2021 Midyear Review

It's July!  I told myself at the beginning of the month that this was going to be more of "computer" month than a sewing month, and sitting down to take a look back at the year so far fits that theme perfectly!

Summer Scrap Progress

The one sewing project I am making time for almost daily is my Summer Scrap project, which is literally just adding one scrappy plus each day.  It's a little breath of pleasure sewing.  And yes, some days I add two and some days I don't add any, but it's exactly what I need right now!  I'm mainly working on the final draft and supporting tutorials of my stand-alone Chalk Stars pattern, so it's nice to have some mindless-but-satisfying sewing going on at the same time.

Forgotten Fat Quarter - A finished 2019 WIP

I'm very happy with the front end of my year:

• I started 14 quilts.  Nine of them are completely finished, but three of them are unblogged because they are on a scheduled release.  Five of them are from three of my own designs!
• I have finished 13 quilts already in 2021!  I admit here that I had more help than usual - I normally do all my quilting myself, but several of these were large or needed a little extra oomph so FIVE of them were long armed quilted.  I don't think I've had five quilts long armed in the last five years so this was a big change for me.
• All of the quilts I started in 2020 are now finished.  Woohoo!
• Three of the quilts were gifted out.  We are at the "too many quilts" point in our house, so I need to start gifting faster, but three is a good start.  With this in mind, I'm also working almost exclusively from my stash instead of buying new fabric.
• I've also made face masks, origami coasters, and guild donation blocks.
• My other hobby, cross-stitching, has three finishes as well.

Goal Updates!

Goal #1: Quarterly Pattern Releases.  I started off strong, releasing Bernie's Mittens in February.  I also wrote a tutorial for how I made my Square-In-A-Square Temperature Quilt.  Chalk Stars was published in Issue 39 of Make Modern Magazine (affiliate link) as scheduled, but I'm adding enough to the pattern that I feel like yes, it does deserve to count as a quarterly release (scheduled for early August).  So I'm happy with this goal for now.

Bernie's Mittens (two colorways)

Goal #2: Quarterly WIP Goals.  Loosely working on these, but they are very relaxed.  My strategy for the year has been "work on one thing at a time until it's done" and the fact that I've finished nine of the fourteen quilts I've started this year proves that's working.  Of the remaining five, one is the Summer Scrap (designed to be slow), one is a year-long quilt-along, two are ready for quilting, and the last is currently being worked on, so all of them are in a good place right now.

Goal #3: Untouched 2020 Tops. There were four in this category and now there are three.  My Gyspy Wife Sloth Quilt was last touched in 2017 and it's done!  This category is running a little behind (ideally I'd be halfway through already), but one of the quilts is next in line after the Chalk Stars release so there is still hope!

Gyspy Wife Sloth Quilt

Goal #4: Monthly Recap Posts. This one was a gimme.  I love talking and writing about quilting and doing these is one of the highlights of my month every month.  These actually go very well with goal #2 above - on the first of each month I write out a stub post that lists everything I hope to work on that month.  As I accomplish items, they get moved to the "final" section of the blog post.  Obviously I don't do all or only the things in this initial prediction, but I love looking at what's going on each month in depth.

And that's it for now!  Time to get back to photo editing and some hand stitching.  Thanks to Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for keeping me on track with my yearly goals - check out her page to see the goals she and other quilters have set and accomplished for 2021!