Seasonal Goal Update: Summer 2023

Hello Friends and Happy (almost) Summer!

After a hectic Spring full of unexpected changes and shifting of plans, Summer is finally almost upon us!

Tomorrow's solstice marks the longest day of the Canadian year, as well as the shift from Spring into Summer. As usual, I'd like to celebrate the changing of the seasons with an update to my ongoing project goals, including a look back at how successfully I've completed last season's goals and setting new goals for the months to come!

Spring Goals

For the Spring season, my goals were to keep up with my ongoing quilt alongs, continue experimenting with quilt as you go, create a system for labelling my quilts, and to take more photos along the way! Lets see how I did!

The quilt alongs I was working on throughout the Spring were Summer Garden and Hexie Harvest.

Summer Garden is my own block of the month pattern which was being run here on the blog as well as for members of my quilt guild. The quilt along started in September and ran through May, when finishing instructions were released.

I was mostly successful at keeping up with this project; all my blocks have been completed, most of them in the month they were meant to be assembled, but I haven't yet put together my finished quilt top.

There are two reasons for this delay; first is that many of my blocks are still with the guild, they were being used as samples to show at in-person meetings and I haven't had the chance to go pick them up yet. The second reason is that I've recently fallen in love with quilt as you go, so if I use this technique for Summer Garden, there would be no need to assemble a quilt top anyway.

Regardless of not being caught up with the finished state of the pattern as instructed, I have made as much progress on this quilt as I had hoped and will be calling this goal completed!

The other quilt along, Hexie Harvest, is also being run in the BoM format with two sets of block instructions released each month. It started earlier this year in February and will run until October, so I still have several months left of this project!

Once again, I've kept up pretty well with this pattern! All of my March, April, and May blocks are complete, and I'm well on my way to finishing June too! Another successfully completed goal!

The next project, the Generations Quilt, isn't a block of the month pattern, but is a quilt along of sorts. It's a collaborative quilting project I'm working on with my Mom and Grandma to finish a few quilts started by my Great Grandmother.

Since this project doesn't have any set schedule, I gave myself the goal of completing at least one block each month!

I've easily exceeded this pace over past seasons, but this Spring, I wasn't able to meet this goal.

I completed a single block early in the season, then didn't do much work on it at all in the months that followed. I think the reason for this is that I have two hand piecing projects in progress right now, and because hand work takes a little more time than machine piecing, my pace is now a little slower than it has been in past seasons.

Although this goal was not completed this season, I do have several ideas for blocks that I'm excited to make for the Generations Quilt in the months to come!

The final pattern for my Spring quilting goals was my quilt as you go project, Meadow Mystery. This is my first experiment with the quilt as you go method, so in my classic experimental style, I made up my own hand pieced method of block assembly!

My goal for this quilt was to continue making quilting progress and possibly finish it completely.

I currently have a 3x4 block section of the quilt centre completely quilted and pieced, with several additional blocks in various states of quilted completion. Knowing the quilt finishes at 7x7 blocks, that puts me about a quarter of the way through, however the outermost blocks are half sized, so I may be further along than it seems.

Since I have made progress throughout the Spring season, this is one more goal I succeeded in meeting!

My other two goals were quilting adjacent rather than focused on a particular project or pattern.

The first was to figure out a system for quilt labelling and to make stencils so I can actually start printing my labels.

I did succeed in planning out my labelling format, but haven't actually begun cutting any stencils. I have a set of art knives that I was planning to use, but I think I've left those at my parent's house, so I'll need to go pick them up sometime.

So while I did make progress, this goal was ultimately not completed.

The very last of my Spring goals was not terribly specific or measurable; to take more pictures.

I don't know exactly how many progress photos I was taking before, but I know I wanted to be taking more. Having set this goal, the thought of taking photos was a little more present in my mind, so I'd like to believe I was successful here!

Overall, four of my six Spring goals were achieved throughout the season, and I'm very proud of that progress!

Summer Goals

After looking through my Spring goals, there are many projects I'm excited to continue working on, some goals that were left incomplete that I would still like to finish, as well as some new projects to introduce for the new season!

Continuing from last Spring, I would like to keep up with the block releases for my Hexie Harvest quilt, complete a minimum of one Generations block each month, and quilt more of Meadow Mystery. I would also like to get some stencils made for my quilt labels and continue to take lots of progress photos of all of my projects!

As for some new goals, there is a new project I'd like to introduce!

The first is the BoM quilt I've designed for the upcoming guild year. That quilt along will begin this September, and I'd like to have a sample quilt pieced and quilted before it does!

I don't want to spoil the pattern before it's released, so I won't be sharing progress on this project along the way, but I did share a sneak peak at some of my notes a few weeks ago if you're interested!

And finally, bringing back a project from last Winter, I have a goal for Chilhowie.

This goal is a bit of an odd one since it's kind of anti-progress. I started quilting Chilhowie over the Spring, but I'd really like to finish Meadow Mystery first, so the goal for my Chilhowie quilt is to not work on it. If I'm able to finish Meadow Mystery before the end of Summer, I will absolutely continue working on Chilhowie, if not, then Chilhowie will have to wait.

With that Friends, I'm ready to jump into Summer!

With so much hand work on my list, I'll surely be able to take my quilting outside to enjoy the pleasant weather. But when it's too hot to handle, I can hide within my air conditioned walls and work on something else!

Do you have any goals for the upcoming Summer season? Let me know in the comments below! And if you're working on any of the same projects I am, please share your photos and progress in the comments or by tagging me on Instagram @v.a.fibre.arts!

I can't wait to see what we create together in the season to come!

Until Next Time Friends, Happy Quilting!

~VA

Pattern Credits:

Chilhowie - designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville, 2022

Generations Quilt - drafted by Valerie Anne based on two traditional block patterns, Dresden Plate and Six Pointed Star, 2021

Hexie Harvest - designed by Jodi Godfrey of Tales of Cloth, 2023

Meadow Mystery - designed by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs, 2016

Summer Garden - designed by Valerie Anne of VA Fibre Arts, 2022