2022 Year in Review and 2023 Plans and Goals

In some ways, it seems like 2022 sped by, so many moments that will stick in my mind - from the college visits with my daughter to our Girl Scout trip to PA and DC, to some tougher moments with health, family and our dog. Through it all, I would say it was still a good year. I continued to enjoy hosting the Two Tall Stitchers Flosstube with my mom, enjoyed several trips for work and pleasure, and got to spend more time with friends, the best benefit of all. 

I always enjoy a quick look back on the year and one of my favorite ways to do this is to put together a collage of my pictures, so without further ado, let's take a look! 

For quilting/sewing, I finished 22 projects which include finishing 7 projects from earlier years which started on my UFO list for this year, 7 new quilt tops (5 of which became finished quilts), and 6 bags along with a few other miscellaneous items. My favorites for the year have to be the Which Way's North quilt with all the flying geese and Wind Drifter in the bottom left corner which was such a fun quilt from choosing the fabrics to quilting it. I am most proud of finishing my friend's memory quilt (bottom right) and getting more projects off my UFO list than I added to it. I leave 2022 with only two quilt tops going onto the UFO list, and a UFO list of just 9, the shortest list I've had since I started keeping one. I used 40 1/2 yards of fabric in 2022 and purchased 17 3/8 yards, for a net usage of 23 1/8, a respectable year. 

2022 Quilting Projects

On the stitching front, I had a blast continuing to work on my own projects and shop models. I finished stitching 25 items this year, from small ornaments to a few larger pieces. There were 2 swap items, 1 gift (and two to be gifted in the future), 3 ornaments, 4 shop models and my first stitched berry. There's no way I can pick a favorite - or even a few - from this group, as I really love them all! I am most proud of the Autumn Embroidery - I had the pattern for at least 10 years and finally stitched it, learning new embroidery stitches along the way and incorporating wool into the design. I am really pleased with how well it turned out. 

2022 Stitching Finishes

In addition to stitching new items, I worked on finishing pieces. 2022 saw me FFO (fully finished object) 23 items including one framed piece, 6 ornaments, another biscornu, my first berry, and four pillows. I am also glad that I used pieces bought more than a year ago for a couple finishing styles. From this group, I think my favorites are the Lighthouse ABCs, Happy Halloween in the Cauldron, and the Wee Santa 2021 pillow in the bottom right. 

2022 Stitching FFOs

Crochet continues to be a sometimes activity and I worked on two projects this year - one that is finished and the other that's in progress. Here's my one crochet finish for 2022, 3-in-1 Hand Warmers. They are super warm and great for cold days and dog walks. I actually finished them on a Girl Scout camping trip, and they are on my sleeping bag for this picture. 

3-in-1 Hand Warmers

Now that we've looked at the pretty pictures, let's look back on my goals for 2022 and see how I did. 

I had five goals for the year: 

1. Continue with current activities - Two Tall Stitchers, Sunday Morning Stitching, Crafting time report, tracking stash, finishes and FFOs - check, did all of those!

2. Make good progress on Inspirational Stitches for Young Women - check, stitched two more this year and only have one to go. 

3. Take some time to cull through fabric and patterns and divest those that I no longer want - I did okay on this - I did take patterns to a couple of my retreats, and I sold my first few things on Stash Unloading - there's still more to do here, but at least I got started.

4. Finish one and make good progress on another gift quilt for friends - one check, my friend's quilt was her Christmas present and she loved it - one X - didn't even pull out the other one. 

5. Homemade Holiday - plan for and use the year to make gifts for Christmas - I did pretty well on this one although I did forget to gift a couple of the items I made early in the year. I enjoyed doing this and want to make it a normal part of my year. 

So, overall, I think I'd give myself a solid B+ - some good alignment but also more opportunity. 

Now it's time to think about 2023 and what I hope to accomplish. I know this will be a big year with my daughter's graduation and heading to college and the culmination of our Girl Scout troop years. I am looking forward to all the events to come and also know that it will be a year of big transitions. When that happens, I know I find comfort in my sewing and stitching. I fully expect my total finishes to be down this year and that's okay, so I don't want to lay out big goals that aren't likely to be attainable. I think this year, I will limit goals to three items. 

1. Finish more stitching - I am joining up with Michele from Penny's Daughter Shares (on Instagram and YouTube) and we are hosting the FFO Challenge - we are setting our own goals for the year and I am using a WIPGO board (learn more about WIPGO here, it's kind of like bingo for stitching projects) to help me select items to work on and my goal is to fully finish two items each month, for at least 24 finished projects at the end of the year. 

2. Stitch/Quilt my Stash - I will continue stash reporting on the quilting side to push myself to use my stash first, and on the stitching side, I am going to focus on digging out charts that I've had for a while and still want to stitch. I am not making it a no buy, but I am going to try to be more intentional to start with what I have. I don't have a lot of fabric, so that will probably be the thing that I buy a little more of than charts and threads. I do plan to continue doing shop models for my local shop, so you will see some new patterns as I work on those projects. I also plan to work on a few larger projects, as that will help me as it will take longer to add to the finished but not FFO'ed list! 

3. Continue to work down my quilting UFO list. I have 9 projects on my UFO list going into the year and I want to continue to work down that list. I've love to be at 5 or less by the end of the year, so that means in addition to quilting some of those UFOs, I will try to take any new quilts all the way through to fully finished quilts so they don't get added to the UFO list. 

I hope these goals work well for the year and am looking forward to seeing what comes in 2023 - both in the crafting world and elsewhere in my life. Overall, I hope for it to include lots of happy moments and I hope the same for you.