Seasonal Goal Update: Spring 2024

Hello Friends and Happy First of Spring!

With all the warm weather we've had over the past few weeks, I expected a beautiful, sunny start to the season. But Spring seems to have come in like a lion, a very cold one, and brought with it another fresh blanket of snow!

I don't know if this is Winter's final hurrah or if it's an omen of a cold season to come, but either way, I'm happy to spend snowy days like this inside working on my sewing projects!

And, while I do that, I'm also looking forward to taking some time to look back at my goals for the past Winter and looking forward at what I hope to accomplish in the season ahead!

Winter Goals

Going into this past Winter, I had planed to work on eight different quilts and three different digital projects, including posting to the blog! Admittedly, this is a lot of ongoing projects, so not all of them were expected to be completed, rather I was hoping to make some amount of progress over the Winter with the expectation of continuing them into future seasons. I'm excited to see how successful I was!

We'll start by taking a look at my digital goals.

The first was to maintain my weekly posting schedule here on the blog, which I feel I have succeeded at! There may have been some weeks when I was sick or decided to take a break, by I think affording yourself time to rest is important, and I wasn't sharing multiple consecutive weeks of silence the way I had been through the Summer and Autumn months. I'm really happy with what I've shared here and hope to continue doing this into the future!

The next digital project was developing a custom font for my labels based on my own hand writing.

I had hoped to have this finished by the end of December so that I could have stencils created in the following months, but when I got sick in December, that threw off my schedule and I lost the motivation to work on my font. I'm still very interested in continuing this project, but unfortunately didn't finish it over the Winter like I had hoped.

The remaining project was the written instructions for the Stars of the City pattern, which I had planned to finish by the end of December. Again, this didn't happen on schedule because I was sick, but I was able to complete my pattern instructions later in the season and they are now finished and ready for release! Despite not following the original schedule, I consider this a success!

This means I was successful in two of my three digital goals for the past Winter!

Now, moving away from the digital realm and back to the world of stitching, I had planned to work on eight different quilt projects throughout the Winter season. Some of these are ongoing projects which continued from past seasons, but others were just getting started this Winter! And while I can say I wasn't successful in completing all of my goals for these eight projects, I enjoyed every moment that I worked on them!

The oldest of these projects is the Generations Quilt. After making very little progress on this at all in Autumn 2023, I was hoping to make at least one block for every month this Winter. And in this I succeeded!

I completed five Dresden Plate blocks over the Winter months, bringing my total to 30 completed Dresdens! With the successful completion of this goal, I'm excited to carry on working on my remaining Six Pointed Star blocks in the coming months!

My next project was Hexie Harvest, for which I was hoping to have the quilt top completed by the end of December. While I didn't meet that deadline, again, getting sick ruined all my plans, I have succeeded in assembling all of my blocks into a quilt top!

The top isn't 100% complete just yet, since I'm planning to add borders around the outer edge to square off the shape and make it easier to bind, but I still have quite a bit of the rainbow fabric left and have been debating whether to make more blocks for a bigger version of the quilt. These are decisions for another time, and for now, I consider this goal a success!

Hexie Harvest was designed by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth.

Moving quickly through my hand pieced projects, we've now arrived at the last one, Ice Cream Soda! This project came with the caveat that I was not allowed to start working on it until I had assembled my Hexie Harvest quilt top, once that was finished, I hoped to keep up with the proposed schedule on the quilt along page of 12 blocks per month.

Since finishing Hexie Harvest took longer than I'd hoped, I ended up starting Ice Cream Soda a little behind schedule, and in addition, have not kept up with the 12 block pace, however I have managed to complete 10 blocks so far! I'm going to call this one a semi success since I'm really happy with and proud of my progress!

Ice Cream Soda was designed by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth and is currently running as a quilt along.

The next of my projects is another recent quilt along pattern, Indigo Way, which I had hoped to keep up with as clues were released. This was a faster paced quilt along, with clues releasing weekly through December and into January, and a bonus midweek clue that was released around New Year's Eve.

Once again, being sick changed the schedule on this project and I wasn't able to keep up, so I decided to take my time working on it throughout the remaining Winter months. While I wasn't able to fulfill my goal of completing this quilt along, I have enjoyed every moment of it and look forward to continuing the piecing into the Spring!

Indigo Way was designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

This next quilt is one that I still haven't started, Oatmeal Raisin. I chose fabric for my version of the quilt, then decided I didn't want to overload myself and planned to start piecing it only once both Indigo Way and Hexie Harvest had been completely pieced. As that time has not yet arrived, I haven't started working on Oatmeal Raisin yet.

On the one hand, I suppose I've succeeded in not starting too many things at once, but on the other, I had wanted to start this quilt and be a part of the mystery quilt along, so I think we'll call this one a semi success.

Oatmeal Raisin was designed by Kathryn Wilson Tucker of Quiltnasium.

The final piecing project I had planned for this Winter was Stars of the Lily Pond. For this second version of the Stars of the City pattern, I wanted to show how changing colours and simple alterations to the blocks could dramatically transform the pattern!

My goal for this quilt was to make blocks and Drunkard's Path units ahead of their scheduled release so I could post pictures of them in comparison to the original colour scheme when new instructions were released. I was successful in sharing a sample each month except January, and I still haven't completely pieced all of my Drunkard's Path units, so I'll call this one a semi success.

With all my piecing goals shared, that leaves only my quilting goals! For both of these projects, I didn't have a specific goal for completion, I was only hoping for some amount of progress throughout the Winter months.

The first quilt in its quilting stage is Stars of the City, which I was not successful in quilting this season. Between Generations, Hexie Harvest, and Ice Cream Soda, I had a lot of other hand sewing happening and I ended up prioritizing those and disregarding Stars.

And this is the case for Meadow Mystery as well. The quilted motif and block assembly both include some hand work, with a little machine quilting thrown in for variety.

In addition to having a lot of hand worked projects on the go, I think the fact that I'm still not able to make labels for these quilts reduced my motivation to work on them as well, but I'm optimistic I'll be able to change that moving into the new season and am looking forward to continuing these quilts!

Meadow Mystery Was designed by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs.

Of my eight quilt projects for the Winter, I was successful in my goals for two projects, semi successful for three, and unsuccessful in completing my goals for the remaining three projects. Combine those with my digital goals, and I succeeded in completing about half my goals for the season!

Completing half my goals is certainly not a resounding success, but it's really helpful to see where I was successful, where I fell short, and where my schedule and goals needed to be rearranged to make space for rest and wellness. I'm sure these lessons will help me to set realistic goals moving forward and to be forgiving of myself on the occasions when those goals are slightly out of reach.

Spring Goals

After taking a look at my Winter goals and projects, I now have a clearer idea of what I want to prioritize working on for the upcoming Spring season! Many of these will carry forward from the Winter months, some are brand new thoughts, and others are projects that have been in the works but haven't been mentioned as goals just yet!

Starting off with my digital goals, I hope to continue maintaining my weekly posting schedule here on the Fibre Arts blog, and to let you all know in advance when I'll be taking breaks.

I plan to begin working on my hand writing inspired font this month and have it fully digitized before the end of the season.

Finally, I want to get started on the written instructions for next year's block of the month project. I have a digital sample of the pattern already drawn up, though I won't be sharing that for several months, so I'm able to start writing instructions any time. Last year, I made my sample quilt, then started typing the instructions, but that meant I did the fun part first and kept procrastinating on the boring typing portion.

This year, I plan to type first, then piece my blocks following my typed instructions. Hopefully, this will help me to maintain enthusiasm and to catch errors and inconsistencies in the instructions!

Up next are my pieced quilt projects!

I plan to continue my goal of completing one Generations Quilt block per month this Spring. Because I've reached my 30 required Dresden Plate blocks, that leaves the Six Pointed Stars to be worked on moving forward!

I also want to continue working on the Ice Cream Soda quilt along! I've already fallen behind the schedule proposed on the quilt along page, so I'm going to set a slightly different pace of four blocks per week. And, to give myself space to work on other projects, I'll take one week off from Ice Cream Soda each month regardless of the amount of blocks I've managed to make. That week is not to be used for catch up, rather it should be used to focus on something totally different!

For Indigo Way, I hope to finish piecing the second set of blocks and assembling the units needed for the borders. At that point, I'll be done piecing Indigo Way, and will leave the blocks to be quilted at a later time. By not assembling them into a quilt top, I keep the option available to use quilt as you go, or to assemble the quilt top later if I decide to quilt it that way instead!

I also want to finish piecing all of the units and blocks needed for Stars of the Lily Pond. I hope to have a sample of the April block done in advance of that block release, and the remaining units done before the May pattern release so I can show the alternative layout I've planned for this alternate version of the Stars of the City pattern!

And speaking of Stars of the City, I'm going to limit my quilting goal to just this quilt, which I want to have completely quilted before the final assembly instructions are released in May. At our June guild meeting, we usually have a block of the month show and share, where everyone shows their version of the quilt along pattern side by side, and I would love to have my Stars quilt bound and completely finished by then!

In addition to my quilting projects, I also have a few dressmaking projects I've been working on and hope to continue.

The first are the formal waistcoats I made in January, which were never properly finished and lack a lot of the small details I wanted to stitch into them. We have another wedding coming up in the Summer, so I would like to have the fit and patterns adjusted, the details added, and all seam and edge finishes finished before then, so I'll need to get started on all of that this Spring!

I also want to make myself a casual pants pattern. I am not a conventional size and don't fit commercially produced jeans, which is the case for most people, so I would like to draft and refine a pattern so I can make my own pants. It will be way easier and much less stressful than trying to buy clothes that fit me, and is something that's urgently needed since the commercial pants I've been wearing until now are quickly wearing out.

Finally, I have an overarching goal to not start any shiny new projects until I've finished at least two of those that are ongoing. 'Finished' is used loosely here, for garments, that means completely finished, for quilts it means finishing the stage of either piecing or quilting that they're currently at.

That gives me three digital projects, four piecing projects, one quilting project, and at least three garments I hope to work on this Spring, a total of eleven projects.

Again, I'll admit that this is a lot, but not all of them are going to be finished in the next few months, and not all of them require the same time commitment. Some are very fast and easy finishes, others will take a lot of time and multiple sessions of work, and all of them are projects I'm looking forward to working on, so it should be a fun experience!

You may have noticed that I've removed Meadow Mystery and Oatmeal Raisin from my goals for the next few months. For Meadow Mystery, I doubt I'll have the motivation to continue until I'm able to make a label, so it will return once the label situation has been sorted out.

And for Oatmeal Raisin, I wanted to remove the quilt I haven't started so I don't pile too much work on myself. When I've finished a few other projects, I'll come back to this one, and if the quilt along has ended by then, I might choose to use that fabric for a different project, or I might see the final design of the pattern and fall in love. Who's to say?

With all of that said, Friends, it has been so much fun to look back at my accomplishments from the last few months, see what I was able to finish and what challenged me and why, and to set some goals in motion for the months to come!

If you haven any goals of your own for this Spring season, I would love to hear about them! Please share your plans in the comments below!

I can't wait to get back to work on my revised list of projects!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA