2023 Year in Review and 2024 Goals

I knew at the start of 2023 that it would be a big year - college acceptances and selection, graduation, and the culmination of our Girl Scout troop were all big moments. I also enjoyed watching my son play tennis in the fall, going to two stitching and one quilt retreat, surprising my friend Michele for her 50th birthday, and going on a couple of great trips. I am happy to have experienced all of that and also made lots of time for my stitching, quilting, and a little bit of crochet. 

I found myself spending most of my crafty time this year with stitching and cross-stitch finishing. I co-hosted the FFO Challenge (#ffochallenge2023 on Instagram) with my friend Michele and exceeded my goals in what I was able to finish this year. I started the year with 50 items on my "to be FFO'ed list," finished 40 items and end the year with 36 items to be FFO'ed (the math looks funny because I also added items to the list this year as I finished them and also found one missing mid-year). I created a few charts to track progress over time and here are the results. 

This chart shows finishes by year - hooray for exceeding
both my goal and prior year finishing in 2023!

This chart shows the items I have to FFO by year they were stitched -
you can see I have a lot of recent finishes still to FFO

And here's the fun picture - a collage of all the finishes! Framing and pillows were my two highest finishing styles for the year and I also made my first stand-up and tried lacing for the first time. I am so glad that this challenge encouraged me to spend more time finishing and that I was able to finish up so many things to enjoy. 

My 40 FFOs for 2023

Stitching new projects fell right behind finishing - at the start of 2023, I wanted to work on some bigger projects from my stash. Even with that, I finished a total of 25 projects for the year, which I thought would be a lot lower than prior years, but is really in the same ballpark as recent years. I think I did more small and medium projects as the year went on. I fully finished 14 of the projects I stitched this year and I think that's probably a record. I also know how I want to finish several more and hope to get to them soon. I was going to try to pick my favorite stitch from the year, but there's no way I can! So many fun projects on different fabrics and with all kinds of threads. I was very proud to finish Goody Grimwood (top left corner), my first Plum Street Sampler and first on 40 count fabric. That one will be professionally framed.

25 stitched pieces with stitching completed in 2023

Quilting/Sewing has really taken a back seat to stitching over the past few years, but I feel like I found a bit of a groove again in the last quarter of 2023. I found that I was working on FFOs so often in my sewing room that I wasn't doing much quilting. My collage picture really shows this slowdown. I finished 10 projects this year (six in Q4!), a smaller number than I have had since I started tracking my projects. There were two bags, one pillow, two quilts start to finish, two other quilt tops, and four UFOs completed. I am most happy about Urban Pods (bottom row, second from the left), the bag I made my daughter (bottom middle) and Got Cookies? (the top right corner). Urban Pods was a long time UFO and I finally quilted it and am happy with the result. The bag stretched me a lot but was also really fun to work on. And Got Cookies? had been in my stash for a long, long time - I bought the supplies to make it in 2021, so glad to finally get that top put together. 

I had one finished crochet project in 2023, and it was a fun one. I haven't done amigurumi before and I really enjoyed it. I didn't know how I'd feel about all the little fiddly bits, but they really weren't too bad to make or sew on. I know there will be more amigurumi in my future. 

My one crochet finish for the year

Stitching time and stash reporting turned out well - I count stitching time as any day where I spend at least 15 minutes with my crafts. In 2023, I met this goal 313 days, 86% of the time. May was my best month with 100% thanks to stitching each day for Stitch Maynia. December was second with 94% which surprised me given all that goes on in December. I started tracking my stitching time in 2019 and this was my best year since I've been tracking - by 5 days! 

For my fabric stash, I used 27 3/4 yards of fabric, which is the lowest I've used in a year since I started tracking in 2010. I added 16 1/4 yards and that made my net usage for the year 11 1/2 yards, something not even perceptible in my large stash! It's okay, at least I am going in the right direction. My chart really shows the slow down in my quilting over the last few years. 

Stash usage over time at the end of 2023

I had three goals for 2023 and I did okay on them: 

1. Finish more stitching, goal of 24 projects - I blew this one out of the water and am so happy to have enjoyed hosting the challenge and met my goal by July! 

2. Stitch/Quilt my Stash - I did okay here. All but one of my quilting projects were from patterns I already had and I used existing fabric everywhere it worked. In stitching, I didn't do quite as well - about half of my starts were new patterns and I still have a big stack of previously purchased patterns that I want to work on. 

3. Continue to work down UFO list, goal to be at 5 by year end - I did work down the list by three, but then I added two new quilt tops that didn't get quilted this year, so I am holding at 8 tops to be quilted, just down one from when I started the year. 

For 2024, I have been thinking a lot about goals and don't have a lot of new things to pursue, so there is a lot of similarity to last year: 

1. Continue hosting the FFO Challenge (#ffochallenge2024), encourage others to FFO and work down my own list. My goal is to FFO at least 30 next year and as part of that, finish at least 12 of the 19 "green" projects in my list - these are projects where I already know how I want to finish them (green = ready to go). 

2. Stitch ornaments as gifts - I would like to go back to stitching a monthly ornament - doesn't have to be Christmas (although most of them probably will be) - and this year I'd like to give most of them as gifts so I will be looking for pieces that are right for specific people. This will mean a mix of charts I have and charts I buy - there's a lot of gold in those old Christmas Ornament magazines so I am hoping to find several there. 

3. Mix It up - this goal is about doing a little bit more of the non-stitching crafts and allowing myself to do things a little differently than I normally do. It means adding a little more crochet, embroidery, and piecing into my mix of activities. Sometimes I get bogged down thinking I have to finish what I've already started and I don't enjoy the process as much. So I am going to try to do a little more of going with the flow and working on whatever sounds fun, even if it doesn't mean progress on the things I've already started - we'll see if I can really do this next year at this time! 

4. Continue working down the quilt UFOs - I'd like to continue to work my list down, I am going to go for a target of 5 UFOs by the end of the year again - even if I just go down by one more, it's progress. 

So that's the results of 2023 and the goals for 2024. I am looking forward to more travel in the new year, a Niall Horan concert with my daughter this summer, celebrating a milestone birthday, and going through the college visit/application process with my son. It should be another busy one! Hope you have lots to look forward to in 2024 as I do!