A Slew of Finishes in January 2018

2018 has really gotten away from me.  It's already June and this is my first blog post!  What are my themes of 2018?  If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times, but I REALLY want to try and use up what I already have this year.  Now, of course I'm sure I'll buy a lot, but I'm really going to focus on using up scraps and using a lot of kits I already have.  January was a huge month with 7 quilt finishes!  Here they are:

This quilt was my first finish of 2018.  I finished it on January 2.  As soon as I saw this kit on Craftsy I knew this would be perfect for my friend's baby boy who was born in March, 2018.  I waited till January to put the binding on so that I could put 2018 on the label in good conscience.

 I quilted this on my Juki and did a spiral with my walking foot.

I used a variegated Fabulux thread that matched the quilt really well.

This next quilt is the sample quilt from my Quick Kahuna pattern that I designed.  The binding was sewn on for some time and I wanted to hand bind it.  I finally got around to it.  I finished this on January 2nd as well.  I guess a cold January day is great for sitting around and hand binding quilts.

This quilt is Pat Sloan's Children's Library BOM.  This was a free online pattern and quilt along.  I just fell in love with the first block and decided to play along.  I followed religiously and completed this quilt right on time.  I had a FQ pack of this awesome fabric and was able to buy enough coordinating fabric online to complete the quilt.  My mom quilted it with a flowered design that coordinates with the fabric.  I finished this quilt on January 27th.  This quilt did contribute to using the FQ pack from my stash, but sadly, I've got a bit of extra from the yardage I bought.  I have made a couple scrap projects with the scraps already though, so I feel pretty good about that.

This quilt is the Tewksbury Piecemakers 2017/2018 Mystery Quilt.  I was the coordinator of the mystery program and helped to select the quilt and distribute the patterns each month.  This was really fun to make.  I used a REALLY  old layer cake I got on clearance, but I think it was perfect for this quilt.  I finished it on January 27th.

I only purchased fabric for the inner and outer borders and used my stash for the backing.  So, this was a great stash-buster, especially considering the ancient layer cake I used.

I had to to some creative piecing to get my stash fabrics to work on the backing.  I think it came out really cute in the end.

My mom quilted this with a really simple swirl pattern that coordinates with the swirls in the fabric.

There were a lot of babies that needed quilts in early 2018, including my Sister-in-Law, Sandra.  Since they didn't know what they were having, I needed something that could work for a boy or a girl. I got this half-yard bundle from Craftsy and thought it would work great for either a boy or a girl.  I realized there was enough fabric to make more than one baby quilt from this, and I had several cute patterns to choose from, so I ended up making three quilts from the pack of fabric!  Why make one quilt, when you can make three?!  Alas, I bought this fabric pack new this year, so it didn't come from my stash, but I did use as much of the remaining fabric as I could in the backing, so I really don't have mush scrap of this left.  This quilt even got a scrappy border to further use up some of the collection.  I finished these three quilts on January 27th.

I made one mega-long backing using the remainder of the half-yard pack and extra coordinating yardage I bought.  My mom quilted these with a jacks pattern which coordinates with some jack shapes on the fabric.

The second quilt was given to a couple of co-workers for their second child, who happened to be a girl.  I really love how this quilt came out with this fabric collection, its just perfect.  The pattern is Casanova from Gudrun Erla.  The white binding on this is a nice touch.

The third quilt is still waiting for its forever home.  This one also has a scrappy border to use up as much of the fabric as possible.

2017 By the Numbers...

I'm taking stock of the projects I've worked on and completed in 2017.  I put 40 entries in my Quilter's Planner.

I started off the year well, by joining the American Patchwork & Quilting's 2017 UFO Challenge.  I wrote down my 12 quilts and thought I'd work on nothing else but these (unless I finished early in a given month). Ha! I was totally wrong, but I did finish a lot and the list helped me to stay motivated for a while.

Here's how the list and the rest of the year broke down:

I completed 5 of the 12 projects on my list (41%)

I made some forward progress on 3 of the projects (25%)

Four of the project are sitting in at the same place they were at the beginning of 2017 (33%)

I've made my new list for 2018 and hope to do a better job of completing those few lingering UFOs that didn't move forward in 2017.  I put the 8 projects that I didn't complete in 2017 on my 2018 list.  I hope this is the year they will all finally be finished.

In 2017 I did complete a lot more than 5 quilts though.  I, in fact, completed 25 projects!  A couple were crafts, including the coffee can caddy (I made 4 of these), vinyl zip bags to hold scraps and projects, and a drawstring bag which was given to my stitch pal.  Considering I work full time and also travel on average once per month for work, I'm really proud of this number of finishes!

Alas, I didn't finish everything I started in 2017.  There are 10 quilts that are not yet finished.  I expect to finish at least 2 in January.  Most of the quilts are down to the quilt & bind stage.  A lot of it comes down to how quickly I can quilt them (or do I just pack them off to my mom for computerized longarm quilting).

This year I also have a goal to get nice pictures of all the quilts I have not already gifted and sell a few of them. I've got two large totes overflowing with quilts that need to find their forever homes one way or another.

I just received my new quilter's planner mini's in the mail and will get started documenting my progress for 2018!  Happy Quilting Everyone!