New Year, New Projects!

I know that I am a bit late on the New Year's Resolutions trend, however, I still have some things that I want to accomplish in this coming year. If I share them here, I'm more likely to actually do everything!

Quilts I want to start on and/or finish this year:

1. I am working on a sampler quilt for myself at the moment and I plan to finish it this year. I tend to make quilts for other people all of the time and have yet to make one for myself, so I have high hopes for this one! I also plan to do a blog post on how I created the template for this sampler quilt.

So far that is all of the progress I have made on this sampler quilt (a little less than half).

2. I want to at the least start on a King sized quilt for Curtis and myself. As you can probably tell, I plan to have a selfish sewing year.

3. I want to finish my peacock feather quilt. This is the first official quilt I started making and I had the adventurous idea to hand quilt a very tiny pattern all over the whole thing. It is still unfinished and I think it is about time it gets done! I have just lacked motivation for this project, because I am not fond of the fabric combination and the lack of color variation in it. I wasn't good at matching colors at the beginning, so I just stuck with navy and white. I think I will end up binding it with a contrasting color.

As you can see, I've actually already quilted most of it.

4. Another quilt of sorts. I want to either start a new one or finish one I've already started.

Other Announcements and Miscellaneous Goals:

• I have a new addiction lately: swaps. Instagram quilting swaps are amazing. Whoever came up with the idea in the first place is a genius. Swaps will be a major part of my quilting load this year and I am incredibly excited about it! I already completed my first swap (here, here, and here). I absolutely love mini quilts and am excited to make more and receive more this coming year. I'm also getting to meet some quilters from over the world through these swaps, which is pretty cool, too.

• I have decided to do the #sewmystash2015 challenge this year! Check out this awesome idea on a blog called Project Leasa! As she mentioned in her posts, she makes a lot of things for other people and hasn't sewed much for herself in the past. This year she plans to do some selfish sewing (while using up a lot of her fabric stash) and so have I!

• I want to open my own Etsy shop this year! I need to start saving money for my wedding and I think that I am going to make small items (pillows, mini quilts, etc.) to sell!

• I am going to create a logo, an about me, and create a better overall look for my blog. This is something I have been meaning to work on for awhile now and I think will make a huge difference!

• Another thing I'm excited about this year: STARTING MY WEDDING PLANNING! Curtis proposed while we were in Europe during our winter break from classes and I am so excited! I plan to do some blog posts about wedding planning once I start the planning process. My wedding will have a strict budget, so expect some tips for how to stay within your budget, too.

I'm sorry I missed the whole month of January! I returned home from Europe in the middle of the month and I had classes starting, so I decided to focus on that! Be expecting a couple of new patterns coming from me this month! I plan to do four posts during February to make up for completely neglecting January.

with love,

Courtney