2024 Goal Setting
It’s a new calendar year (speaking of calendars, my mother in law gifted me the 2024 Quilter’s Planner and I LOVE IT, highly recommend!) so I’m taking a short break from studio rearranging (more on that later) to check in on my 2023 Q4 goals and look ahead to 2024. This is a long post, so go ahead and pour that cup of coffee & get comfy 😉
Thanks as always to Yvonne/Quilting Jet Girl for the #2024QuiltingPlanningParty linkup and nudges to do this!
2023 Q4 - how did I do?
From my blog post back in October, my goals for the end of 2023 were:
Finish QuiltCon Submissions! The deadline is October 31. ⏳ 😳
I ended up submitting ::checks notes:: FIVE quilts for the QuiltCon 2024 jurying process: Heliconia (Modern Traditionalism), Archer (Minimalism), Sowing the Seeds of Love (Scrappy Challenge), Use Your Illusion 2 (Windham Fabric Challenge), and Strongest Link (Minimalism).
I definitely was finishing up closer to the deadline than I liked on Sowing the Seeds and Use Your Illusion 2. I managed to get all my submissions entered on 10/29 with 2 days to spare, but for the future I’d prefer not to cut it so close.
Four of my quilts are in great company with other #QuiltConRejects - though I’m so happy for my friend Eva, whose mini Heliconia was accepted!
I’m thrilled that Use Your Illusion 2 was accepted and will hang in the show in Raleigh next month! I finished all the last little bits (hanging sleeve, label, trimming threads on the back) and shipped it off last week. Thanks to the AirTag sewn in under the label, I was able to watch its journey to Austin for judging - talk about peace of mind!
I’d love to get some Halloween blocks done from the Spooky Season and Soul-Along samplers - I’ve been downloading & printing out the patterns each day, and even taking some time to pull out my Halloween fabrics…
I sewed 7 blocks from these samplers. They were really fun and a great palate cleanser after the intense push to finish my QuiltCon submission projects. I’ve still got all the other block patterns saved, so I might get a head start next year on some more blocks!
Finish secret 🤐 project pattern (coming February 2024!)
Source printing for hard copy patterns (yep! paper patterns from Sewistry are coming in 2024!)
Done & done - I’ve placed an order with a local printer for my very first printed patterns! Cary Quilting Company’s booth at QuiltCon will be the exclusive source for this pattern, which is still under wraps…stay tuned!
Release Hardcore Holiday mini pattern - aiming for November 3
This fun mini quilt pattern released on November 12.
Solstice Samplers (coordinated by Alderwood Studio) - finishing my 2022 sampler (quilting is about half done) and piecing the 2023 one
I finished quilting the 2022 sampler (though truth be told, it still needs to have threads buried and trimmed…it is my absolute least favorite part of the quilting process!) seen below left and middle, and really enjoyed making all the blocks from the 2023 sampler (below right)! Since I used the same background fabric for all the blocks this time, I didn’t add any sashing, so the top is done…and packed away to be quilted later.
Do some holiday sewing & quilting - I’m looking forward to getting out the blocks I started last year from Cassandra Beaver’s Festive Baubles pattern & making some more!
Y’all, I was completely burned out on FPP after making Use Your Illusion 2 ( I still am a little bit). It was 100 FPP blocks. ONE HUNDRED. Festive baubles would not have brought me joy this season, so I did not make any.
Instead, I made some quilts for Christmas gifts: a Birdland quilt featuring nautical Charley Harper prints for my mom (I didn’t get any photos before gifting it, d’oh!) and a Radical Cassettes quilt for my husband. I’m really happy with how it came out, and it was very well received. I have wanted to make a quilt with this pattern from Love Sew Modern since I first saw it. I made a couple tweaks to the pattern so that each cassette had a different color scheme and the stripes in the middle were their own colorway. It is such a fun design and it’s the perfect size throw for my 6’1” guy - it covers him from shoulders to over-the-feet on the couch. While I was working on it, I discovered the Press Play block from Apples and Beavers, through her participation in the Quiltmas Spectacular Sampler - I couldn’t NOT include it!
Fun fabrics I got to use on this included Libs Elliott Atomic, Giucy Giuce Spectrastatic and others, my beloved RSS metallic speckled, a few different Carolyn Friedlander fabrics, a great Beatles print, and some scraps from my husband’s old jeans for the boombox buttons!
2024 Goals
Pattern writing:
Paper version of Heliconia ready by QuiltCon
Free pattern for newsletter subscribers - Shadowbox (mockups done)
Inbound pattern (currently writing/sewing up samples)
Safety Dance pattern (currently writing)
Garden Trellis/Garden Path pattern (mockups in progress; this has potential to be 2 different patterns in one depending on block arrangement)
Triangle Puzzle pattern (mockups in progress)
General business goals:
Grow my newsletter & Instagram audiences organically
Explore taking on one or a small group of in-person students who want to learn to make a quilt from start to finish
Grow relationships with quilt shops - what are some of your favorites?
Other:
Create at least one quilt to submit for QuiltCon 2025 jurying
Continue to submit quilts to other shows and seek out local opportunities for exhibition
Finish rearranging my home studio, optimizing the space for workflow and destashing some on Feelgood Fibers
