A New Year has started and so do the quilty hopes and dreams of quilters everywhere! Val over at Val's Quilting Studio has done a new twist on this week's "Tuesday Archives". Rather than sharing an old post, she has asked everyone to share a new post on their plans and goals for the year. Perfect since that had been on my agenda anyway so let's get started!
First off, the Word of the Year: Efficient
Over the past few years, quilters have been starting off their plans for the year by picking a word that they hope will define their approach to their quilty life. For me, the chosen words have been centered around helping me overcome obstacles to finishing my projects and this year is no exception. The new tool I hope to put in the belt is the ability to be Efficient in my quilting. The first few definitions that popped up after doing a definition search say it all:
I've got the all the tools (both physical and mental) but it's managing them all so that I can get from Point A to Point B as smoothly as possible. Many times I think the process part of a quilt will be smooth but I feel I need to better manage how to do that so that it can actually happen! Part of that will be making smaller goal lists and trying to better estimate both the time I have to do stuff and what I can reasonably (key word) expect to get done within it. It also means making sure I have a number of different things queued up (a Plan B so to speak) so that if my time is not as generous as expected, I can still accomplish something. Speaking of which did you see Pat Sloan's post about planning for UFO-busting? It was pretty good and definitely has some tips I want to incorporate. Check it out here.
The Big Picture: The Main Themes This Year
As always the year will be about tackling the ever growing "To Do" list. However, in the interest of being efficient, I know I'll need to focus (one of the past years words) on some priorities if I want to get anything done.
1. Hand Work
Since I'm already starting off the year without any working machines (for details on that, scroll down to the bottom of this post), it looks like this will be easy to get to for a change. I'm already set to finish up a mini sew along project today and hope to layer my Christmas quilt UFO for "Big Stitch" quilting by the end of the week (while I await an order of some new Valdani Perle threads). The biggest project of the year (and it will probably take the whole year to do) will be to work on a really big Bucket List project: hand quilting a bed-size wholecloth quilt.
2. Staring Down the Bucket List
Speaking of the Bucket List, in addition to the wholecloth quilt, I hope to make good on last year's plan to finally finish up my Double Wedding Ring project. If I can get these two done this year I will only have two more items left on my original Bucket List which I blogged about here.
3. UFO Busting -- Get It Done!
I'll be continuing my monthly "Get It Done" Posts in my ongoing attempts to stay on top of both the UFOs and any new projects. I actually want to try, for once, to limit the new stuff and keep the focus on the UFOs since there are already projects in the previous two categories that fit that bill.
4. Charity Quilts: Quilts of Valor
I feel bad that I've been slack on getting to this in the past so if I do start any new projects, I want it to be for this. Since this one is dependent on getting my machines back on line, that will need to be a priority this month too.
5. A Functioning Featherweight
While my electronic machines will have to go out for service, I'm actually hoping to finally get to learn about the Featherweight machine that I've used just for display. I'm looking forward to both getting it up and running, trying it out for piecing and becoming knowledgeable/proficient at maintaining it.
6. The Baby Quilt
This one was on last year's list all year and is now (too) long overdue. I want to get it done if only to get it out of my head! Again, bowing to efficiency, I've got to make time for this, set up a plan and knock it out!
I think that's a big enough list for now since I'm in danger of already breaking my first resolution to not make big lists!! If you're reading this before January 2, then maybe you'd like to add your quilty task list over at Val's too! However, even after that, you can check out what other quilters have in store for 2016 by clicking over here.
Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Productive New Year!!!
1 comment:
You've got a doable list. I like your word for the year. Good luck with all your 2016 goals.
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