What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

January is almost over and time to take stock of my goals for one monthly goal at elm street quilts.

 So my first goal for January is to really open, and read, and plan on making this quilt.( editya Sitar flower boxes). I may have to learn a new technique and organize a little differently.
I did open and read the instructions and I took all the fabric and ironed it. I didn't go any further with it.

 I have ordered the backing, and as soon as I can, I want to finish Bonnie Hunter's sister's ...

The FAL is now exclusively ran on IG. I finally posted my (very long) list on Sunday, which was the last day. I still like to keep a list on here that I find easier to refer to. So here what I have put on my (very/too long) Q1 list

Quilts:
1. Modern HST triangles - 1 block missing to have enough for a quilt top but very little background fabric - only one block left to do now 

I thought that while I'm thinking of what I'd like to accomplish this year, I'd take a look at what  I wanted to accomplish last year. And whether I managed to accomplish anything at all. Sometimes it seems that I did very little, but I know from this post yesterday that is not how 2019 went down. 

Back in January 2019 I wrote that I'd like to try to

• continue cleaning and organizing the studio
• finish the last piece in my Bipolar series
• continue work on the cotton series
• make a low-volume, neutral quilt for our ...

Recently, I've been reciting this mantra:  Time to adjust my crown and get to work.  (I don't remember where I saw the original version, but I've been using it several times a day.)  

This morning while I was making an organizing effort, I spotted my real crown, which sits on the head of a papier mache cat, and decided to actually wear my crown for a bit.  

Note: this post was originally published in December of 2016 and updated in January 2019. Hello! I’m trying to stay in organization mode right now…I have an entire week without too many commitments, and I’ve been careful to set aside this week for organizing and for some “just for me” sewing! I hope you’ll enjoy […]

The post 5 Tips for Setting Quilting Goals appeared first on A Quilting Life.

When was the last time you took a vacation?

I know it can sometimes be hard for those of us who are entrepreneurs to let go. After all, will your business run without you? Can you trust being partially or totally unplugged? When can you possibly find the time to go on vacation with all you have to do?

Truthfully, you need time to relax and recharge. If you don’t allow time for that, I believe in the end, you are not as effective at our businesses, and it is ultimately detrimental to your overall health and well-being.

For ...

A brand new page, a brand new year,  a brand new month to plan. Should I go crazy or should I play reasonable? So many tempting new opportunities but also so many oldies, started or not yet that I have pushed down the list of priorities. Let's try to achieve a good balance between newbies and oldies, between quilting and dressmaking.

4. Farmer's ...

Happy New Year Everyone! Last year I set and linked up an OMG with Elm Street Quilts exactly once, in January. I finished the goal, so that was a good thing. I didn’t remember to link up the finish though. And that was the end of my organization plan for 2019! Anyone want to take bets on whether I can do a bit better in 2020? Who knows? I am going to give it a shot though. So many times I flit from thing to thing which doesn’t make for a lot of finishes. Hoping this will help ...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season and that the New Year will be full of good things!  

I'm behind again with correspondence, but loved all the Christmas cards that arrived in the mailbox this year.  Beautiful cards and funny cards and photo cards (it is always fun to see the yearly changes in kids!)  

With the new year I filled out a new American Patchwork and Quilting UFO challenge form on January 1st. I have participated in the past, but I skipped 2019. I have way more than 12 WIPs, so I filled in 12 of them and then looked to see what had been chosen for January. It was #2. My most dreaded and probably oldest WIP. I don't even want to look to see when I started it. *checking* This is a true OMG (the other kind)... over 4 years ago.

I never should have quilted this twin sized quilt on ...

I have really been encouraged by the comments from my post yesterday. How lovely to know that there are others like me, loving scraps and fabric. Thank you so much. Now, I need to figure out a way to get it stored better, and keep it off the floor, because, I am getting clumsy enough, I could break myself. tee hee.
I have developed a system for sewing the sand castles blocks together, that I am surprised when I have one done so quickly. Here is the last batch.

I really tried to narrow down my 2020 goals for this year to a smaller number of items. So here they are!

Write a Book

I have a book that's been swimming around in my head. It's a quilting technique book. 2020 is my year to focus on that. My first step will be to take the big picture ideas I have and to map those into a rough table of contents and bite sized chunks so I can have small 1-day or 1-week goals to work on.

Patterns and Other Product Development

I have numerous patterns that ...

As 2019 comes to a close, I've been looking back at my 2019 Planning Party Post to see how I fared on this year's quilty ambitions, I'll summarize those tomorrow.  I've reviewed enough to decide on the quilty focus for 2020.  I'll share these plans at the 2020 Planning Party hosted by Quilting Jetgirl.  

2019 was a bit of a blur. We moved back into our house, then back out and back into it again. (All in the course of about 2 weeks.) We had an epic family vacation to Ireland in June. And my mom's health took a turn for the worse just after that. She spent a lot of time in the hospital the second half of the year, but is thankfully back home, stable, and generally feeling well these days.

I continue to rail against my perfectionist tendencies. I forget who said it or which podcast the interview was on ...

I have been thinking and thinking about next year's goals. I have spent at least two years working on ufos and I have finished more than I thought I could. But, I am wishing to do something new. I've noticed I went crazy with new, so we will see. I was trying for a top 10 for the year, and next thing I knew, I had 20. I am going to leave it that way, and see how I do. It is 2020 after all.

1. editya sitar baskets - new -I bought this in Utah after my daughter ...

• New projects:

• WIP

• UFO

Our community has a thing for setting goals for ourselves each winter. I enjoy hearing what others decide to focus on and also like to look at the recaps people post on what they did or did not accomplish during the year. It is a bit like setting New Year’s Resolutions except in the sewing/blogging/quilting world. Thank you to Yvonne (Quilting Jetgirl) for hosting a link up each year, reminding us to create some sort of organization to our making.

2019 was a year of change for our family. Julia graduated high school and started college. My ...

I already have one PhD, but this one might suit me better!

There are so many things I want to do in 2020, but one thing high on my list is to reduce the number of unfinished objects (UFOs) in my sewing room. I’d like to substantially clear the decks for a fresh start in 2021.

Many of the unfinished quilts against my name are from my early quilting days (2012-2015). I found that once I became an Island Batik Ambassador in 2018 I didn’t have time to get back to many of my pre-existing UFOs. And while ...

I have a corner of garden party together. I am very thrilled with how it looks. That is why I am a scrappy quilter. I love how a quilt with disparate fabrics can look like they were meant to be together. If I wax philosophical, that is how great human relationships are created. Enough, deep thinking, scrappy quilts are just fun.  I started sewing this quilt 6 months ago, and I have made great progress.