2015 Goals

I have a few less goals for this year than I did last year:

• Go on a fabric "diet" - I plan to only buy "new" fabric if it's for one of the 4 B's:  Backgrounds, Borders, Bindings or Backings
• Work on UFO's:

1.     Grand Illusion
2.      Anne's Log Cabin (if I get nothing else done this year, I vow to complete this quilt!)
3.      Ohio Stars
4.      Quilt un-quilted tops

• Make a quilt for my husband
• Make a Quilt of Valor for my Dad
• Make more monthly mini quilts
• Work on my hexie flowers
• Work on the Adelphi Hotel cross stitch
• Delete my Bloglovin account

 I want to spend less of my free time surfing the Internet and reading about quilting and sewing and more time actually quilting and sewing!

Along with deleting the Bloglovin account, I will probably blog even less in 2015 than I did in 2014.  I originally envisioned that I'd be a fabulous blogger - taking amazing photos and having that kind of blog that folks flock to with lots of followers and sponsors.  Well, that never materialized.  In the first place, I never even figured out how to add a photo to my banner or how to have links to blogs I follow in the sidebars. 

In the second place, I don't take great photos.  I don't have a nice camera and even if I did, I didn't know how to use one properly.  The technology I have available to me and that I know how to use (my iPhone, iPad, and laptop) isn't really conducive to blogging.  I thought it would be super easy to do from my iPad but that turned out to be so not true!  In fact, I can not blog from the iPad.  I do use it to do some photo editing and to upload photos to Picasa but I can't write the blog posts or add photos or links on the iPad.  It's super fiddly and always locks up when I try.

Right now, when I take photos with my iPhone, my PhotoStream will not even sync up with the iPad since I downloaded the latest IOS  update.  I end up having to email photos to myself, open the email on the iPad and save the photo to that device.  AAAGH!

To write my blog posts, I have to use my "laptop" - which is really too heavy to actually use as a laptop.  While it does have a nice large screen, the size just adds to the weight issues.  So I always end up using it at my desk, which is away from the rest of the family.  I wanted to be able to blog quickly and easily anywhere, anytime, but right now, that's just not possible.

I will still keep the blog as a way to document my projects, but I recently joined Instagram and I find that actually is very quick and easy to use from the iPad and still allows me to write a caption.  So look for me over on Instagram under #Adkurban.

Aside from wanting to spend more free time actually sewing than reading about someone else sewing, I have quilts and projects that I really want to make.  There is so much inspiration on the Internet that I find I want to join in this sew-along or make that project I saw on so-and-so's blog.  It's too much of a distraction for me and I never end up working on the projects I want to make.

And if all that weren't reasons enough to limit my time blogging and reading blogs, our family situation is changing.  Both of our adult sons are back living at home at the moment.  They are both working at good jobs, but their career paths brought them back to this area and we're trying to help them save money by having them stay at home.

Also, after many, many years of working different days and/or shifts, my husband and I are now working the same schedule.  That means we finally have weekends off together and we can actually do things together again.  I expect that I will be spending a lot more time with family - something I've wanted for a very long time.  That will make my sewing time even more precious.  So it is even more important that I only work on those projects that are truly dear to me.

I will definitely check in from time to time - just not on any kind of regular basis.  Take care - I wish you all a Happy, Healthy New Year.

2014 Year in Review

Phew! I'm glad a New Year is starting because 2014 was an emotionally and physically challenging year.  In March we lost my 94 year-old grandmother; in April I had both knees replaced and am still recovering; in August we lost our 15 year-old dog, Maggie; and in September we lost my 23 year-old niece, Meghan.  There was also a lot of joy in 2014: in June my niece, Kate, got married and in September we welcomed  my great-nephew, Brennan.  Between the funerals and the wedding, I saw many relatives multiple times and that part is always nice.

Who knows what 2015 will hold, but as Jo mentioned in a recent blog post, I pray to be more happy than sad and to that I'll add that I'd like for my family and myself to be more healthy than sick or injured.

Looking back at the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2014, I accomplished a few:

• Celtic Solstice - finished
• Ohio Star - did not finish
• Pinwheel Panache - abandoned and fabric re-purposed
• Meadow Lark charm square quilt - from the book Back to Charm School by Country Threads (I changed the pattern name) - in progress as a "leader and ender" project
• Cindy Lou Who - a Schnibbles charm square quilt - top finished
• Make a wool candle mat - did not do
• Additional monthly mini quilts, possibly wool versions - no wool versions, 4 new mini quilts completed
• Quilt all unquilted projects (including Anne's Log Cabin, all unquilted Schnibbles, and the 2012 bird quilt) - quilted only Celtic Solstice and Gentle Art, which still doesn't have the binding finished
• Make at least one charity quilt - did not do
• Learn English paper piecing - Grandmother's Flower Garden in progress as a long-term project (36 hexies flowers completed so far)
• Complete the Weekender Bag - did not do
• Make a quilted jacket - did not do
• Knit a simple shawl - did not do
• Finish the Adelphi Hotel cross stitch piece for my husband - did not touch
• Use stash fabric whenever possible - I did try to do this such as in Cindy Lou Who, Meadow Lark, Whit, the monthly mini quilts and Harvey.

I met a little less than 50% of my goals for the year.

Here's a look at everything I did work on: