Tuesday, December 31, 2024

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! 

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