goals

With the new year coming quickly, I can't stop thinking about the goals for the New Year. Every year, make goals like keeping the house cleaner, losing weight (I lost 35 pounds this year without trying--I'm seeing the dr in January about that one) and trying not to stress the small stuff. Every year, I can't seem to keep those goals. But, with each new year, it is nice to have that fresh start and to get to say "do over" and everyone understands that it is ok if you didn't keep your resolutions from last year. You get to begin again.

As I was cleaning the sewing room yesterday I unearthed a pile of printed patterns from the internet of so many free quilt patterns that I just had to try, but haven't gotten around to yet.

I decided that one of my goals for this year will be to try out a new pattern each week and share it with you. Of course, I don't believe I will be able to finish a complete quilt each week with working full time, but each week, my goal will be to complete a quilt top and share both the pattern and the picture here with you to inspire you to try new things as well. I have at least 50 patterns printed out and there are so many more on the internet that are free. I also am going to go through my many quilting books and pull one each month and make something from each book. If I can't make a quilt out of each of my books, they don't deserve to live in my house, taking up room on the shelf. By the end of the year, I will have made 52 different quilt tops and hopefully tried out different techniques and expanded my quilting skills.

When I first got my quilting machine, people told me that it would take me years to get good at it. Little did they know that I would be working at it constantly and get 100 quilts made in the first year. I rarely do anything half way. When I get a new hobby, I jump in with both feet and tend to go overboard. I raised birds for a while and had over 200 of them in my living room at one time. My kids raised and showed guinea pigs and we had probably 50 of those at one time too. So, I can't do something a little bit. Everything I do is in excess. I'm surprised I don't weigh 400 pounds :)

I plan on quilting as many of the tops as I can during the school year and then this summer working on them quicker. On a good day, I can quilt up to 10 tops a day, so I will stockpile the tops when school is in and then quilt away during the summer months.

Of course, I will still keep working with some of my favorite patterns, the Stashbuster Buttonberry is one of my absolute favorites. I wonder how many of those I have made this year? I can make that top in about an hour after cutting it out and I have about 50 of them cut out already. I would like to have 200 quilts done by this time next year. Big goal? You betcha. But, I never do things in little amounts