stuff to those blocks to make a whole quilt with them, but it bothers me that the only place blue is used is in the blue blocks. 

If I had used the blue blocks in a blue quilt, I would have used most of the other blocks in a green and pink quilt. Sure the center block is only green with white, and the horizontal blocks with concentric squares are only pinks and reds, but with the center border having both pink and green, and the pinwheel blocks and corner blocks having pink and green, they all could work in a cohesive quilt. 

So what would I have tossed? I would have eliminated the yellow, and tossed the orange and brown border. Those colors don't integrate into the rest of the quilt.

Do I think the designer did a poor job? NO! The designer was not just designing a quilt, she was telling a story. I know from her explanation of last year's quilt, that every single thing she puts in the quilt means something, from the colors to the block design to the final layout. What seems random to me, was very intentional on her part. 

I'm taking a break from mystery quilts for a while, I've just got too much on my plate to keep trying to work them in. At least with the quilt top done this quilt will eventually work its way to the top of the quilting queue, and it won't be a UFO forever. 

Finish #39

 I've finally finished Bonnie Hunter's 2022 mystery quilt, Chilhowie! I'm going to ask DH to take it somewhere to get a better photo, but for now, here's the photo I took. I'm so close to my goal of 40 finishes for the year! 

The colors don't look true at all in this pic.

This photo show the colors better. In person this quilt is rich and gorgeous! If I had known how much I was going to love this quilt, I would have made it larger so it work on my bed. I don't have enough of the fabrics I used to make another, nor did I even have enough of the orange to make it large enough to fit my bed. I could have gotten more of the purple and black, but I couldn't find more of the orange. That plum-y purple I'd love to have a whole bolt of, it is gorgeous in person. The teal I used for the background I'm on my second bolt of. 

I still have a couple Bonnie Hunter mysteries to finish. Last year I did two colorways of Indigo Way. One of those is finished, one is not. The one that isn't I completely changed the setting on, and the center is together but I need to add borders. The other Bonnie Hunter mystery that isn't finished is Rhododendron Trail. I wasn't a big fan of that quilt, and divided the blocks into two separate quilts. I know one of those is partially assembled, but I honestly have no idea where I'm at on the second. 

I'm skipping this year's mystery and if I have all my other mystery quilts finished before next year, I might dive in next year. Sometimes I need a break from mystery quilts.

My parents got their Christmas gifts, and I told them to open them early. I made them Quilted Hugs. They live in New England where winters are cold, and considering their kids are retiring, you can imagine they aren't youngsters anymore. It's easy enough to put a blanket on your body while sitting down, but keeping your shoulders warm is tricky. When I saw the Quilted Hugs, I thought they could get a lot of use out of them. 

Since they already opened them, here are some pics.

This is my mom's. I bought the jelly roll I used for it last year during a Black Friday sale, specifically to make her this Quilted Hug. She loves blue and the pearlescence on the fabric was just too pretty to not get for her.

My dad loves watching the squirrels, and when I saw the fabric line the Secret Life of Squirrels, I knew I needed to get some. I bought two of the focus fabrics, plus some acorn fabric, then the rest was stash. 

I got to give a couple of the grands their first sewing lessons this week.

They are both into playing Minecraft, so I had them make Minecraft placemats. It was an easy first project. 

I've got the layout for the Greek mystery now, so that's what I'll be working on this next week, but while I was waiting, I was working on some scrap quilts. 

This did not use up the blue scraps, so there will be more blue quilts coming up. I've got this quilt assembled now. 

This used up some of the autumn colored scraps I was given, as well as an autumn colored applique panel I was given. How old do you think that applique panel was, late 1970's, early 1980's? There wasn't a date on it.  I added in some orphan leaf blocks to make a better number of blocks for the quilt. I love giving forgotten fabrics a home! 

DH and I have been discussing what I would get rid of should we need to downsize quickly, and most of the house is pretty easy, but my quilting stuff is where I would struggle. Offhand, I'd say I'd try to keep any widebacks I have on hand, fat quarters and scraps, any bolts of fabric I have, and I'd get rid of most of my yardage. I'd likely keep most of my quilt kits as well, but probably not all. Scrap quilts are my favorite to make, and even when I go with a strict color scheme, the more different fabrics the better. My best plan is to use up as much as I can before that becomes an issue! I love my stash of fabric, tools and notions, it would really be the hardest part of downsizing for me. We don't have imminent plans to downsize, but there are several scenarios possible that would encourage that. Time will tell, but it's always good to have a plan. 

Christmas Gifts Finished!

Sorry, I've got no photos this post. I've been busy making the last of the Christmas gifts, and I can't show them right now. This is the first time in YEARS I've actually made everything I wanted to. Normally I end up running out of time and crossing stuff off my list. I'm pretty happy with getting it all done. Everything that needed to be mailed is also mailed, with the exception of some Christmas cards. 

Often I'm neck deep in Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this time of year as well, and although I'm following the mystery, I have no desire to do it this year. The reveal for the Greek murder mystery comes out next week, and with my Christmas gifts done, and not doing another mystery, I can get right into the assembling of that quilt top when the reveal does come out. 

I'm really appreciating having a slow finish to the year, instead of a mad dash in the sewing room. That doesn't mean we won't be plenty busy in other areas. Starting the last Sunday in December, we are hosting or co-hosting parties three weekends in a row, and none of those are a retirement party for DH! I'm kind of doubting we'll end up doing a retirement party, since he's retiring at such a busy time of year. He's also been working from home for about a year now, and that changes the work dynamics quite a bit. 

I started FMQ another quilt now that the quilted gifts are done. Piecing wise I'm working on some scrap blocks in an effort to empty a couple project boxes. I like to pre-cut my deadline quilts, and I have two in particular I want to get cut out. If I could get those two quilts cut out by the first of the year, that would be a huge win for me. 

This weekend I've got two of the grands, and one of them at least, will be getting his first sewing lesson. If that goes well, I might try one with his younger brother. I have two projects prepped and ready to go for them, so we'll see. It depends on how they are feeling too, since they've been sick this week.

Hopefully next week I'll have photos for you, maybe a quilt finish, or maybe just the Greek mystery quilt on the design wall.