A New Year evaluation and Allietare

Since my blog is primarily a journal of my quilting life, I like to the begin the New Year thinking about what I accomplished in the past year and what I hope to do in the upcoming year. I am sure that many of us with piles of UFO's begin the year with the lofty goal of finishing everything before beginning new projects and purchasing no new fabric until making a serious dent in the stash. I know that always seems to be my intention and when I fall short of the impossible I feel like a failure. But this year I decided to start the year by making a list of all the finishes of 2015. Since this was the year I got back to the longarm, after several moves, I decided that a finish meant quilted and bound. I included everything from tiny one block mini quilts to large bed size quilts and was shocked at the size of the list, over 20 large quilts and lots of little projects. Wow, I am not a failure at finishing after all.

Unfortunately I did not finish many of the projects that I wanted to and therein lies the issue. Sadly I suspect I suffer from a common problem, quilter's ADD. I am so easily distracted by what I see on blogs, Pinterest, Instagram, magazines, books, quilt guild show and tell, my applique group, well the list could go on and on. So this year I also wrote a list of tops that are finished and in the quilting queue and works in progress, primarily so I could focus on what I really want to do and what can either wait or even be eliminated. I find it so difficult to give up on a project that has been started but if it no longer interests me, then it is time to either pass it on or be dismantled so fabrics can be used elsewhere.

So today I got around to putting my 2016 goals in writing. And for the first time I made a very specific list of what projects I want to work on and how much needs to be done for each. I separated it into Applique, Piecing and Quilting so depending on my mood I can check the list first before deciding what to do, especially when I am tempted by something shiny and new. And I did include a few new starts cause let's face it, I am going to need/want some new starts this year. And thanks to a friend in my applique group, thanks Suzanne, my word on the year is Focus. We'll see how that goes cause after all quilting is all about fun for me and these lists are not written in stone.

So finally here is what I have been working on. I spent the holidays sick with some weird respiratory infection but was able to keep up with Allietare, the Bonnie Hunter mystery. Here it is on the design wall before assembly.

And here it is assembled and on my sofa while I decide on the inner border. I was unhappy with the amount of red in the finished quilt and was going to choose another color for the inner border but nope, red works the best. It won't be this fabric though as this was just a strip I had laying around that I used for color reference. But I do love that I can use the focal fabric for the final border. It should make a nice fall throw for the living room.

And since I made about 3/4 of the units and made the quilt in a 4x5 setting, I ended up with 5 extra blocks. Once put together and bordered this will make a perfect table runner.

I also worked on the We Wish You a Merry Christmas mystery mini by Temcula Quilt Company and used it as an opportunity to test a color palette idea and use some time scraps. These blocks finish at 2 1/4 ". I ended up adding the black border to make it a bit bigger and thin perhaps it ended up darker than I intended but it is cute hanging in my kitchen.

 

A good beginning to 2016.

 

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