Looking Back at 2025

I always like to have a little look back at the year and see what we got up to and how I went with my little goals.  You can read about them here.

In some ways, I’m glad to move on from 2025.  There was a rather sad time in the middle of the year when Mick and I both lost our Mums within six weeks of each other and then I had surgery requiring a fairly long recovery.

However, there were also good times to be had.

So, let’s have a look at what I achieved on the stitching front.

After reading my post at the beginning of the year, I had a chuckle at my wish to “try and concentrate on one project on the machine and one by hand at a time rather than jumping all over the place like I usually do”.  Oh my, how I massively failed at that.  2025 seems to have been very much the year of jumping all over the place.  

I actually did very little on the machine.  Most of what I did was handwork that I could take to my stitching days, which I continue to enjoy.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

Considering I wasn’t going to take part in RSC,  I made more of the Split Nine Patch blocks and managed to get them into a quilt top. It was finally quilted and bound this week, being the very last project finished this year - ie. this afternoon.

I also manage to get both the Fishy Business quilt tops made - still to be quilted and bound,

The only other RSC project that is unfinished is the drunkard path blocks from a few years ago.

CHOOKSHED CHALLENGE

This wasn’t as successful as last year.  Some projects were completed, others not.  I ended up switching around projects nearly every month.  It didn’t really work for me.  Having said that, it did prompt me to work on some projects that would have otherwise just sat in the drawer.

Thanks must go to Deana for going to the trouble of arranging this challenge.

MY OTHER GOALS

• Complete 12 UFOs - Nope, just 5.
• Quilt 12 Quilts on Monique - a huge fail - a big fat 0! - Having said that, I have quilted three in the last week on Elly May.  Phew, at least that is better than none.
• Complete 12 Donation items - There were only a few.

There were the three quilts I have just quilted. I made the Wisteria Corner to Corner Rug for Wraps With Love and also quite a few blocks for various group donation quilts.

• Complete 25 Projects - surprisingly, I completed 22.  
• Work at some crafting for 15 minutes a day.  I achieved 281 days, which equates to 76.99%.  I’m happy with that.

I started 26 new projects this year, which is insane, and completed 17 of them.  That does mean that there are quite a few to carry over to 2026, but I reckon that none of them will be carried over to 2027. Fingers crossed…..or just a crazy pipe dream?

The year started well with the completion of the hexy flower quilt top and also making the Design Curtain that hangs over our display cabinet when needed.  A very helpful innovation.

I started a new Leader and Ender project.  It is Bonnie Lass, by Jen Kingwell.  I’m going well with it, and it should make good progress as I work on the sewing machine next year.  I have completed quite a few more blocks than shown here.

I seem to have spent more time doing knitting, crochet and hand work this last year.  As well as the Wisteria Corner to Corner Rug, I completed a “Snowy” version.  This was intended to be donated, before Mick paid claim to it.  I also knitted another two scarves, a pair of socks, a beanie as well as my linen sleeveless top.

Two bags were completed, both using stitcheries that were hanging around.  I’m really pleased with both of them.

There were several other small projects.

The finale for the year was working on the Wensleydale Quilt.  After waiting in the wings for a few years, I stumbled up on the quilt along and jumped in with both feet.  What a fun project to focus on.  I had hoped to have the top completed by the end of the year, but it is currently blocks hanging on my Design Curtain. That will be rectified very soon.  It will be quilted next year.

Of course, a highlight in December was receiving “Elly May”, my new quilting machine.  

I have already quilted three quilts on her.  They are all for donation and have been great to get the feel of her.  

The final silly little challenge I had was to see how many cotton reels I could empty and collect in my pretty jar.  I’m trying hard to use up a lot of the odds and sods that I seem to have amassed.  Not as many as I had hoped, but a few of those had a lot of thread on them.  I will now throw them out and start again for 2026.  

So, what else did we get up to?

The start of the year saw me very busy organising the display of wedding and christening gowns for the church bicentenary.  It was far more successful than I could ever have imagined.

We managed to get away with the caravan five times, which is about what we aim for each year.  

We had two trips to Queensland.  Sadly, they were both called off short, due to the passing of our Mums.

In May we headed firstly to Lightning Ridge and then to Hebel and then St George. 

In June we headed up through Bourke, Cunnamulla, Charleville, Barcaldine and Emerald.

We also had an impromptu trip to Tamworth for a few days in October. The other trips were to Baradine.  Considering all that happened during the year, I’m happy with that.

We did enjoy the time we were away.

We went to Baradine twice for quilting retreats, as well as travelling to Sydney to meet up with Janet when she was briefly visiting Australia. Of course, Zoom sessions continue to be one of my favourite times. Such a wonderful group of women to know.

It was special to have Lou and Tony visit.

We had some fun days out.  Having said that, we didn’t get to even one quilt show this year and only one weekend of open gardens.

Portland Bonfire, Nocturnal at Scenic World at Katoomba, Bathurst Winter Festival, Mr Squiggle in Canberra’s, Birdhouse mural at Lithgow and Convent and Chapel Wool shop at Rylstone are just a few.

We had a couple of day trips to play the tourist in Sydney, which is always fun…..and then nice to retreat to the other side of the mountains.

In October with friends from Queensland.

And again in December.

In addition to all of this, we have just enjoyed spending time at home.  The garden is looking good and Mick is thoroughly enjoying being a part of the Bowling Club.  He has taken on more responsibility this year and takes pride in keeping the greens and grounds looking good.

On the whole, life has been good and we are still enjoying retirement very much.

Looking Back at 2024

I can’t quite believe that we are already at the end of another year.  It is time to have a look back at what we have been up to over the last twelve months.  This is something I have done for the last few years and I do enjoy having a quick read over them and seeing how we have fared.

At the start of 2024 I made a post with my wishes for the coming year.  Let’s see how things panned out.

As usual, I set some goals for my stitching and joined in with some challenges.

Once again, I joined in with the One Monthly Goal challenge.  I missed achieving my goal for a couple of months, due to travel, but caught up by the end of the year.

A new challenge this year was the Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge arranged by Deana.  This consisted of nominating and numbering ten projects or tasks. Deana would then select one number at random each month and we would work on that project or task.  Having only ten projects gave us a couple of extra months to make up for any time we were unable to complete the task in the nominated month.  I’m pleased to report that by using that extra couple of months I was able to meet all my goals.  I’m looking forward to joining in again next year.

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge featured again this year.  I worked on a few projects, but completed none.  

Firstly, I continued to make the split nine patches I had started in 2023.  

I also made a few crumb blocks and started a few hexy flowers.  

What ended up being a lot of fun was working on the Fishy Business Quilt blocks in rainbow colours.  Sadly, I fell off the wagon in the second half of the year, so they are an ongoing project.  I hope to make two donation quilts using these blocks.

The Rainbow Fish were such fun that I started a second version of the quilt using batik fabrics.  I’m loving how this is turning out.  Once again, it came to standstill in the second half of the year, so is ongoing.

I did manage to make quite a few donation quilts.  Some went to a local charity that supports victims of domestic violence.

One was used as a raffle prize at the church fete.

There were a couple of things that didn’t progress how I had hoped, one being the Blue Quilt.  I need to remove a couple of borders, as they were flaring, and adjust those borders. They are the checkerboard border you can see here as well as a narrow border that was added after this one.

I have become somewhat obsessed with hexy flowers since autumn, when I made a couple of random ones as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  This morphed into making the Bigs and Smalls quilt pattern by Anorina Morris.  I have stitched 111 one inch hexy flowers and 8 two inch hexy flowers.  I am currently in the process of appliquéing them to background squares.  It has surprised me how much I have enjoyed the process,  It has also meant that other projects have been put on the back burner.

I started a little stitchery when we were overseas and rather than just adding a simple border, I had a play and made a little wall hanging.  It was a bit of fun.

This year I again played along with working on something crafty for 15 minutes a day.  It really motivates me to get at least some little thing done most days.  The hexy flowers were a perfect project.

This is how I ended up:

December = 26/31

Year to Date =  336/366

Success Rate = 91.80%  That’s a little bit down on last year, but I think anything over 90% is definitely a win.

Being a bit of a nerd, I set up a spreadsheet with some goals.  This is how I went.

Complete 24 projects = 25

Quilt 12 quilts = 12  (I had hoped to achieve more here, but Monique has not been playing nicely for the last few months.  Once she is sorted, I should be able to make some good progress - and complete some more UFOs.)

Complete 12 UFOs = 9 (I had listed 24 UFOs to choose from)

Complete 12 donation projects = 10

I started 25 new projects during the year and have completed 16, so there is the start of next year’s UFO list.

I am really enjoying the social side of stitching, continuing to attend my patchwork group on a Wednesday and the U3A group on a Friday morning.  These groups mean that I get much more handwork completed these days.

Participating in the Chookshed Stitchers Zoom sewing sessions continues to be a favourite way to spend time.  It is such a lovely group of women.

Finally, visiting Baradine for sewing retreats is the best fun.  This time with a second retreat in the spring being a bonus, as well as a free motion quilting workshop at the craft shop in Coonabarabran.

What else did we get up to during the year?

Things started out on a sad note, as we farewelled our cat Joey.  He was sixteen and his time had come.

Travel is always a feature.  The main trip this year was rather unplanned and impromptu.  We decided on the Friday afternoon to go to the Isle of Man for the TT motorcycle races and had everything booked that evening and left on the Monday morning!!! I still haven’t got around to blogging about most of the trip.  I may still get to it.  I do hope so.  Anyway, we had a great time while there and in England.

We had quite a change with our caravan trips too.  After the ute started to give us grief, we made the decision to buy a small truck to pull the van.  Enter “Frank” the Fuso truck.  We are very happy with him.  He is shorter than the ute and Mick finds him surprisingly zippy for driving around town.  The vision from the cab is terrific, being so high and, best of all, there is no worries about being overweight when towing the van.  He has already done quite a few miles.

Our first trip was to Baradine for Scrub Stitchin’, when the above photo was taken.  

We then took him to Canberra in May, so that we could see the Rajah Quilt, the Ancient Egypt exhibition, both Parliament Houese and Mr Squiggle.

His next trip was to Queensland, where we visited Dalby, Bell, Gayndah, Cania Gorge and then on to Rockhampton to visit our friends.

We have also taken him to Forbes and Lake Cargelligo.

And finally, Braidwood for the Airing of the Quilts.

As usual we had quite a few days out.  Quilt shows and open gardens seemed to feature a lot.  We went to the Blue Mountains Quilt Show, the Rajah Quilt Exhibition at Canberra, the Sydney Quilt show and the Braidwood Airing of the Quilts.  We visited open gardens at Cowra, Bathurst and Crookwell.  

Meanwhile, we are also enjoying just being at home.  Mick has become really involved with his lawn bowls.  Not only is he playing twice a week, he goes down and practices on a couple of afternoons and has started taking an active role in looking after the grounds. 

I have continued to read some books, but still not as many as I would like and tried quite a few new recipes, but once again, not as many as I would like.

So that wraps up another year of retirement.  Life is definitely good.