"Planning" for a New Year

Yvonne over at Quilting Jetgirl is having a planning party for 2019!

I've never planned my quilting year. I've mentioned off and on that I'm averse to timelines having endured too many in my pre-retirement life, so planning and setting goals for each month or quarter or even the year is not me at all. That's kind of funny, because in the rest of my life I am a list maker, and I love the idea of pretty planners. It's also funny because my quilting style is very much a planned (although messy) approach rather than improvisational (although my forays into improvisation have always been fun). I'm probably afraid my passion will become like a job if I make what feel like assignments for myself to fulfill. Really, I like to just make what comes my way, whether it's a gift opportunity, a plea for a donation, or something I'm inspired to try for my home. Anyway, just for fun I've decided to do some "planning" this year. We'll keep it really laid back.

First of all, I had fun doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year. (I suppose in a way that was a plan, but I didn't see it that way. It was just a directive from Angela that I followed each month.) But I did not get the two resulting tops quilted because of other life happenings. So I do know that I want to work on those during January. I even have something of a goal: get them done in time to ship out to my favorite organization for donations before the postage rates increase on January 27. (Penny pinching incentive, but if I don't make it, no biggie.)

I'm on a long-term mission to reduce my on-hand fabric. (Yeah, I guess that's a goal of some sort, too--really just trying not to be a burden to my kids sometime in the future when they have to clear all this STUFF out), so I will probably participate in some way with RSC again, but maybe a bit more informally. We'll see.

I have a bin full of fabric that I have set aside for donation quilts. Some has been given through the generosity of quilters and companies, and some I bought as souvenirs on vacation. I know I will want to use up as much of that supply as I can (see above goal and consider that there are so many needs for donated quilts that it seems a shame to have the fabric sitting in my closet). Here are some of the bundles. There are also a good number of random fat quarters. I have a vague idea of what I want to do with some of these, but am clueless about others. We shall see...

I have some potential quilts to make for family members, and maybe a bed runner for our bed, a long-term hand quilting project to finish (a wall quilt for our living room--my only WIP/UFO), and then there are always those opportunities that pop up anywhere and anytime to make quilts for donation. 

Oh, one other thing. I've been slowly documenting all of my pre-blogging quilts on Throwback Thursdays (first Thursday of the month with Sandra over at mmm! quilts). I do plan (yes, plan!) to finish that up in the first few months of the year. 

I think that's about as planny as I can get. Don't hold your breath waiting for me to get these all done! It will just be fun to get to the end of the year, look back, and see what came of it all. 

Seriously, though, my actual plan/goal is to keep blogging. This past year, my blogging was definitely down. I tended to write a very long post at the end of a project rather than doing in-process updates (except for RSC, which I shared each month). I think that trend started because I was having trouble balancing quilting with blog reading/commenting. (I was also frustrated by the issues some of us bloggers have had this year with commenting access.) I don't think I'm alone. It seems to me that many quilters have reduced or abandoned their blogging or shifted over to doing quick Instagram posts. At least that's my perception. I like looking at Instagram even though I'm not consistent at commenting or acknowledging that I've seen a post. That just gets me back into the dilemma of finding time to sew/quilt/read/comment. Seeing photos of what quilters are making with a brief note is fine, but I do like the detailed stuff, too. And for me, the blog posts are the way I document my quilting history, so they are almost always detailed. But who has time to read (or write) all of that? I have some thinking to do about how to proceed. Writing is an arduous process for me, but I don't want to abandon it, and I hope other quilters don't either. So please join me and keep blogging. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it, though. 

Okay, now I'm going to read what everyone else has planned (or not) for the year. I love to read those plans and see all the quilty goodness that comes of them. 

Be sure to hop on over to Quilting Jetgirl and share your plans/not plans and see what others are doing. (I hear there are prizes involved, but don't let that be your sole reason for sharing.) Thanks, Yvonne, for setting up this party!

One thing I think we all can agree on as far as planning goes: Have a happy, quilty New Year! And make the world a better place, one quilt at a time.