2018 Quilting Goals in Review

Like many quilters, I try to start the year with looking back on the progress made towards last year's goals and set forth some goals to work towards over the coming year.

2018 in Review

In early 2018 I identified 5 quilty goals:

1. Quilt More - This is always a goal. There were months I did well and months I nearly didn't turn on my machine. I am pleased with the quilts I was able to finish, and I made progress on projects both new and old. 2018 Finishes can be found on their own page.
2. Document my Quilting - My intention was to blog more. I've done a fair job of Instagramming my work, but I want a record with a few more details. I was horrible at this. seventy-five of my 2018 posts have been written between Christmas and New Year's and back-dated to match when they should have been written. My haste to write numerous posts has made them all too short and lacking the details I had hoped to document.
3. Quilt for Us - Unless someone made it upstairs to my studio, a visitor to our house would have no idea that a quilter lives here. I started two quilts to live in our living room for movie nights, tent-making and sleepovers. One is down to just binding and one is about half-pieced. While not finished, I'm satisfied with this progress and will keep these two projects near the top of my 2019 list.
4. Publish a Pattern - This moved to the back burner. I'm not sure what my thoughts are about publishing. I have quilts in the design stage that I think would make great patterns, but the market is over-saturated. Craftsy's recent structural changes don't really surprise me, as I think we are in the early stages of a market correction in quilting. But, it was one avenue for new pattern designers to connect with potential customers. Publishing patterns was an early stage goal of being able to market myself more as a quilt teacher, but there are other avenues to do that. My current day-job, school and family commitments limit my time available to teach so that may be on indefinite hold, too.
5. Finish - I started the year with numerous UFO's and even more designs on my computer and formulating in my head. Like in 2017, I joined in the All People Quilt UFO Challenge. I only managed to finish two of the twelve identified quilts, though some others made measurable progress. I finished ten quilts in 2018 which was near 2017 where I completed eleven quilted projects.

2018 was not a year where I smashed my goals, but considering some of the craziness that happened in the rest of my life in 2018, I'm OK with where I'm at and looking forward to 2019.