Quilting

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About a year ago I participated in the I Spy book release blog hop by making these two quilt blocks from the book. Each is a paper pieced block in which I chose to use solid fabrics.

It is season 13 of Project QUILTING and as much as I love to participate, I really have been focusing on finishing works in progress. I'd convinced myself that instead of participating in this season's one week quilt challenges by conceiving, starting, and completing a quilt in a week (for each of the six challenges) I would choose a WIP from the pile to complete that would fulfill the challenge theme (for an unofficial finish for the challenge). When the All the Colors challenge was announced on January 2, I scanned the list of WIPs and sussed out what would work for "All the Colors." The description had indicated that the quilt needed to use "at least five colors" so I chose my burger block to finish for the week.

Well, then my FOMO took over and I decided to make a little ATC mini quilt as an official submission for PQ 13.1. And the burger and watermelon blocks remained on the table.

Fast forward to last week, our week off between PQ challenge weeks. I decided to go ahead with my plan to finish up these mini quilts. I'd always envisioned finishing them as round quilts like the food is on a plate. They'll be going to my niece and nephew who are still of the "play food" age.

I knew I needed a bias binding to bind my round quilts, but was unsure if I could pull it off with machine binding or if that would be a struggle. With Cassandra's encouragement, I went for it and the machine binding went very smoothly.

Each of my quilts finished at 8" in diameter. The burger is quilted in Aurifil 50wt Toast (#6010), Red (#2250), Yellow (#2135), Chocolate (#2360), Very Dark Grass Green (#2890), and White (#2024). And the watermelon is quilted in Aurifil 50wt Red (#2250), Green (#2870), Black (#2692), and White (#2024).

Thanks for visiting. If it's not on your radar, there's still time to make a quilt for this week's Project QUILTING challenge.

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This successful little quilt was a plan B and FOMO all wrapped into one.

It’s Project QUILTING season again! I’ve participated the last five years. (Though some years I don’t complete all six challenges.) In the last many months I have been focusing on finishing up works in progress. I even updated the full UFO/WIP list. (Updated list coming later this month.) So... I decided what I would do for Project QUILTING this year would be to finish a project that was in progress for each of the challenges. I figured with the lengthy list of projects I would be able to fins a project to suit any challenge. I even looked over that UFO list and narrowed down to five contenders. But it's been a busy week and it's Saturday evening and I hadn't sewn a stitch.

One of the drawbacks to finishing an in progress project is that most of my WIPs are larger. Many are finished quilt tops, but I'm interested in doing detailed quilting that could take a while for some of them. But more importantly since those wouldn't be new projects started and finished in the challenge period my finish wouldn't count toward the collective total; I wouldn't really be part of the community this season. (Relatedly, I wouldn't be eligible for prizes, but that bothers me less.)

In past years I have often chosen small projects. I got the big idea that maybe I could do my unofficial project and a small official project. So now I'm trying to make TWO quilts in one week. (Are you laughing?) Then the next natural thought was that I should do the official one first.

I've finished a bunch of mini mini quilts recently. I really love the artist trading card size for a mini mini quilt (2 1/2" x 3 1/2"). And I have a couple fabulous rainbow fabrics that would be perfect for the All The Colors challenge. This week I decided on a whole cloth mini mini quilt. I quilted it with seven colors of thread, Aurifil 50wt in Dark Violet (#2582), Turquoise (#2810), Spring Green (#1231), Light Magenta (#2588), Bright Orange (#1133), Canary (#2120), and Light Delft Blue (#2720). I used a contour line motif, following the pattern in the fabric.

I encourage anyone who is interested to dive into the Project QUILTING challenges. If you want to participate and don't have enough time, just make a smaller project. Not enough time for that? Think even smaller. I quilted mine in the hour before dinner this evening. And after dinner I bound it while I played a game of Bloom with my sister on Zoom. Start time 5:40pm. Finish time 8:40pm.

I'm still planning for finishing a WIP that meets the theme of this week's challenge. It probably won't be by the deadline, but since it's unofficial, that's just fine. Maybe I'll use the off week between challenges to finish it. And as for the rest of the Project QUILTING season... I am now planning for a series of ATC mini mini quilts (perhaps all whole cloth) as well as finishing a WIP that ties to each challenge theme.

I'm linking up with Kim for Project QUILTING 13.1: All the Colors. Be sure to hop over and see the over 136 finished projects that folks created in just one week! Such an inspirational list. A big, giant thank you to Kim and Trish for creating this amazing community of makers. Also, a big thanks to my daughter. She selected all my thread colors and assisted with swapping thread as I quilted. She also filmed my video for the reel I shared on Instagram of my quilting.

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Folks, it has been a year. Let me be the first to congratulate you on being here, on making it through 2021. Happy New Year!

Given the stress of the last two years I am having a love-hate relationship with Goal Setting Season. Mostly I've been making life choices to manage my stress and anxiety and to keep my family healthy and happy. My goals for the past year mostly revolved around that. I homeschooled for the first half of the year. Among other things we spent lots of time reading US History, doing math, and playing board games. Most days I walked, read, and did creative things. I wrote 45 blog posts. I sent 4 newsletters (up from just 2 in 2020). I visited 7 guilds on Zoom to give lectures and teach workshops. I launched my first on-demand quilt workshop. I (finally!) moved my PDF quilt patterns into a pattern shop on my website. This all mostly lined up with the goals I set for myself at the end of 2020.

So 2022... Honestly, I'm just not in the mood for great big goal setting. I'm worn out in a lot of ways. There are things coming on my calendar that I'm excited about. I'm focusing on those things right now. I'm excited to be giving two brand new lectures in January and February, Building a Color Palette and Developing a Creative 100 Day Project. I'm taking a few mixed media classes that I'm enjoying. The newest season of Project QUILTING starts in two days. I love the series of one week quilt challenges. I had my first quilt ever accepted to hang at QuiltCon this February.

So I'm not writing down goals. I'm not shooting for the moon. 2022 will be another year of surviving. Of enjoying time with my family and taking every opportunity I have to be creative. I'm looking forward to more virtual visits with guilds and my first time teaching for a quilt show. The 100 Day Project and it's February 13 start date is on my mind though I haven't formulated a plan for what my next project will entail.

I'm taking some more time to think about what my business goals are for the coming months and years. There are so many things I could do... more on-demand classes, offering live workshops to individuals, get back to pattern writing, write a book. The list goes on. But I can't do it all and I often bite off more than one human can chew. Step one will be taking my time to really think about what my priorities are. I had a long chat with a friend this week that really gave me some things to think about and will help guide the process of making some decisions about what is next in my business. But those decisions won't be made today or tomorrow and they maybe won't even be made in January.

I do have one goal, a promise I've already made to my newsletter subscribers. I'll be sending the Sarah Goer Quilts Newsletter on the 1st and 15th of each month. These newsletters include what I'm up to, where I'll be teaching, and color and design inspiration from around the web. And subscribers will certainly be the first to know when I do decide what's coming next in my business. ;-) I hope you'll subscribe so we can keep in touch.

Happy New Year. Thanks for being here.

I'm linking up with Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl for her #2022PlanningParty.