I always struggle a little with how to start my year in review post - it was a great year, wow, what a year, or I can't believe how quickly the year went by! This year really felt like a year of transition for me. I moved to a new position at work early in the year, and our daughter entered high school. I also altered my volunteer activities for Girl Scouts and pushed my troop to lead more on their own. All of the transitions are good ones, but I have certainly felt that my life is changing and my family is changing. I am glad to have had lots to keep my fingers and my mind busy in my varied crafts, and I am really grateful for close family and good friends who have been cheerleader, confidant, and support, especially during my heavy travel period in the last part of the year.
In our family this year, we moved solidly into teenager years, with my daughter turning 14 and my son 12. They have pretty much completed the migration to spending most of their time either in their own room or with friends. It is quite a difference from the days when they wanted to play or read the same book all day. I am really enjoying have more adult conversations with them and watching them learn and grow their values - I can almost see them beginning to become the adults they will be - and good news is that I like it (most of the time!). As a camp counselor, I always liked working with this age group, and I have to say I like parenting this age children too. We had a Great Eastern Road Trip over the summer that took me to places I'd been before and places I'd never seen and gave us a chance to show our kids more of this country that we live in.
At work, I dove head-first into a new position and pulled out some skills I hadn't used for a while, but also leveraged learning from my prior roles. The new position has been a good fit for me and I really enjoy it, I like my boss, and I appreciate the way she has let me lead from the front on a major company project. I am learning a lot and certainly enjoyed being able to visit some of the people I've worked with for months or years.
At home, I've kept myself busy with lots of crafting projects - I will take a minute to recap each:
1) Crochet - this is one of my newer crafts and I have come to enjoy it. I generally am trying a new stitch or technique on each project I make and like seeing what I can do with some yarn and a crochet hook. I finished 4 items this year - a cowl, 2 blanket squares for a Veteran's Day project, and a scarf. I pick up crochet from time to time and enjoy it when I do. I've also added quite a bit of yarn, so plan to keep working through what I have for some more fun projects.
2) Scan N'Cut - this one is a new category for this year - although I bought the machine several years ago, each time I used it was a bit of an exercise in frustration. I took a day in December to really learn my machine and I am so glad I did. Now the possibilities seem endless to cut fabric, paper, and vinyl. I am looking forward to playing more with my machine.
3) Stitching - I will group both cross-stitch and embroidery under this one, although cross-stitch admittedly takes up most of my stitching time. You won't be surprised to hear that I really love stitching - and I have for years. I was thinking back this morning to 20 years ago when we went from 1999 to 2000 and back then, stitching was my only hobby! I have sure grown from those days when I had just one medium sized box of all my supplies! Now I fill several shelves in my craft room and it seems to be expanding. I am really happy with my stitching progress this year - on the embroidery front, I finished two wool embroidery projects and a cotton embroidery project. I found that these travel a lot easier on an airplane than cross-stitch does, so plan to prep a few projects for my upcoming trips. I finished 21 cross-stitch projects this year, with 12 of them being my monthly Lizzie Kate Flip-Its. I really enjoyed having a monthly stitch, especially something easy. I also finished several projects that have been on my "want to stitch" list for a long time. I even did a better job with cross-stitch finishing, completing 16 projects. Many of them were quick and easy finishes, but they count just the same as a harder finish, right?
4) Quilting - For the last few years, my quilting time has really been dwindling, and I think it is just a season of life I am going through. I am past the time of making lots of quilts for gifts, so now I am making what I want when I want. I did have two quilts with deadlines this year, and enjoyed making both of them. I had a total of 19 finishes this year - 9 finished quilts (5 UFOs from prior years), 7 bags, 1 pillow top, 1 quilt top (not yet quilted), and 1 table runner. I also quilted a dozen quilts on my longarm. I think that's a pretty successful year and I carry into 2020 the last three items that are unfinished. Like most years, I plan/hope to finish them as soon as possible.
So, now it is time to take stock of my goals for the year and see how I did:
1) Complete 12 things in 2019 (from this blog post) - I finished 8 out of 12 and made progress on two more - it was a fun list to try for the year and I am glad with the progress I made. I think the one I am most proud of is the quilting of my Santorini Houses quilt, because I'd known for a few years how I wanted to quilt it and finally got the courage - and it worked out as well as I'd hoped in my mind!
2) Continue to make progress on UFOs, getting to less than 10 by the end of the year - well, I did make progress, finishing 6 from my UFO list, 4 of which were on the UFO Challenge I participated in. I did add 6 new projects that aren't complete, so that took my list back up to 15. Several of the projects are either small or ones I plan to work on at another retreat, so I am optimistic (aren't we all in January?) that I will get several of them done this year.
3) Fully finish two cross-stitch projects for every new one I start - my success on this all depends on how you count the Lizzie Kate series. I had 7 new starts outside of that, so if you take them as 1 and I had 8 starts, then I just squeaked by with finishing 16 projects. If you count each of the LK Flip-It's as a single start, then I didn't do quite as well.
Overall, I did have a good year when it comes to my stitching time and stash reports.
On the stash reports, I had another year in the positive (using more stash than I bought). I added 12 1/4 yards of fabric (the smallest amount added since I started tracking in 2010) and used 47 7/8 yards, which is in line with the last few years. I wound up with a stash reduction of 35 5/8 yards! I will continue to work on this in 2020, as lord knows I have more fabric than I know what to do with. I enjoyed joining up with Donna at the end of each month to share my report.
On the stitching time reports, I joined up with Kate monthly and tracked how many days I did at least 15 minutes of something crafty - could be any of the items mentioned above. I wound up with 237 days where I met the goal, for 67% of the year. I am really happy with that number!
So, all in all, I would say that 2019 was a good year - family, personal, professional, and craft-wise. I want to thank all of you for stopping by, reading my posts, and especially for leaving a comment from time to time. I keep this blog more for my own records at this point, as the blogging world has sure quieted down since I started my blog in 2008, but I still really enjoy reading about your activities and sharing mine with you.
I wish you all the best in 2020 and onward we go with more crafting and memories to make!
In our family this year, we moved solidly into teenager years, with my daughter turning 14 and my son 12. They have pretty much completed the migration to spending most of their time either in their own room or with friends. It is quite a difference from the days when they wanted to play or read the same book all day. I am really enjoying have more adult conversations with them and watching them learn and grow their values - I can almost see them beginning to become the adults they will be - and good news is that I like it (most of the time!). As a camp counselor, I always liked working with this age group, and I have to say I like parenting this age children too. We had a Great Eastern Road Trip over the summer that took me to places I'd been before and places I'd never seen and gave us a chance to show our kids more of this country that we live in.
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| Bar Harbor, Maine - summer 2019 |
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| One of many plane rides in 2019 |
1) Crochet - this is one of my newer crafts and I have come to enjoy it. I generally am trying a new stitch or technique on each project I make and like seeing what I can do with some yarn and a crochet hook. I finished 4 items this year - a cowl, 2 blanket squares for a Veteran's Day project, and a scarf. I pick up crochet from time to time and enjoy it when I do. I've also added quite a bit of yarn, so plan to keep working through what I have for some more fun projects.
2) Scan N'Cut - this one is a new category for this year - although I bought the machine several years ago, each time I used it was a bit of an exercise in frustration. I took a day in December to really learn my machine and I am so glad I did. Now the possibilities seem endless to cut fabric, paper, and vinyl. I am looking forward to playing more with my machine.
3) Stitching - I will group both cross-stitch and embroidery under this one, although cross-stitch admittedly takes up most of my stitching time. You won't be surprised to hear that I really love stitching - and I have for years. I was thinking back this morning to 20 years ago when we went from 1999 to 2000 and back then, stitching was my only hobby! I have sure grown from those days when I had just one medium sized box of all my supplies! Now I fill several shelves in my craft room and it seems to be expanding. I am really happy with my stitching progress this year - on the embroidery front, I finished two wool embroidery projects and a cotton embroidery project. I found that these travel a lot easier on an airplane than cross-stitch does, so plan to prep a few projects for my upcoming trips. I finished 21 cross-stitch projects this year, with 12 of them being my monthly Lizzie Kate Flip-Its. I really enjoyed having a monthly stitch, especially something easy. I also finished several projects that have been on my "want to stitch" list for a long time. I even did a better job with cross-stitch finishing, completing 16 projects. Many of them were quick and easy finishes, but they count just the same as a harder finish, right?
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| 2019 Stitching projects |
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| 2019 Quilting Projects |
1) Complete 12 things in 2019 (from this blog post) - I finished 8 out of 12 and made progress on two more - it was a fun list to try for the year and I am glad with the progress I made. I think the one I am most proud of is the quilting of my Santorini Houses quilt, because I'd known for a few years how I wanted to quilt it and finally got the courage - and it worked out as well as I'd hoped in my mind!
2) Continue to make progress on UFOs, getting to less than 10 by the end of the year - well, I did make progress, finishing 6 from my UFO list, 4 of which were on the UFO Challenge I participated in. I did add 6 new projects that aren't complete, so that took my list back up to 15. Several of the projects are either small or ones I plan to work on at another retreat, so I am optimistic (aren't we all in January?) that I will get several of them done this year.
3) Fully finish two cross-stitch projects for every new one I start - my success on this all depends on how you count the Lizzie Kate series. I had 7 new starts outside of that, so if you take them as 1 and I had 8 starts, then I just squeaked by with finishing 16 projects. If you count each of the LK Flip-It's as a single start, then I didn't do quite as well.
Overall, I did have a good year when it comes to my stitching time and stash reports.
On the stash reports, I had another year in the positive (using more stash than I bought). I added 12 1/4 yards of fabric (the smallest amount added since I started tracking in 2010) and used 47 7/8 yards, which is in line with the last few years. I wound up with a stash reduction of 35 5/8 yards! I will continue to work on this in 2020, as lord knows I have more fabric than I know what to do with. I enjoyed joining up with Donna at the end of each month to share my report.
On the stitching time reports, I joined up with Kate monthly and tracked how many days I did at least 15 minutes of something crafty - could be any of the items mentioned above. I wound up with 237 days where I met the goal, for 67% of the year. I am really happy with that number!
So, all in all, I would say that 2019 was a good year - family, personal, professional, and craft-wise. I want to thank all of you for stopping by, reading my posts, and especially for leaving a comment from time to time. I keep this blog more for my own records at this point, as the blogging world has sure quieted down since I started my blog in 2008, but I still really enjoy reading about your activities and sharing mine with you.
I wish you all the best in 2020 and onward we go with more crafting and memories to make!
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