2020 Planning....How'd that Go?

Remember back in a more innocent time when I made plans for 2020, prompted by a link-up party? I had planned to revisit this every quarter but haven't posted anything since April. Just for fun, let's take a little look.

1. Quilt the Nocturne Star Quilt. Um, no. But it is basted.

And I'm pretty sure this is going to be my next big project to tackle once my machine gets back from being serviced and Troy finishes the adapter so I can uses cones of thread. So stayed tuned.

2. A wall hanging from a block I made in a class with Pat Sloan. I added the borders to the block and got it mostly quilted.

This was an adventure in finding and piecing together fabric to match the other wall hanging I had made years ago.

3. Sashing my Lucy Boston blocks. I had 24 done at the beginning of the year and now have 51 out of 56 done. Here's the last one I finished:

By "sashing" the block, I mean adding
the grey honeycombs around the outside

My goal is to finish by the end of the month (that will be three years since I started). That is going to be a push.

The goal also mentioned starting on the connecting crosses and I have done that. Here are a couple:

I probably don't have half of them done yet, but I think I'm getting close to that. I can sew together one of these in about an hour.

4. Finish my Joy to the World quilt top. That was done at the last update in April.

5. Start a quilt with my "antique red" fabrics. Not started. But I pulled out all the fabrics I had assembled and took out a few that really didn't go. I picked the order I would put them in for a Boston Commons quilt.

I still want to make this one but am not in a hurry to start it.

6. Make a cashmere memory blanket for a friend. This also was already done by the April post.

7. Calligraphy. I didn't do the drills with the big brush pen as I suggested I could in the April post, but I have continued lettering. Mostly a lot of decorated envelopes.

This would be one of my fancier ones:

And I was proud of this circle design:

I enjoy fitting words into shapes.

For Christmas, I did a lot of hand lettered envelopes:

Banners:

Ornaments:

and Christmas trees:

I made some personalized cards in the spring with floral initials:

Pretty much every project and design is still inspired by the Happy Ever Crafter (on youtube and Instagram).

8. Skating more. As I reported in April, I went twice in January and that's it. I haven't been this winter yet (Covid) but hope to go soon again. The outdoor rinks are opened with precautions.

9. Take a trip with Troy to celebrate our 20th anniversary (in September). Um, no. You know why.

I got out my wedding dress and put Troy in a suit and took some pictures in our yard.

10. Pray more: still going. I had a daily Lectio Divina practice until the summer and then it dropped off. I'm averaging a couple times a week now and that seems like a good amount. Last week, my church started a scripture series where we're reading a prayer from scripture and then doing a relevant prayer practice. The series goes up to Lent and I hope to keep up with that. (Not that I did in the first week we just finished!)

I'm not worried about evaluating whether I won or lost in meeting these goals, but I was interested in reviewing them after the end of the year.

2020 Planning Party: First Quarter Update

If I went through the trouble of doing some planning for 2020, maybe I should go through the effort of some updates too! (For the original list, see this post.)

After the first quarter of the year, here are status updates for the projects I listed:

1. Quilting my Nocturne Star: no progress. The top, back, binding, and thread are all still hanging out in the same box. I haven't used the batting intended for this quilt, so I still have all of the necessary pieces.

2. A wall hanging from an orphan block. At the retreat in February, I sorted through my blues and yellows to see what I had from the first wall hanging and what else may work

and then cut up a lot of little squares.

Not long after getting home, I sewed the first border of rectangles together and attached them to the center block.

I couldn't find enough of the fabric I wanted to use for the next border. It was a light orange with blue flowers that was perfect in the first block. I did some more looking but never did find any. (Except for the squares of this fabric in my plaidish quilt. I was giving them the side eye for sure.)

When I finally decided I couldn't wait any longer for some to magically appear and wanted to move forward, I worked with what I had. I had enough for 10" of the 12" border. So I grabbed another fabric that isn't the same but I kept mixing them up in my mind, so I figured they were close enough to the same. I put the new fabric in just the corners, leaving the center for the orange fabric.

Not terrible.

Then I decided to press on and sew on the next border, which was also a set of squares. It would have been smarter to strip piece this--make one set 6" wide and then cut them into 1.5" strips--but I didn't think of this on time. So I sewed little 1.5" square together, one by one.

And then they were too long. By a good amount:

I think I can make each seam a smidge bigger and make it fit, but for now the whole thing is in time-out.

3. Sashing Lucy Boston blocks
This got seriously derailed by the Third Block contest in February, but I was able to finished 4 so far this year

and am working on the fifth:

This last one will be block #28 to be sashed, which means...I'm half way! Wow, imagine that!

4. Joy to the World quilt bottom (back)
Good news here, I got the back done!

This got a big push by the #sewthescrapoutofMarch sew along on Instagram (and being home all day every day) and I definitely wanted it off of the design wall.

Here's a close up of the border print:

Carefully chosen by the fact that it was the only red fabric I had enough of to do the borders.

5. Antique red fabric quilt
I bought more fabric for this quilt, bringing in some teals that I think will really help, but nothing else done. If I do the Boston Common pattern I'm looking at I really will need that design board the Joy to the World quilt just vacated.

6. Cashmere "memory" blanket
I got a good start on this one at the retreat in February. The blocks were cut and sewn into rows. Soon after getting back, I sewed the rows together.

I started the hand embroidery to sew down the seam allowances on March 3 and finished in about two weeks. (Another reason my Lucy Boston blocks were slowed down.)

I finished the label just in time to say I did it on this post. I hope to deliver it on Thursday.

Although intended for a couch, here it is
laying on my queen sized bed.

7. Calligraphy
I completed the online "drills" course I started. That was a great start. I did not sign up for any of the following (not free) courses that actually teach letters. I just looked at examples and started. I made these 4x6" cards to hang on the prayer board at church.

I am interested in hand lettering, which is a great thing to combine with calligraphy. Here's the design I put on the postcard I swapped at the retreat.

I'm learning that calligraphy and hand lettering are more about the layout than how well you can make letters. (Although of course you need both.) I took a class on hand lettering at Make South Bend a couple years ago, and both of these experiences have taught me that it's more like drafting than writing.

Here's a fun habit I picked up from the calligraphy drills instructor:

She loves to decorate her envelopes, and apparently I do too. It takes a long time though, so please don't be offended if any mail you get doesn't look like this! :)

I am not keeping up with regular drills so I'll have to "get in shape" before I do any serious calligraphy projects. I also haven't experimented with the "big" brush pen. I could do the same drills with the big tip pen and see how that goes.

8. Skate more
I managed to skate twice in January at the new local skate park:

And a picture to prove I was there:

It was nice. I think after that the weather was iffy and I had things that filled the time gap where I would have went skating. Apparently it is a good thing I didn't get the season pass.

9. Take a trip with Troy: no progress
And now that we are self-isolating (self-isewlating in my case), getting to the grocery store is considered a major trip.

10. Pray more.
I'm definitely doing this, and with all the time at home that I could want, I have lots of opportunities for it. I have kept up a daily practice of Lectio Divina each morning, and small groups that I was getting together to pray with are trying it on Zoom. It's not great, but it's not horrible either.

Well, all in all, not bad I'd say. This might have been a better goal list for the first quarter of 2020, than for the whole year! But then again, I do have that whole quilt to quilt (#1).

2020 Planning Party

I just read about the Planning Party link-up that Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl is having and there are some great prizes, so I am jumping in. (You know I am all about trying for the prizes.)

Here are some goals for 2020:


1. Quilt this thing finally. (It's from late 2016.)

I have backing, batting, and binding. All three b's. Oh ya, and thread. Now I just need a d: quilting design.

I just re-read the post where I showed this top finished for the first time. I talked about taking it to a local shop where I can rent time on a long-arm machine to quilt it, because "It would be so exciting to get it quilted in an afternoon!!! :)" That makes me laugh now. Remember when I quilted my nine-patch on a long-arm at the shop and it took 10 hours? And that was a single all-over pattern. L.O.L.

2. Make a wall hanging from this block:

to coordinate with this wall hanging I finished in 2010:

I know I have some of the binding fabric left and I think I might have some of the thin inner border, and we'll see for the rest.

3. I would love to get all of my Lucy Boston blocks sashed and start on the connecting squares.

I have about half of them done now. I still need to get a little more fabric of one of the greys. I really should have done that while they might have had the same bolt at the store so the colour wouldn't vary. I think that ship has sailed.

4. Finish the Joy to the World bottom:

It's going to be the back of my Merrily Christmas quilt top,

hence "bottom" instead of quilt top. I do have the batting I'm going to use for this quilt, but I doubt I will get that far in the next year.

5. Make a start on a quilt top with my "antique red" fabrics. I have a collection of fabric for this quilt and am getting the urge to do something with it. Maybe a Boston Commons. I think I need a few more fabrics in the contrasting colour, but picking a specific pattern would help in knowing what I need!

6. Make a memory blanket for a friend
I'm using her mother's cashmere sweaters to make a blanket for her. The sweaters are washed and I know how I'm going to do it, so it's a matter of figuring out the largest square I can cut and getting started. I don't want this to languish very long.

7. Work on calligraphy.
I have signed up for a free course on modern calligraphy from Becca of the Happily Ever Crafter. (It starts on January 6 and I think you can sign up up until that date, if you're interested.) Apparently it is mostly drills on basic parts of the letters, but that is how you get good and I am certainly not going to do it on my own! Hopefully the incentive of doing it with others will help.

8. Skate more.
This is in response to the thought that I should move more and asking myself what kind of moving I enjoy. There's not a lot but skating is one of them. The park I used to skate at was completely revamped and is apparently awesome. There is not only an outdoor rink, but a loop, like taking a walk on a path. For $35 I can get a season pass. They're open 7 days a week (afternoons and evenings which is just my time of day) so I'm hoping I can get myself down there a lot.

9. Take a trip with Troy.
We're married 20 years in 2020, so I think a little trip is in order. We'll probably stay stateside this time, maybe go down to the Florida keys. I have never been.

10. Pray more.
This has become a big thing with me lately. I am learning a lot and hope to put it into practice a lot more.

Goals. I don't often set them out but maybe that is something I should do more of too. :)

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ETA: I won a prize of some batting! I had no idea what I was getting, but when it arrived, it was just what I always like to use: queen sized wool batt. Woo hoo!