Monday, December 18, 2017

Reflecting and welcoming 2018

The end of a calendar year gives us the opportunity to reflect on the year behind us and set our focus for the year ahead. Thank you for taking a few minutes to read my thoughts.



2017 was a year of firsts for me.  
  • First time attending QuiltCon.  (See my personal reflections post.)
  • First time seeing a total solar eclipse.  
  • First time publish - a block - in a quilt magazine.  (Read more.)
  • First quilt pattern accepted for publish - more on this in 2018

August 2017 Eclipse
I completed lots of quilting projects.  I made exercise an important part of my day and found time to see friends.

For 2017, I choose the word brave - I wanted to be brave enough to finish a good draft of my novel (I did) and be brave enough to show it to someone (not yet, but soon.)   (See my 2016 reflection and 2017 post here.)



Recently, I read about the concept of lagom which translates to "enough, sufficient, just right" .  While I had not heard the actual term lagom before, the concept appeals to me and I am going to explore this in 2018 in several ways - for example,
  • Find homes for finished quilts
  • Balance my day with writing, exercise, quilting and family
  • Deal with my scraps - plan a project or find a home
  • Buy fabric only to support a project and not to build a statsh
This will provide balance with the word I've chosen for the year -  bold - especially when it comes to my quilt designs.  (Be bold was the message I carried away from Jaquie Gering's trunk show - my blog post).   Another way to say this is to find the sweet spot between status quo and the extremes.


My specific goals for 2018 are:
  • Be bold in my choice of color and design.  Step outside my comfort zone (a bit!) in my color choices
  • Submit quilt designs to magazines for publication
  • Create a new quilt for submission to QuiltCon 2019 and other shows
  • Sew a quilt by hand
  • Improve my FMQ
  • Finish the novel
  • Grow participation in One Monthly Goal
  • Practice my photography
  • Collaborate with other quilters / bloggers on a project (interested, drop me an email)

I'll be linking up my post at Quilting Jetgirl's 2018 Planning Party.



Have a wonderful day! Patty

11 comments:

  1. Patty, this is an excellent post which certainly sparks thought and personal reflection.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Patty, thanks for sharing your plans. I am glad that OMG will be back in 2018. Look forward to watching you grow your FMQ skills.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wish you a wonderful 2018, Patty, and I think that you are positioned to be very brave and bold! I look forward to hearing more about your first publication. :) Thanks for linking up!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a wonderful year it was in 2017, and looking awesome for 2018.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You have accomplished much and I am sure next year will be a great one for you, and we will all enjoy seeing you shine. Glad to hear you have finished your novel, what an awesome feat!! You know I would be happy to collaborate on something fun with you :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I like your list of goals; focused but open for interpretation and suggestion as the moment moves you. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  7. A very balanced set of goals, with growth in several areas. The struggle with goals is always the balance between growth and the challenges of everyday life. Which I suppose is why we set goals. Wishing you lots of success with your plans for 2018.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow! your eclipse photo is incredible! I've been following you, but stopped posting on OMG when I realized I wasn't going to finish. Hoping this year will be different! Thanks for organizing and working on this!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love where you are headed and I just might try to steal a little of that boldness myself.

    ReplyDelete
  10. That eclipse! So glad I was able to witness it too, such an amazing experience! I have been toying around with the idea of picking a word too, love your choice of bold for 2018. I hope to help you with one of your goals, I'm planning to join One Monthly Goal for the fist time in January. Wishing you a wonderful year!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Those are great goals for 2018. I wish you success with all of them.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting Elm Street Quilts. Looking forward to hearing from you!