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With the end of March comes the end of the first quarter of 2024.  Hard to believe we've hit that milestone already.  It's a good time to check how well I'm doing at meeting my ambitions for 2024.  Quilting Jetgirl has a first quarter linky party to remind us to do just that.  

Here's where I'm at with my ambitions for 2024. 

1. Make Quilts. My ambition wasn't just to finish quilts, I also wanted to focus on making progress with all the quilts on my quilt plan for this year.  

Here's what ...

First quarter is over and we are already a few days into the 2nd quarter of 2024.  Since March is over, it's time to look my progress towards a PHD and link up with P Designs USA for the March PHD report. This month the report shows a finish for the first time this year. 

Still a long way to go to reach PHD status. But it's nice having the first finish in March versus waiting till September. 

A Flutter was sent for quilting in February.  This quilt was started in 2013, it was my second Rainbow Scrap ...

February always feels like such a shock after January. The first month of the year always seems to be so long and then you blink and February is over.  As the month is over it's time to review my progress (or lack thereof) on my PHD in 2024 and link up with P Designs USA for the February report.  The report is about where I expected it to be at this point, so no surprise on my part.

No finishes as yet and one new start.  Looks like I'm going in the wrong direction.  Maybe, maybe not.  There ...

I wasn't quite ready for January to be over.  Now that it's the first of February it's time to take stock and link up over at Ms. P Designs USA with my progress on my PHD in 2024. It's not the picture I'd hoped. 

No finishes and two starts, with a third start on tap for February.  I still have 11 months to get a few finishes.  Even though I didn't get to that point this month, there was a lot of progress on several projects. 

Scrappy Butterflies (self designed) is now prepped and ...

This will be my 6th attempt to achieve a PHD in quilting projects.  I've yet to manage that.  I doubt it happens this year either, but I won't know unless I try.  There are new hostesses for the PHD in 2024, Sharon Anderson and Susan Hatcher of Ms. P Designs USA.  Here's my list of this year's UFOs for the PHD in 2024.  

My strategy this year is to work on a new quilt or a quilt that needs the blocks assembled plus a quilt top to be finished or a quilt top to be assembled ...

We are already a couple of days into 2024, so it's definitely time to review my progress on my PHD projects this year and link one more time with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023.  It definitely wasn't one of my more successful years in terms of finishes and my report shows that. 

I was able to add one more finish before the year ended.  That brings my total for the year to 3.  Not stellar, but it's one more than I finished last year.  I'll take an incremental increase. I finished three of the small ...

Hard to believe it's December.  Just one month left to reach all those goals we crafted so carefully last December. One of my goals was to play along with Quilting Gail's PHD in 2023 and do better than I did in 2022.  I'm linking up to the November PHD Update with a report that looks better then last month's. 

  

I finished a second quilt in November, which puts my PHD performance on par with last year's in terms of overall finishes.  In addition to the finish, there was good progress on several other projects. 

Another month gone, just two months left in the year.  It's time to review how well I'm doing on moving a few UFOs to finished and link up with Quilting Gail for the October PHD update.  At this point,  my PHD report isn't very impressive.    

The plan for November is to ...

The end of September was hectic with vacation preparations, complicated by a three day migraine.  So blogging went out the window for several days.  Vacation preparations got done, but I didn't have the energy to get into the sewing room to get photos for my end of the month post.  Since I've not done anything stitching related for the last couple of weeks, all I have to post is progress on my quilting goals for the year and my PHD progress for September.  I'm linking up with Quilting Jetgirl's 2023 Q3 Check In.  

2023 Ambition #1 ...

I'm really not ready for it to be September.  The last four months of the year seem to speed by, I guess because we've got the holidays at the end of them.  Even though I'm not ready for the new month, I am happy with all the progress in August. So though I have no finishes to show off for the PHD in 2023 challenge, I can link up over at Quilting Gail's and not feel too badly this month.

Still no new finishes, but also no new starts.  So there ...

The first week of August was a warm one. It was definitely warmer in other parts of the country than here, which is hard to imagine since it was just miserable to go outside to do anything (like get the mail).  It was definitely a good week to stay in and stitch.  Which is pretty much what I did. 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/July = 21/31 days
• 15 minute days/August = 5/5 days
• 15 minute days/2023 = 182/217 days
• Success rate = 83.87%

It hasn't been the best week for long stretches of stitching time, but I've managed to work in some sewing time each day this week.

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/April = 9/9 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 91/99 days
• Success rate = 91.92%

February is almost half gone. I'm on track with things in the sewing room, so I'm OK that the month seems to be speeding by. Work has been mostly calm, so it's been a lot easier to find the time and energy to stitch each day.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/February = 12/12 days
• 15 minute days/2022 = 41/43 days
• Success rate = 95.35%

Weekends always go so fast. I'm not sure what happened to Saturday, but it's definitely Sunday now.  Last weekend is just a blur. My apologies for not posting last Sunday. I did eventually get a stitching stuff post up, but not till late on Monday. Work intervened in what should have been an uneventful weekend.  Thankfully by Monday, the issue was resolved and I was back to my regular schedule by that afternoon.  Still my stitching time did take a hit early in the week.  

• 15 minute days/week = 6/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 29/31 ...

Last week was really good on the stitching front.  

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
• 15 minute days/Jan = 14/16 days
• 15 minute days/2021 = 14/16 days
• Success rate = 87.5%

Welcome to the first 15 Minutes to Stitch Linky Party of 2021. February 2021 will mark ten years of me working to find even just 15 minutes of stitching time most days.  Why just 15 minutes?  That's from the statement "Anyone can do anything for just 15 minutes."  I have no idea where that came from originally.  If you search the Internet it's a common time management/life coaching statement. If you want to make changes to your life (add exercise, start organizing, learn to write) start by finding 15 minutes a day for your chosen activity. Most ...

As 2020 winds down it's normal to look ahead to what the plan is for 2021.  Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl is again hosting her yearly planning linky party, so it's time to commit to a written plan for next year. 

2021 Quilty Ambition #1:  Finish 8 Quilts in 2021

I've been aiming to finish 12 quilts in one year pretty much since I've started writing up annual goals.  The most I've ever finished in a given year is 7.