The 2023 Quilt Project Round-Up
Wow friends! Can you believe we are already closing in on the end of 2023? I don’t know about you, but I’m excited for a fresh start in 2024. However…before jumping into planning and goals and all that sort of fun for the new year, one of my favorite things to do is to look back at the previous year to review everything that happened.
If you’d like to join me in this reflection on 2023, grab your phone, a piece of paper, maybe your calendar or planner, and a pen or pencil and let’s sit down for a moment. What I like to do is scroll through the pictures on my phone or look back in my planners/calendar to see where we were when and what was going on, and then write down a list of the highlights or things that felt meaningful or memorable. You could focus on quilts exclusively or incorporate your life as a whole - no rules, just a fun reflection on what you did throughout the year to help inform your planning for next year! Here, of course, I’m going to focus primarily on what happened on the quilting side of my world!
14 Quilts Projects Finished
I’m pretty sure this was my most productive quilt-finishing year ever, and I have to say some of that is due to having everything inventoried and prioritized using the Customizable WIP Inventory system. But a large part of it is also due to simply setting deadlines for myself! Some of these were WIPs from last year, and a few were both started and finished in 2023.
This list may seem meager to some of you prolific quilters out there, but to me - in this stage of my life - it felt like moving mountains!
Origins Quilt (Started and finished during the Origins Quilt Along)
Rail Fence quilt
Mini Swoon
Dresden single block wall hanging
Sew Together bag
Stellata Quilt (Started and finished)
A surprise quilt you’ll find out about in February! (Started and finished)
Let Christmas Begin (Started and finished)
Crystal Rose Quilt
Modern Pearls Quilt
Wholecloth quilted blanket for neighbors with a new baby (Started and finished)
Postage Stamp quilt
Carpenter Star quilt
Patchwork picnic quilt
2 Guest Blog Posts
I was honored to write guest blog posts for two lovely quilters this year, both of which focused on making your life and quilting work together. The first guest stint was for Amy Smart on her Diary of a Quilter blog, and features my Top Ten Tips to Help You Find More Time for Quilting. Her newsletter is one of my favorites on the internet as she shares what she’s up to, fun quilt patterns and projects, and usually a lovely outdoor photo or two from her hiking adventures. The second was recently published on the Quilter’s Candy blog for Elizabeth Chappell, and shared Tips for Making Progress on Your Quilt Projects…a very handy resource as we move into the new year and you begin planning out your projects!
70 Hexie Flowers Made
One of my quilting goals in 2023 was to make one Hexie flower per week with 1” hexies. I’m excited to report that I met that goal…and then some! To date, I’ve finished 70 (yes, seventy!) scrappy Hexie flowers. I’m honestly still not sure how many I will need to make a decent-sized throw quilt (if you know, send me an email, please), but I do know that if I continue at this pace I still have several month’s worth of Hexies made that are ready to turn into flowers. So I’ll keep on going!
I think the secret to getting so many of these done in the middle of a busy year was that I kept them easily accessible. As much as I could, instead of grabbing my phone to scroll social media, read emails, or organize to-do lists in my down time, I grabbed this project instead and made progress a few minutes at a time!
Five Patterns Published
It was so much fun to put these five patterns out into the world this year. Collaboration with quilty friends was soooo much fun, and I loved that the Let Christmas Begin quilt actually made the cover of a magazine…what a surprise! I’m excited to say that another quilt will show up in a magazine in February 2024, but the details are still a secret. Make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter to hear about it when it happens!
Hexie Flowers FPP Quilt Pattern - A sweet FPP block based on the Wild Plum Lane logo. I’ll be making a throw-sized quilt with this one soon!
Crystal Rose Quilt Pattern - I started writing this one during the Quilt Pattern Writing Course in 2022, but finished and published it to the website in June this year. It’s a fun one, and I loved making the cover quilt from fabric I already had in my stash!
Stellata Quilt Pattern - Designed in collaboration with my friend Carrie at Lifting Limits Quilting, this was one of the most fun things I did this year. We made a great team…and there’s already talk of another collab to come!
Let Christmas Begin - The cover quilt! Published in Quick + Easy Quilts magazine, it was so much fun to work with the editor, receive advance yardage of Sherri and Chelsi’s beautiful Favorite Things fabric line with Moda Fabrics, and to see it all come to life in the pages of a magazine. (Have I mentioned before that I LOVE reading magazines?!)
Suddenly Starstruck - Designed in collaboration with 5 friends from the Quilt Pattern Writing Course, we not only designed the modern-style quilt, but we also made the cover quilt collaboratively (with blocks coming from as far as Germany!) with the Spooky ‘n Witchy fabric line from Art Gallery Fabrics.
Two Sets of Amazing Pattern Testers
It was my first time working with pattern testers this year, and it was so inspiring and humbling to see their take on patterns I wrote. They made some absolutely stunning quilts, provided valuable feedback to make both the Stellata and Crystal Rose patterns better, and were a joy to meet and work with. You can see their work and find links to their social media accounts in the tester parades featured right here on the blog. A sneak peek of just a few are below!
One Retreat Hosted
This was 100% a quilting highlight of my year, and I have a blog post half-written sharing all the fun we got up to here in KC during the first Sonder Quilt Retreat. (Promise to publish that soon so you can get an insider’s glimpse!) KC Maker Studio was a fabulous place to stay with wonderful work stations for everyone, and I had the *most* fun planning out all of it with Carrie from Lifting Limits Quilting. We miiiiight have some more fun in the works for 2024. (HINT: you may want to set aside some vacation time in July!)
Two donations to charity
My business has grown and changed some during the year this year, and I’m excited to see where it will go in 2024. One of the ways things shifted during the year is that this spring I planned to donate a portion of proceeds to charity for every pattern sale.
And for the time I was promoting that, I did! It will likely tell you something about the state of my business (hobby?!) that I had to increase the amount of the donations from what was actually earned through pattern sales to make it $100 each. The money was given to The Sewing Labs and the Michael J. Fox Foundation this year (in honor of my childhood soccer coach, who passed away in 2023).
Once the promise of those donations were met after the launch of Crystal Rose, I decided that I will still donate to organizations I care about each year, but that it won’t be specifically tied to sales…and I probably won’t report on it publicly next year. However, since many of you contributed to those amounts through your purchases in the shop, I wanted to let you know that it really did go to good places!
One Life + Quilts Planner published!
I have been thinking about, researching, and planning (ha!) the design of a quilting-focused planner for YEARS. And this year, I finally made it happen! I was thrilled to introduce the Life + Quilts Planner earlier this month, and am convinced that this tool can help anyone be more productive. In the midst of life, we can all find time to enjoy quilting, and this planner can help you figure out how it all fits together to focus your time, attention, and energy.
There are several testimonials from people who have been using the planner for you to read over in the shop, and if you’d like to learn more about the Life + Quilts Planner, you can check it out and get your own by clicking the button below.
Lots of Longarming…And three quilts longarmed myself!
Many of the quilt finishes this year were quilted for me by some fabulous longarm quilters: Barbie Mills at The Quilting Mill, Sara at Stitch Lab Quilting, Quilting is My Therapy, and another fabulous local KC longarmer, Becky (if you need custom quilting, she’s totally amazing!). But I also got to rent out some longarm time at KC Maker Studio, and it was SO. MUCH. FUN! The team at KC Maker Studio is absolutely fabulous, the new shop location is phenomenal, and it’s just a fun, inspiring place to be for a few hours. I need to finish more quilts so I can go back again soon!
One Local Quilt Show
In August, I was invited to submit several quilts in my husband’s hometown’s annual quilt show. I was truly delighted to get to display four of them alongside everyone’s beautiful quilts in Fayette, Missouri. What fun to see them all on display!
Five New Products in the Shop!
Besides the new quilt patterns, finished handmade quilts, and quilt planning and organization items available in the shop, there are also some fun new quilt gifts and merchandise. It includes the Finishing This Quilt Mug (it’s my favorite…I seriously use it every day!), hexie-themed stickers, a cheeky t-shirt for your favorite Quilt Holder, and these past couple of months I featured two holiday items that were limited-time-only (and therefore no longer available on the website). It was really fun to put those offerings together, so there may be more to come in the future!
One WIP Challenge
The 2023 WIP Challenge was a resounding success. With outstanding sponsors and participation from so many fabulous quilters, it was super-fun to host and witness the serious progress made by all to kick-start the year. While I’m not hosting a WIP Challenge this January due to my schedule over the holidays, I *might* have some upcoming fun planned around finishing your quilt Works in Progress (WIPs) in the coming year. Stay tuned!
LOTS of new pattern ideas!
It seems like everywhere I go, new quilt pattern ideas are jumping out at me and asking to be made! I may not release 5 patterns next year, but at least 2-3 are seriously in the running to be designed, tested, and prepared for you. While I’ve got some picking and choosing to do, I know there will be at least one coming up soon-ish, and you’ll need to save your scraps for it! In 2024, I’m also planning on at least one free quilt pattern…with a tutorial right here on the blog. I can’t wait to share them all with you! If you’ve joined my newsletter, I’ll be sure to let you know when those patterns are ready (and if you haven’t, you can do so below…and get a free printable weekly planning sheet to help you make more time for quilting!).
In addition to all this quilty fun, my family and I had a lot going on, too. I have a 4th grader, a 3rd grader, and my youngest is in her last year of preschool. That comes with all their million-and-one sports, music, friends, and academic activities. We went on a road trip vacation to Bemidji, MN for a week this summer for fishing, hiking, and other outdoor fun, and visited the fabulous Gathering Place in Tulsa with my mom. I also switched to a new full-time, in-person day job in September. (Along the way I promise I’ve learned - the hard way - the importance of building in some down time, too!)
So that’s a wrap on 2023! Let’s plan to quilt together in 2024, and I can’t wait to see what you create!
