2016 Planning Linky Party - My Plans

Last year Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl had a linky party for your 15 Quilty Resolutions and this year she is doing 2016 Planning Linky Party. I will admit up front I suck at resolutions, I make them and break them on a regular basis. I even said I wasn't going to make any this year, but for me it is more about list making for me than "resolutions". I'm throwing this photo in here to have one for the linky party more than anything, but also because I love pretty pictures. The photo is of some of the flowers at Callie and Beau's wedding.

In 2016, I've decided to have fewer resolutions, and hopefully more success.

1. Use More/Buy Less - I have enough fabric to keep me busy all year and most likely not have to buy anything. So this is my year to sew my stash.  The exceptions are if I need something for one of my bees or backing to finish a quilt.  I am realistic enough to know that I can't do this for the entire year.  I will be lucky to get through January. So my real goal is to use more fabric than I buy. So I'm going to track what I use and what I buy and we'll see how I do.  I will give updates, probably not weekly but maybe monthly.

2. Quilt for Others - This can be gifts for family and friends or charity quilts, but I want to give away more this year. I don't want to be afraid others won't like what I do and just give for the joy of giving.

3. Balance/Organization - I need to work on my balance or organization of time. Not only in my quilting and piecing, but in my life in general. I want to do the things I enjoy, but not at the expense of getting things done around the house. I want to do a good job at work, but not at expensive of doing things I love. I'm hoping going back to a paper organizer (The Quilter's Planner) will help me, to keep things on track.

4. Stop Comparing Myself to Others - I love reading blogs, but sometimes I feel like a complete failure because everyone else is doing such amazing things and I'm struggling to get my bee blocks done. So my goal for this year is to cheer others on in their progress and to just be happy in mine.

5. Keep Moving Forward - For me this means try new things, get rid of what is holding me back, change direction if needed, and just move. I know this one is pretty vague, but what I want to accomplish is to not to stop or give-up.

And that is my list for this year. Fewer items, but enough that if I can accomplish at least a couple of them I will feel good at the end of the year.  For those that want to know how I did against my 2015 list, here are my results.

1. Gift more quilts...I would say this was accomplished since I gave 4 this year, but to be honest it was a tree skirt and three table runners, but I still gave them as gifts. Here is the tree skirt, and I will be showing the table runners in a later post.

2. Learn something new...I did my first curved piecing and didn't like it much. But I tried. I will go back and try again at some point, but for now I am saying I can put a check next to this one.

3. Organize my sewing room...I did this about 5 or 6 times this year, and plan on working on it some this week as well. It is an ongoing process. But I did get a new sewing table, and tubs for my FQ storage, and those are working out well.

4. Find balance...I didn't figure this one out last year. I did much more piecing and lots less quilting. So this one needs to stay on my to do list.'

5. Try new things...I joined my first mystery quilt along, in fact I did two. I hope that I'm always willing to try something new.

6. Enjoy the small moments...I've been doing the #100DaysOfHappy this year and it has been a lot of fun to find small things every day that make me happy. If I stop and focus on those small moments even if just for a short time, it brings my happiness level up tremendously. Here is one of my photos from my 100 days, and it is something that always makes me happy....fabric.

7. Move more...I sucked at this last year, but am going to keep trying.

8. Do more charity quilts...another one I sucked at, but plan on trying to do better in 2016.

9. Attend a local quilt meeting...fail, plain and simple.

10. Quilt for the fun of it...didn't make much progress here, need to keep working on it.

11. Take more photos of the process...I was a little more successful with this one, but would like to do even more.

12. Reduce my backlog of projects...I so failed at this one, I'm betting I doubled my list. Just too many pretty fabrics for me to resist.

13. Make a bed size quilt...alas another fail, but I did buy fabric to do a couple more.

14. Purge, purge, purge...I did do some purging this year, but I need to do much more. I have to fight my inter pack rat hard next year.

15. Worry less and laugh more.  I don't know that I worried less, but I will say my life last year was filled with lots of laughter and love and for that I'm very thankful.

Ok I'm off to link up at QuiltingJetgirl.com, feel free to join us and do your own goals, or if you just need some inspiration on what to do, go check out what others are doing.