Year End Recap and 2024 Plans

I can’t believe we’ve arrived at the last weekend of 2023. What a year of ups, downs and changes! And so much to look forward to in the new year! There’s a lot of stuff to cover in this post, so I’m going to just dig right in.

This year I was not as productive, quilt-wise, as I have been in the past. I finished 33 quilts, which is the least I’ve made since 2019. But I did work on a lot of “community” (several-person effort) quilts; basting, quilting and binding 11 of those. And that reminds me that I need to update my Quilts pages under the blog heading pictures. Of those quilts that I made, the following three are my favorites.

Frosted Windowpanes donation string quilt. 42x48”.

International Sisters, 56x70”

Christmas Stars, 88x98”

This past week I did finish up the two quilts I had basted earlier. These finished up just in time to be counted for 2023. Both were made from Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks. 

Above we have the Thrifty Block quilt using navy blue as the constant. It finished at approximately 54x64”. I did some straight line and loopy quilting on it, but I didn’t take any closeups. The little Framed 4-Patch below is a donation quilt that finished at 40x48. 

I have lots more blocks and UFOs to carry over into 2024, but before I get to my plan, let me show you the string blocks I finished this week.  Two piles of fifteen each and then three extra blocks on the right. That was a total of 33 blocks.

When I added the 33 blocks to the pile I started on October 1, it came out to 418 blocks! My goal was to sew 400 string blocks in the fourth quarter of the year, and I did it! The string bag isn’t totally empty, but it is very low and anemic! YAY!!  So, wanna see what 400+ string blocks look like?

The stack is about 11” high, with the few odd blocks in the foreground. WHEW!!! Cool, huh? Except for some of the light neutral string blocks, they’re all going to Quilts for Kids for quilt kits.

My Bernina, “Nina”, is in the shop for her first annual Spa Treatment. I had intended to get all my batting scraps sewn into Frankenbatts, and that is well underway, but I didn’t finish them up. I still have five donated quilt tops that I need to sandwich up, so I’ve been sewing backings and making Frankenbatts specifically for each of them. I have 3 ½ done. Once they’re finished (later today), I’ll just sew the rest of the batting pieces into standard sizes I use a lot. I may get another three or four out of it all. That’s not as bad as last year, because I did occasionally made a Frankenbatt here and there during the year. 

After Thanksgiving, Cousin Kim and I took inventory of my scraps and “kits” that I had assembled into two cardboard boxes. Over the last couple years I would match up a kit or two with the RSC color of the month and make a donation quilt. Well, that had slacked off toward the end of the year, so I needed a new plan. Kim and I numbered each “kit”, which is just a large baggie-ful of scraps, chunks and small yardage cuts. Sometimes we combined two into one or just added more stuff. The result blew me away. There were   39 or 40 kits! I had planned to try to sew 2 kits into quilts per month, but I’m going to amp that up to 3 per month! I’ll write out the numbers on scraps of paper, put them in a jar, and randomly pick out three per month. That all starts next month. Um, I mean next week. I’ll take a picture of the whole mess (now very well organized). 

To squeeze the kit sewing in (to say nothing of the RSC finishes and personal quilts) it means I’ll be doing fewer new RSC blocks in the new year. But “fewer” means maybe 3-4 simple blocks instead of 6-8 more involved.  

And on top of all that, we’re continuing the purge and declutter process, even with the holidays in full swing. We didn’t have time to take a load of junk treasure to the thrift store last week because of the short week. It’ll be the same story in the coming week. But then we really get busy! We’re listing the house in less than 6 weeks!

Have a Happy and Safe New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day! We’ll probably stay up until midnight and then crawl into beddie-bye. We’re such party animals.