Hello 2022!

 I hope everyone had  a safe and sane New Year's Eve. We didn't get all of the snow that was predicted but we did get a bit. Today it has rained all day, another good day to sew.

Everyone is doing a recap of 2021, I'm going to also, but first let's recap last week. Did I get all my quilting done? HA! Not even close.

I did finish the rails quilt. 

This is a small quilt 37 x 48. I didn't quilt anything fancy. Stitched in the ditch around the blocks and machined sewed the front and back of the binding. I'll donate it in a couple of weeks.

Then I decided to quilt the green diamond, my second oldest quilt top. I just couldn't decide what to quilt so I started with in the ditch around the green diamonds. 

OMG!!

As I told Rose: Do not ever, never ever, avoid it like the plague, use high loft polyester batting. Quilting it is horrible! I fought it for two days and gave up. It also didn't help that my walking foot was doing more jumping and skipping than walking. :o( All the in the ditch is done. I'll probably free motion quilt a bit in the border, but not as much as I really should do. I'll get out the Bernina so I can use its walking foot to sew on the binding. I think I'll have to sew one side down before I trim it. That stuff also snags on everything. I'm taking it as a lesson learned and Bella will get a new bed.

She kept trying to claim it while I was attempting to quilt it. I just looked at the quilt again and maybe I'm being a little melodramatic. Maybe. I'll give the quilt another chance this week.

Next let's recap my 2021 UFO Challenge list...that I'm very happy with, of the 12 items listed 9 were either finished or significant progress was made. I turned my oldest 20 year old UFO into a quilt top! And quilted my oldest quilt top. Definitely a win.

I really liked participating in the UFO Challenge. It allowed me to not stress or even think about an old project until it's number came up. I've already made my 2022 UFO Challenge list and only found 11 UFOs so number 12 is "free month".  Hehehehe, guess which number came up first? Yup, 12. I swear I had my list made before they chose the number. That means I get to work on anything I want this month. Yippee!! I'll talk more on that in a minute.

The last recap is my UFOs/WIPs spreadsheet. I've been working on an annual spreadsheet of my UFOs/WIPs for a couple of years now and this is also helping me focus and manage my projects and their progress. I didn't think I accomplished much last year until I looked at the numbers.

Not the most readable screenshot but up at the top it says I started the year with 11 UFOs/WIPs and 16 tops that need to be quilted. 

It also says I ended the year with 11 UFOs/WIPs, 13 tops that need to be quilted, and drum roll please....36 completed projects! 18 of the 36 were donation quilts. Not all the projects were quilts, but if I sewed on it, I included it.

Now on to 2022. This month's UFO Challenge free month is the perfect start for the year. I have decided 2022 is going to be a guilt free year. With the exception of my monthly UFO Challenge projects I am going to work on whatever I want. I am not going to feel guilty about unused scraps or really old fabric/kits or making a donation quilt every month. I going to work on whatever I want and chase as many squirrels as I want. I'll still track everything on my spreadsheet, and if a project isn't finished it will probably end up on next years UFO Challenge list, but that is okay. I want to enjoy the time I'm spending quilting, not avoid it like a chore.

My first project for the year is Ricky Tims' Kool Kaleidoscope. I have my fabric cut and half the strip sets (Ricky calls them strata) are sewn.

He calls this the ultimate mystery quilt. I am so looking forward to seeing what mine will look like. 

Stay tuned, 2022 is gonna be fun.