Work In Progress Round Up and 2017 Goals

When the new year starts, I find it incredibly motivating to sit down and review my current WIPs and let them inform my creative goals for the coming year. Between all my different hobbies, I currently have ten unfinished projects: 

Christmas Scrap Quilt: In 2013, I received the book Sunday Morning Quilts as a Christmas gift. On Boxing Day, I grabbed my red and green scraps and started making a Candy Coated quilt from the book. I really love this quilt, but only seem to work on it during Christmas Break. Each year I add more green and red scraps to the project box, so when it's finally finished it will incorporate several years of scraps. I'd like to make more progress this year, but I don't expect to finish it. 

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Block of the Month Quilt: Started in 2015, this top was finished in 2016. I hope to complete it in 2017. Next I need to buy batting, backing and binding fabric. While I've really enjoyed working on this quilt, its unfinished state has started to weigh on me. 

Scrap Vortex Quilt: While I love the look of this quilt, I don't love the process of it. I find that I make the most progress on it when I have access to my mom's design wall and room to spread out. In 2016, I finished three of the five planned rows/columns. I hope to finish this in 2016, but it's not at the top of my queue. 

Chaos Quilt: What's at the top of my queue? I have the top of my Chaos Quilt finished, and the backing and batting purchased. My plan is to baste this at my next sewing day at my mom's house. It's small enough I may be able to finish the quilting in January. 

Basic Black Mini Virginia Leggings (not pictured): One of my goals in 2017 is to use up or get rid of my fabric apparel scraps. They are taking up too much space in my sewing nook. I printed off the pattern for Mini Virginia Leggings in my daughter's size and already cut one set out of scrap fabric. Next step is fitting, which depends on my daughter's moods. No rush on this one. 

Bento Bags (not pictured): You can never have too many fabric gift bags. I have a couple started that didn't get finished before Christmas this year, and I cut out a couple more. This year, I'd love to make fabric gift bags throughout the year and not do a marathon gift bag push in November and December. Here's hoping! 

Vintage Kitsch Boneyard Shawl: I started my second Boneyard Shawl in August, then set it aside during the West Knits Mystery Knit Along. It's currently my purse knitting, but will soon become too large for that. I'm still enjoying it, due to the speckles, so there's no rush to finish it. 

Building Blocks Shawl: I was super excited about this shawl while the West Knits Mystery Knit Along was going on, but lost my motivation as soon as it was over. Knitting with fingering weight yarn is so slow! I'm going to try to finish this shawl early in 2017, so I can focus on my other shawls guilt free. 

Smooth Move Shawl: After receiving a set of interchangeable knitting needles for Christmas, I just had to cast on something. You know, to test them out. This is my current favorite knitting project, but it will have to wait so that I can finish my Building Blocks shawl. 

Temperature Blanket (not pictured): I was making great progress on my 2016 Temperature Blanket until summer hit. It was just too hot to sit under an afghan, even to work on it. Now that knitting has taken over from crocheting, I'm not sure when I'll get back to this. 

Wow. That's a lot of WIPs for me! Hopefully I'll have fewer WIPs by the end of 2017. 

2017 Goals 

This year, my goals are less strategic and more tactical. In the next year, I want to accomplish the following: 

Make 6 Quilts 

    Finish Chaos Quilt 

    Finish Seattle Modern Quilt Guild Block of the Month Quilt 

    Finish Scrap Vortex Quilt 

    Finish and start 3 additional quilts, any size 

Make 18 Garments for myself 

    3 Skirts or Pants 

    3 Cardigans 

    3 Dresses 

    9 Shirts 

Make 3 Shawls 

    Finish Boneyard Shawl 

    Finish Building Blocks Shawl 

    Finish Smooth Move Shawl 

Make 24 Gift Bags 

Use up or throw out fabric apparel scraps  

Work in Progress Round Up and 2016 Goals

Welcome to the third annual Snippets of Sweetness Work in Progress Round-Up and New Year Goals post! At the start of each year, I like to reflect on my current pile of WIPs, as well as my goals for the coming year. This time last year, I had seven WIPs. This year, I have six. Here they are, for your reading and viewing pleasure:

Cuzco Days Quilt

I haven’t worked much on this quilt this year, although I have made progress. Last time I worked on it, I realized it needs more solid fabrics than I had set aside for it, so it has been pushed to the bottom of the WIP pile.

Christmas Scrap Quilt

Poor Christmas Scrap Quilt! It seems I only work on this one during Christmas break. This year, I sewed together all the segments for the next three rows. I really enjoyed working on it, but it lost its appeal as soon as the new year started.

Unvalentine Quilt

I started this quilt at the beginning of 2015. In preparation for Lee Heinrich’s Alternative Gridwork class at QuiltCon, I cut up a bunch of blocks I didn’t like, sewed them back together and got…more blocks I didn’t like. I finished the top during the class, and started quilting it once I returned home. The quilting wasn’t speaking to me, so I put it aside until I figure out how I want to quilt it.

Seattle Modern Quilt Guild 2015 Block of the Month Quilt

This is my current favorite WIP. However, I got stuck when I decided to replace one of the boards with hand appliqued circles a la Carolyn Friedlander’s Ariel Grove quilt. I really want to finish this one so that I can start the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild 2016 Block of the Month Quilt guilt free. I just need to set aside my crocheting and start hand sewing!

Scrap Vortex Quilt

I love this quilt, but a hot summer and nebulous pattern sidelined it before I could complete the top. I would love to finish it before this coming summer.

Four Patch Scrap Quilt

This quilt was started just before I learned about the Scrap Vortex sew along. I may cannibalize it to speed up my Scrap Vortex quilt.

Astute readers will notice that two of my WIPs from last year are not on this list, and have not been finished. The Low Volume Hexagons and Sashiko Waves projects are officially abandoned. I am trying to figure out if I should pass them along to someone else, or if they are destined for the trash. Either way, I have too many projects that I’m passionate about to spend any more time on projects that just don’t speak to me anymore.

2016 Goals

Last year, I had six really big goals. This year, I have one main goal for my creative pursuits: Spark Joy. Yes, I got that from the uber popular book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. In 2016, I want to focus on making room in my life for the things that truly bring me joy, and let go of the things that don’t. I’m purposefully not making more specific goals so that I can see where this new mindset takes me. This month, it means I’ve been binge sewing garments from my apparel sewing stash. Turning stashed fabrics into wearable garments has freed up a bit of space in my sewing nook and has lifted a weight from my shoulders and has brought me joy. Once I run out of steam (or fabric), I may finish a quilt, or start a new one for a friend. Who knows! What I do know if that I am looking forward to doing lots of sewing, quilting and crocheting this year.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Work in Progress Round-Up and 2015 Goals

Welcome to the second annual Snippets of Sweetness Work in Progress Round-Up and New Year Goals post! At the start of each year, I like to reflect on my current pile of WIPs, as well as my goals for the coming year. This time last year, I had five WIPs. This year, I have seven. Here they are, for your reading and viewing pleasure:

Low Volume Hexagons

This is my oldest WIP by far, as I started it in October 2012. I only work on it when I am away from my sewing machine for a while, which isn’t often. I now have nine flowers finished and am halfway through the tenth one. It would be nice to at least have a plan for these by the end of the year.

Cuzco Days Quilt (formally known as Cuzco Improv Quilt)

This next WIP, I do have a solid plan for. I ditched the improv idea that I was using in 2013, and in 2014 switched to using the Sunny Days pattern from Creative Quilting magazine instead. I also removed the warm colored fabrics, as I prefer a more limited, cool palette. So far, I have about a quarter of the blocks completed. This quilt is low priority and I only work on it between projects when I’m waiting for inspiration or materials, so I don’t expect to finish it soon.

Christmas Scrap Quilt (formally known as Christmas Improv Quilt)

My Christmas scrap quilt is the WIP that I want to work on the most. Last year, I made three rows and then ran out of long enough strips to continue. All year long, I’ve been throwing red and green scraps in this WIP’s box, hoping that by the end of the year, I would have enough to continue with it. Now that Christmas is over, I just might.

Sashiko Waves

In January 2009, I bought a Sashiko kit in Hawaii, but I didn’t start working on it until 2014. I actually forgot about this one until my husband recently found it tucked under the passenger seat in his car and reminded me of it. Once the embroidery is done, I’m thinking of surrounding it with improv borders to make a quilt top.

2015 Christmas Gift Bags

I still have some yardage, scraps and jelly rolls strips left over from my previous Christmas bags. I’d like to use up what I have to make way for new yardage. I’d also like to have all my Christmas gift bags done earlier this year. (I say that every year.) We’ll see how it goes. I currently have one in progress.

Geese Above Field

This mini quilt touches on several of my goals for 2014 and 2015. It’s small, uses up scraps and stash, and I intend to submit it to a show. When I made my Swoon Baby Quilt the First, I trimmed off triangles that I promptly sewed together into half square triangle blocks. Like my Scrap Migration quilt, I turned those blocks into flying geese and set them against a background of other scraps from the same quilt. I’m in the process of quilting this one.

Aerial Grove Table Runner

This WIP was born when I realized that I wanted something new to hand sew on vacation. Since I had received Carolyn Friedlander’s Savor Each Stitch book and a mini charm pack of Kate Spain’s Horizon fabric for Christmas, I grabbed some linen from my stash and quickly machine basted the tree shapes so that I wouldn’t have to travel with a bunch of pins. I enjoyed working on it while on vacation. Actually, I’ve already completed it, but I’m including it in this list because it was a WIP as of January 1. I’ll post about it soon.

2015 Goals

My 2014 goals have served me well, so I’m going to roll them over into 2015. In addition to Use My Stash, Use My Scraps, and Keep It Small, Silly, my 2015 goals are:

Declutter My Sewing Nook: I am grateful that I have a dedicated sewing space, but it’s a bit of a mess right now. Since my sewing nook is part of our upstairs hallway, this is getting to be a problem. In 2015, my goal is to go through all of my boxes and bags, and donate what I’m never going to use, so that I have sufficient space for what I will actually use.

Submit a Quilt to a Non-Guild Show: As a member of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild, I have the good fortune to be able to share my work in the exhibitions that the guild puts on periodically. In fact, my Scrap Migration quilt is in the My Modern show going on now at Island Quilter. In 2015, I’d like to submit a quilt to a show outside of the safety of my local guild.

Participate in the Wardrobe Architect 2015 Challenge: The more that I sew my own clothes, the less I like wearing ready-to-wear. Last year, I only bought clothing a handful of times, usually when I realized that I didn’t have what I needed to face the current weather. In 2015, my goal is to use the Wardrobe Architect Challenge to guide my garment sewing so that I have a “me made” wardrobe that meets my needs each season.

What are your goals for 2015?