Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday; I eagerly anticipated everything I planned to get done in my 2021 New Year’s resolution. My goals were to finish a bunch of UFOs – this was a challenge issued to my Virtual Small Quilt group, most members posted a list of a dozen or so (and many achieved their goals), my list was over 50 projects, and I just barely made a dent.
Part of the problem is that I start as many new projects as I finish others, so my UFO boxes never seem to diminish like the magic purses in Fairy Tales that will never be empty. So too, with fabric scrap bags. I make a lot of scrap quilts. I probably made more of those this past year than any others, yet that bag of scraps never seems to diminish – they must be breeding in there.
My other 2021 New Year’s resolution – to clean and reorganize my sewing studio; I failed miserably to accomplish. Part of the problem is that those persistently pregnant scraps are just not going away. The other part is my penchant for being a depot for fabrics and materials destined for another quilter or fabric artist. I constantly ferry materials from one person to another. My husband has vetoed the idea of those boxes residing in our living/dining room while in transit; I have nowhere else to put them but my studio – and pray I can find them when I can connect with these other sewers. Not to mention the fabrics offered to me for my own stash, I have difficulty saying ‘no thank you.’
As I said, I did get some UFos done, and here are pictures of those:
Freedom Flight – made for Quilts of Valor 
The Veldt – an Art Tile assemblage 
Octastrips – one of my obsessive scrap fabric quilts 
Youth Quilt #1 – made for my guild’s Community Quilts project 
Youth Quilt #2 – also for my guild’s Community Quults project 
Jelly Beans Baby quilt – yet another Community Quilt 
Butterfly Bush Miniature Quilt – donated to a Public Library fundraiser 
Butterfly Branches – one of my Garden Window Quilts series 
The Key Goddess – an embroidered talisman doll 
Transitions – a ‘slow stitched’ study in tidal transtitions 
Dollars and Change – an exploration into trapunto
I also made a bunch of Kennel Quilts for animal shelters. These are small 12″ x 18″ quilts that are used by animal shelters. Here is a gallery of the ones I made in 2021, including a paw print design I made as a free pattern available on the group on Kennel Quilts on Needle Spot.
Onto 2022 – my New Year’s Resolutions are: to blog and maintain my website more frequently, to finally reorganize my studio, to start a couple of brand new projects in new techniques I want to try that have been simmering on hold for too long, to finish more UFOs (of course!), and to make my way through boxes of exotic teas I buy and then neglect in favor of plain ole Liptons.
