A New Year Just Begun

Well, another year has passed and we enjoyed the final evening of 2018 with friends at the local Party in the Park, culminating with a fireworks display.  Rather a nice way to end things.

Looking back,  2018 was a much calmer year for Mick and I compared with the last five or six.  We are well and truly settled into our new home, continuing to make some home improvements, got to have some great trips away, both in the caravan and flying to the UK and I'm enjoying working for just three days a week, which allows me time to spend with my Mum.  (Yes, I still have to finish blogging about our holidays before I forget everything, even if it is six months after the event.)

On the sewing front I am so very happy to have completed six UFOs, some being very old.  There are still more, but I only added one UFO and my Splendid Sampler, which I consider to be a WIP.

I also completed three quilts - one was a UFO, which went on to win a prize at the local show, which I'm pretty chuffed about, and the other two were started and finished without becoming a UFO.  I think that One Monthly Goal (OMG) really helped keep me on track and One Project a Month (OPAM) is also good for that reason.  The Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) with the associated quilt along was also good to keep me going on the third quilt I made.

However, to keep things real, my sewing room is still a hot mess full of boxes of "stuff". 

One final thing that I'm pretty pleased about this last year is that I have lost quite a bit of weight.  In the middle of the year I had a bit of a health wake up call - nothing serious - but enough to make me think that I should take a bit more care of myself.  So, after we returned from the UK I started doing some walking and eating more sensibly and feel so much better for it.  

So what for the year to come?

We are looking forward to some more travelling in our caravan.  There is so much to see out there.  

I'm sure there will be some form of home improvement going on here.

On the sewing front, I will certainly continue to participate in OMG and OPAM.  Just having a small goal each month, even if it is just to complete a certain stage of a project really works for me.

I still have a long way to go on Splendid Sampler 2, and do not think I will have any hope of maintaining the four blocks a week that are being scheduled.  If I do one block a week I will be happy, even though it will mean the quilt takes two years to complete.  I just want to keep plugging away at it.

I'd like to join in the RSC again this year, as it was a fun way to use stash and end up with a completed quilt at the end of the year.

I certainly wish to keep finishing UFOs.  I still have a list, but the quick and easy ones have mostly been completed, so this will now take a little more effort, but any that are crossed off are a win in my opinion.  Here's hoping I don't add any new ones to the list.

One thing that I would like to try this year is to have a leader and ender project sitting beside my machine.  I've been looking at patterns of quilts.  I have Mum's fabric stash over here now.  There are some quilting fabrics, but not very lovely ones, as well as other cottons.  I think I could make a really scrappy quilt, but I need to have a little think and plan first.  Then, I had a light bulb moment.  Why not use the RSC as a leader and ender project.  Now to decide on a project that will fit the bill.  We'll give it a go.

I certainly want to work from my stash and not buy more fabric without it being for a specific project that I am working on at the time.

So, as you can see, there are no goals set in concrete.  Just wishes that may or may not come to fruition.  The main thing is for me to have fun along the way.