Our first Friday Night in 2020

After finishing the stitcheries for my Country At Heart quilt, I have been crocheting in the evenings, continuing on with the afghan I started last November.
It's worked corner to corner and last night, during Friday Night with Friends (thank you Cheryll!) I reached the final corner —

Next it has several rounds of border treatment. Apparently I'm supposed to block it before I start the border...not something I do very often but as it is slightly wonky it's probably a very good idea :-)

So I started on a wee stitchery I'd prepared earlier —

 

I'm stitching on some handkerchief linen which is turning out to be lovely to use. I'm very happy to continue on with this over the next few nights.

If you want to see what others got up to on Friday Night go to Cheryll's blog *here* for the linky lineup.

Enjoy your weekend - I have some sewing time planned and I think two small children are coming out for a visit later today ♥

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Happy Dance!

Woohoo, today is the last day of the month - of the year - of the decade - but right now I am most concerned about it being the last day of the month because it's a chance for me to celebrate that I have managed to blog every day for 31 days!!

I took up Cheryl's challenge, starting on Dec 1st. 61 other bloggers signed up too - it will be interesting to see how many of us managed a post a day? The idea was that if we could manage to blog once a day through this busy time of the year, we could manage anything!

So how did it go?

The month started easily enough, sharing gifts to and from my visit to America

I had fun on the farm with my elf —

I did a bit of reminiscing, looking at quilts I'd made in the past. Like this one —

and this —

I had a good little wander through Mum's house - that gave me two posts, which was good as I was away from home and all my usual inspiration.
I was able to interview Mum and get a little more information about Caroline —

My current projects made a showing, The Sopwell Ladies (and I even managed a small tutorial based on questions I'd been asked) —

And my current pattern testing for Juliet of Tartankiwi —

And had a look through the other projects I've done based on her designs —

We had Christmas —

And I sewed along with the Temecula Quilt Company, making their Tiny Tree —

When I was lost for words I had photos of the family to share —

Or the farm —

On the whole it was fun - I enjoyed the process but it would be fair to say I'm happy that the month is over!

One of the big pros was hearing from so many of you so often - thank you for your encouragement!
One of the big cons is that I didn't have time to reciprocate the visits!
And I'm hoping that now that my time isn't being taken up with planning blog posts, I'll be able to catch up properly with my blog reading!

And on that happy note, I'm going to sign off for the last time this month, this year, this decade.
I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. I hope 2020 is a fabulously creative and productive year!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Looking ahead to 2020

Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl is hosting a 2020 Planning Party.
I thought I'd join in, and then I thought I wouldn't but now I've decided I will!
Planning for the new year is something that I've done in the past with limited success. One thing I do quite well is write a post in January and then never really thought about it again!!
But I'm thinking that, at least if I join the planning party, it's a start with trying to focus, prioritise and putting ideas into words.
It's a springboard for further thought, a little more accountability than if I do nothing!

At the start of 2019 I drew up a simple mind map that included the important things I wanted or needed to work on. It included things I'd committed to financially (particularly those things that have a bigger outlay) as well as other wants and needs for the year. Being a good size, visual and right next to my desk, I found it a useful piece of paper. I did actually refer to it often and I did actually double check it when I was finishing a project or starting something new.
It wasn't necessarily something I stuck to, and everything on it wasn't necessarily made/finished/etc but it was a useful tool.

So I'm going to do that again - I've got the start of a chart and will add to it as I get myself sorted.

Gosh my planning has barely started but it's getting full already!

I'm very good at getting my projects to a certain stage, putting them aside to come back to but not doing so. With that in mind I've signed up to two year-long parties for finishing projects. By doing this I hope to have some extra motivation and answerability which may help me meet some of my goals. A bit of cheering on from the sidelines never goes amiss either :-)
The first sign up —

Cheryll of Stitching Cubbyhole has issued a WOOFA challenge (Working On or Finishing A UFO).
For this, Cheryll is making a -list of projects to work on ... or even better... finish during 2020 (to quote her words).
So I'll be adding her WOOFA button and a list of projects/ufos to my sidebar when I get a chance.

And the second sign up —

Quilting Gail is running the PHD project in 2020.
I'm going to accept this challenge as well. It would be amazing to achieve my PHD in 2020!
(Where PHD stands for Projects Half Done.)
How does this one work?
To quote Gail -

We finish UFOs and we FINISH all projects that we start in 2020. We finish what we start so that the UFO list does not increase! (And, gulp, we have to list at least 12 of those projects.)So this is a pretty tough challenge but, if I can pull it off,  it will be most beneficial!

Plenty to think about, and to add to this year's mindmap.Scrap Invasion —I sewed a lot of small scraps this year and made more blocks for my Omigosh quilt. Because it takes 1" strips/squares, it doesn't use up a lot of scraps.

I love making these but they don't use enough scraps fast enough!

And my scrap bins are overflowing, I cant walk past a lonely scrap without scooping it up and putting it in a (scrap) bin. This coming year I need to re-join Angela and the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I love some of the quilts made where participants have sewn the same block all year e.g check out Sally of Objects of Design and her Piglet Mayhem quilt. Preeti did the same with her International Sisters quilt blocks. So I'm thinking I'd like to do something like this with my scraps in 2020. Watch this space :-)
The above plans make me seem very virtuous. While I will be busy meeting my goals (I hope!), I do know there will be the odd DREAMi and Squirrel moment. I love the regular linky Sandra of mmmquilts does.

This celebrates those - ahem - moments we have where we have to drop everything and start something new. As this happens to me, I'm sure I'll be linking up too. 

I think this is enough thinking for now. I need to make my lists for the WOOFA challenge and PHD work.

Just to finish, I looked after two small children today. I was very happy to see the beanbags I made them for Christmas in use!

'til next time (on this 30th day of continuous blogging!),

happy stitches,