Quilting goals for 2018

Quilting Jetgirl is once again holding her:

click on the image to join the party

for which I am very grateful as it gives me the opportunity to step back and look around my sewing room.

Seeing posts on goals for 2018 reminded me that I made such a list last year too; 😔 what was on it?

1. Tidy my sewing room
2. Make a planner.
3. Continue trying my hand at improv.
4. Decide which of my WIPs are really UFOs, and make, or join in, a system for resurrecting  UFOs.
5. Linked to no. 4 above: try harder to resist the temptation to start something new!!
6. Try to find other, preferably "modern", quilters locally (area of The Hague, Netherlands) who would like to sew together with me on a regular basis. At the moment the world wide web is my quilting community, and much as I love you all, some face-to-face contact would be welcome.

Unfortunately only 3. and 6. have borne any result. The improv "Floating Squares" is a completed top. and I'm mulling over ideas for the backing which I wrote about here. There is now a Dutch branch of the MQG and that has provided some interesting online contacts over the last eight months, but I have only actually met two of the other members.

So what is my list for 2018? 

It's exactly the same as for 2017! 

with the addition of: 

1. doing some of the Craftsy classes I've already paid for! and 
2. pulling myself together and getting these quilted:

RSC 2015: (no completed photo!)

RSC 16

     

 

 

Quiltville mystery 2016

along with my Quilty 365 circles quilt which is now almost being hand quilted, and "Floating Squares", now waiting for backing! 

They are really all too pretty to stay packed in plastic boxes.

Is it realistic?

Yes! I'm due to finally retire on 30 April (I retired once before and was promptly asked to come back) but this time it's for real, so I should have more time to spend on hobbies.

OK, and now to put my best foot forward and achieve some of my goals starting with a mega clean-up!

I'm linking to

 Click on the button to see the other guests!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Quilting Goals for 2017.

Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl is holding a link up for 2017 goals. Click on the button for the link.

At the eleventh hour I'm posting my quilting goals for 2017.

1. Tidy my sewing room (aka guest bedroom), so that next year it might even be possible to see the guest beds!

   

   this was one year ago, and now it's even worse!

   And hopefully use them. And secondly (more importantly) possible to know what I have in my stash and where it is, in order to avoid spending an hour looking for "that dark purple with owls and spiders" which never did turn up! The current mess is thwarting creativity.
2. Make a planner. I have an old filoFax, from the pre-digital planner days, I'm going to chuck out the remaining pages and repurpose it for a quilting journal and planner, with my own page layout.
3. Continue trying my hand at improv.

   

   copyright infringement? - a view of a corner and it's been boxed

   
   

   

   Finished: Crossways QAL Instagram: #crosscutquiltalong 

   
   

   

   Score #1 from Sherri Lynn Wood's The Improv Handbook for modern quilters: "so far, so good!"

   This year I started three projects; one is finished, one is on-going, but the first one I started was shelved following an unsettling article in the Dutch Quilt Guild magazine about copyright law infringement. I hadn't realised that taking inspiration from a work in one medium could constitute copyright infringement. I shall finish it, but won't be publishing until I know it's safe to do so.
4. Decide which of my WIPs are really UFOs, and make, or join in, a system for resurrecting  UFOs.
5. Linked to no. 4 above: try harder to resist the temptation to start something new!!
6. Try to find other, preferably "modern", quilters locally (area of The Hague, Netherlands) who would like to sew together with me on a regular basis. At the moment the world wide web is my quilting community, and much as I love you all, some face-to-face contact would be welcome.

I've been reading other posts on this link up, and some contributors have such detailed lists; they are already far more organised than I am. My list is a start and I'll be filling in the details in my new planner as I consider the items above more deeply.

Have a good Hogmanay everyone, and may 2017 bring everything you wish for.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Goals for 2016

Gosh; this forces me to PLAN!

Quilting is my hobby, together with embroidery and lace making; teaching Business English is my profession. The latter is full of lists: the student's starting level, envisaged final level, topics for the course, skills for each session, and on and on! These are lists I have to make, and am accountable for.

My hobby, however, can be characterised as CHAOS! I'm a list-maker, but more importantly a list-loser!

My ongoing projects from 2015.

projects listed on the left; pencil ticks to indicate worked-on status

By making a chart and pinning it to the wardrobe door I can give myself a shock when I'm not performing well and give myself a mental pat on the back when I finally finish something. Unfortunately some of these projects haven't even been started, and now probably will never be.

Here is what I hope to achieve/improve in 2016:

1. Organise my sewing space, although organising my quilting habit into less than 2 square metres of guest bedroom is tricky. More storage boxes would help, but finding somewhere to store them is the next issue. As it is the beds function as a dumping ground; expected guests causing a speedy and makeshift tidy up, followed by a week of searching for lost mislaid rotary cutter etc.

2. Finish the UFO'S, or throw/give them away. They are taking up both space and storage boxes that I need for current projects.

3.  Regularly practise FMQ.

4. Improvise in patchwork. I have enough skills to go out on a limb, on my own, without a workshop, a course or a book. The thought scares the heck out of me, but the other side of me knows that without trying, without the possibility of failure, nothing would ever be achieved, ever.

RSC QAL (top now finished): definitely not improvised, but a skill builder nonetheless: all those flying geese.

5. Fewer QAL's. I decided this year that participating in a QAL, or club is mostly a form of procrastination: although in itself productive, it's always avoiding the main issue (being creative) and yet I can't resist. I like sewing with other people, either face to face or on-line. The idea of doing the same thing as 40 or so others world-wide is both appealing and comforting. The two pictured here are exceptions: I learnt from these projects. Some of the others on my list were over before I got started, then the incentive was gone, others turned out to be "not really my thing".

Drunkard's Path QAL: Definitely a skill builder: no fear of DP blocks now!

6. Blog regularly and reply pronto to blog comments. The last couple of months I've been very slow. I need to consider how to organise my time better in general, and in this respect especially. I owe it to my readers to not just let conversations peter out.

and finally:

7. DO all of the above!

I'm linking up with:

  and   

so go and check on other quilters' goals for 2016.

Happy sewing

Marly