2011 Quilting & Crafting Goals

I decided not to make New Year's resolutions, but I did do a January resolution. I'm going to try to cover 100 miles this month, either on the treadmill, elliptical, or outside. I can do the bike one day a week, but no more often (too easy to cover the miles). I started out pretty well, then hurt my back on January 4. I'm going to get back to it this Monday. It will be hard to get caught up, but I love the challenge. The trick, I think, will be doing two-a-days.

Instead of resolutions for my sewing/quilting/crafting, I'm setting goals. Here are the 6 things I want to do this year in that arena:

1. Start a denim quilt. I saw one today that I thought was adorable, so I'm going to go ahead and charge on. Between Rhett and me and all the jeans we have grown out of, I should have plenty of denim.

2. Start AND FINISH a tie quilt. This one will be tough and I will need lots of help figuring it out so I'm hoping to get some followers as I progress. In fact, Mama Pea, do you know of a pattern? Do you think you could put a shout-out on your blog and ask if anyone knows how to do it? I've been searching the Internet for 5 years now and have not been able to find one. If I can't find one, I'll use the Dresden Plate pattern as a foundation and ad-lib as I go.

My dad died in 2002 (3 months after I started my doctoral program, 2 months after I finished my breast cancer surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy; that was a tough year). I rooted out all his ties, but there weren't enough, so I will round out the collection with some of Rhett's and perhaps some thrift store ones. The first thing I will do is pick out the seams on a few to figure out how to sew them together. I want to put a picture of my dad in a circle in the center, and then I have clothes from many of my family members that I solicited 4 or 5 years ago for a heritage scrap quilt. Then I will put this quilt in the trash-or-treasure my family has every year at Christmas. (Depending on how well this turns out, I would have this professionally quilted, although I think 'stitch in the ditch' would be the obvious choice, and perhaps I could pull that off myself).

3. I have a scrap quilt I need to finish. I need to sandwhich it, quilt it, and bind it.

4. I saved a bunch of baby clothes that my younger sister gave me that her children wore. She loves pigs, and I found a cute pig fabric to use as the backing. I want to make her a quilt with these items. My goal is to at least start it. Depending on how this one turns out, I might have it professionally quilted.

5. Make a few batches of these Christmas ornaments:

There are 3 quilted ornaments in this picture (from my sister's tree): the shepherd and sheep in the lower left, a snowman in the top part, and a gingerbread man (kind of turned sideways) at the very top. If I could upload more than one picture, I would show a close-up.

6. Do a spread-a-month scrapbook. I haven't been able to keep up with scrapbooking for BonnieBlue, so I figured I would do a spread a month, and I would actually theme them by the month. So this month, I will do Dec. 2010, so that I have a spread done for January. During January, I will take pictures of BonnieBlue doing fun things, and in February I will scrapbook a spread (or two) of January. And so on. I should be able to not only keep up but go back and catch up on these past 2 years.

(of course, I want to do a better job of keeping up with my blog, too.)

So there you have it...my sewing/quilting/crafting goals for 2011. Wish me luck!