I’m joining up with Quilting Jetgirl’s #2022planningparty again this year to think about what I’d like to pursue in the coming year.
2020 was a transformative year for my quilting life and I was expecting great things from 2021. And there were great things! But there was also a lot more…ebb and flow. There were times when I felt very creative and excited about the things I was making. There were times I felt burnt out, unmotivated, and lacking in ideas.
Here are the broader goals I set for myself in 2021, and how I did:
- Build my longarm quilting experience. Success! I learned a lot this year from practicing, from chatting with knowledgeable quilty friends, and from taking a class at the International Quilt Festival. I finally got my machine serviced in November as well, which had been on my to-do list since buying it a year earlier. I still have much more to learn, but I’m happy with my progress.
- Complete another 100 Day Project. Success! I made a star block each day for 100 days. I have pieced about 3/4 of them into a quilt top, and hope to finish it in the first few months of 2022 before this year’s 100 day project kicks off.
- Find new ways to engage in my local quilting community. Success! The continuing pandemic made this more difficult than anticipated, but I have remained active in the Gulf Coast MQG and have become more involved in the Houston MQG. I’ve also engaged with other guilds in the greater Houston area through lectures and workshops.
- Publish 6 patterns. Partial success, since I published four. In retrospect, launching a new pattern at the rate of about one per quarter feels good and manageable.
- Maintain the status quo with tech editing and design. Success, mostly! I continue to enjoy this work (yay) but continue to have a tendency to slightly overload myself (boo). There’s room for improvement there in 2022. I did take on several new clients, as editing and design work is cyclical for me and hard to plan very far in advance — I’ll go a few weeks without any requests, and then suddenly receive several within a few days. This makes it difficult for me to really assess how many clients are “too many.”
When I look back on my progress with these goals, along with some of the “bests” I shared yesterday, it does provide me with some really good perspective. Despite having periods of lower creativity and motivation, and even periods where I wasn’t doing much sewing at all, I still accomplished a lot and enjoyed doing it.
Looking forward to 2022, I feel a little aimless. The past month has definitely been one of the low periods of my year, and that makes it harder to focus on clear, realistic ideas for the future. Nonetheless, I will try! (And for what it’s worth, I set all of my specific, project-oriented quilting goals on a quarterly basis. Yearly goals are more broad!)
Quilt business goals:
- Continue to expand my pattern offerings. I won’t set a number, but as mentioned above something like one pattern per quarter feels about right. I have 2 previously-published MQG patterns that are due for an expansion and re-release, so those are low hanging fruit. I would also like to write 1-2 new patterns designed to use fat quarters.
- Continue occasional guild lectures and workshops. I am teaching at QuiltCon 2022 and have a few virtual guild lectures already scheduled. Ideally, I’d like to do 1-2 per month. (These will be virtual. My ability to travel to teach is very limited.)
- Grow my email list. This was my first full year of sending a monthly newsletter, and it’s been fun to put together! From a business perspective, I also know it’s important to have a group that is “mine” — aka not on social media or someone else’s platform.
- Thoughtfully manage my tech editing and ghostwriting workload. In particular, I am making a commitment to myself to take on no more than 1 ghostwriting project at a time. This could mean that my income decreases in 2022, but I am willing to accept it.
Personal quilting/creative goals:
- Complete another 100 Day Project. I love personal projects, forever and ever, the end. I’ve been starting to think about what to do this year!
- Rehome some quilts. I have reached a point where my quilt ladder and rack are overflowing, and it is time for some of my work to find new homes. I have not had success with listing quilts in my shop, so I will consider other options. Giveaway? Charity donation? (I would love to hear what others have done.)
- Take a Procreate course or tutorial series. I know the basics, but I would like to get better at it — both to help with my quilting process, and just to have some fun with doodling and perhaps some lettering. More generally, I have the urge to branch out a bit and try some quilt-adjacent or even non-quilting creative endeavors.
- Try new things. Get outside my nice, geometric box. Make an art quilt. A political quilt. A processing-emotion quilt. An “ugly” quilt.
Here’s to 2022!
p.s. I’m doing a 31 day blogging challenge.
I can relate so much to not knowing what the right number of clients should be. It is definitely and ebb and flow kind of thing. Every time I’m like, well, maybe I should take on a few new clients than I get slammed with requests. It’s interesting how it feels like the valve is either open or closed, haha.
I look forward to seeing what 2022 brings. I always enjoy your exploration in personal projects, and I am feeling the pull of your final “try new things” as well. I hope you have a great 2022 and that the ebb and flow of work/personal/creativity/etc. fits with what you need in each season.
As a bystander, it seems to me this has been a terrific year for you. Your ‘presence’ has been consistent and always interesting. I’ve enjoyed your newsletter and have admired how you’ve learned a new thing with the long-arming. Wish you the best in 2022!
As a complete novice, it’s inspiring to me to visit blogs like yours. Here’s to a healthy, happy 2022!
“From a business perspective, I also know it’s important to have a group that is “mine” — aka not on social media or someone else’s platform.” — This is interesting.
Regarding quilts, I would be cautious about charitable donations. When S was in the hospital, they were practically begging us to take quilts because they had had so many donations they didn’t know what to do with them. I ended up taking two, and even as someone who deeply values the work and thought that goes into a homemade quilt, I ended up giving one away. I think the main thing you want with your quilts is to make sure that whoever gets the quilt will value it. (on that note, Bri is still sleeping under the quilt you made S every night.)
I think a giveaway on Instagram is a good idea, since there are a lot of people on that platform who would value your quilts.
If you announced on Insta that you were going to sell a quilt and then auctioned or sold it on a fixed timeframe, perhaps giving the proceeds to charity if you preferred (and might attract more interest), you might get more takers.
I was thinking about giving a quilt away on the FB site “Buy Nothing.”
I’d like to think that whoever receives my quilts does value it, but I also recognize that I can’t control what happens to a quilt after I give it away.
Figuring out what to do with my quilts is certainly an interesting “problem” to have. I have made quite a few mini quilts in the last couple years, but mini quilts are definitely more difficult to offer or gift since they are not usable. I’m starting to give more consideration to limiting the minis I made, and making larger quilts that can be put on a couch or bed and used.
I made a quilt, one of the most time-consuming ones I’ve ever made, for a relative who was ill, maybe four years ago. That relative subsequently passed, and the quilt was found in the box unused. It’s not like my relative was too ill to use it; years passed between me gifting the quilt and my relative passing. It had never been removed from the box.
It made me think a lot about how to make sure that the recipient of a quilt I pour dozens of hours, or more, into actually wants it.