It is time once again to look back on the to-do list for 2023 and see what was (or was not!) accomplished. Of the eleven projects with which I started the year I finished seven of them. Not too bad! I I finished three projects for our new baby Finn - a quilt for his nursery, a counted cross-stitch Christmas stocking, and an advent calendar. I also finished a couple of small projects - the X’s & O’s candle mat kit and the Bargello wall hanging that was the Panama Quilt Guild’s challenge for last year. Also on the finished list was the Almost quilt that I made for Lindsay and the scrap quilt that I made to donate to the Panama Quilt Guild’s charity. I feel like the scrap quilt was my biggest accomplishment since I cut out all of the pieces for that project three years ago and finally stitched it together in 2023.
Of the four projects that did not get finished I did make progress on two of them. Again - not too bad! I added two rows to my EPP Trip Around The World quilt. I had set a goal of 3-4 rows but didn’t quite hit that mark. Since I spent the first six months stitching Finn’s Christmas stocking in the evening I was not surprised that I didn’t reach my goal on the EPP project. I also made progress on the Swoon quilt by finishing eight of the 20 blocks. I was disappointed that I made no progress at all on two of my projects as I had set small goals for them and was not even able to achieve that much. More about those projects later.
I also added five projects to the list as the year went along. Fortunately they were small projects that I was able to finish quickly. I made a baby quilt for Finn from the scraps leftover from the quilt that I made for his parent’s wedding gift. I made two sets of curtains - one pair for Ruby’s reading nook and another for our new shed. I made four cross-stitch Christmas ornaments and gifted them to my Forest Acres Quilting Club buddies. And I made three Christmas placemats for the grandkids to use at their kid’s table.
All in all I think 2023 will go down as a successful year in the sewing room. So what do I have in store for 2024? This year’s list has nine projects which I feel will be fairly doable. I made the decision to leave off of the list the two projects that have been on my list every year and which I have made very little progress. Those are the QuiltWorx Flowers For My Wedding Ring and Dear Jane. I’m not ready to give up on these quilts completely but think I will take a year or so off from having them on the to-do list.
So for the 2024 list I have seven new projects and two carry-overs from last year for a total of nine projects. Three of the seven new projects are kits that I purchased from Connecting Threads on their daily Stash & Save sale. Those are pretty hard to resist! And I purchased them with the intent to make them for charity quilts. If I donate them to our Panama Quilt Guild charity, however, I will need to add borders so that they are the required size requested by the charity.
Another new project is a patriotic table topper. As I was decorating for the Fourth of July last summer I realized that I could use another small patriotic quilt. I have a pattern and fabric picked out from my stash so now I just need to get started on making it.
At the November meeting of the Panama Quilt Guild one of our members demonstrated how to make a jelly roll rug. She has made many of these and they are really interesting and look like fun to make. I purchased a tool called the Fabric tube Maker from Clover that is apparently a must-have when making a jelly roll rug so now I just need to find some fabric.
Another project on my list will use two Christmas charm packs - 5” squares - and a Moda Cupcake mix - a smaller version of the Moda Cake Mix patterns. I’m not even sure exactly where I acquired this fabric but it may have been at an estate sale. A few years I made a table topper and a runner from this same combination and had fun doing so. I’m looking forward to seeing how these charm squares and pattern turn out.
My two carry-over projects from last year are the Swoon quilt - which I would really like to finish this year - and the EPP Trip Around The World quilt - my goal is to add three more rows. Now if you were doing the math you would realize that I’ve only mentioned eight projects. The ninth is another Super Secret project which will be revealed later this year. So stay tuned!
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