2015 Round-up/Wrap-up and 2016 Goal-setting

I pretty much wrapped up the year in my WIPocalypse report for December , but I have made a little progress since. 

I feel like I am a broken record because, in December 2014  I said "Like in 2012, I'm not that happy with my completion rate for 2013". There was a list of fifteen completed projects and/or classes for 2013; and a list of eleven in 2014! Well, If I wasn't happy then,  I am miserable now because completed even less in 2015. I blame it on road trips, a protracted sinus infection which has caused headaches which coincide with ever weather front, a a rekindled interest in papercrafting , and (not so much) reading... All I managed to complete this year were 5 projects and no classes:

• 12 merged Crazy Quilt Journal/Bead Journal project blocks
• 3 small charity pieces for a friend’s EGA
• 1 quilt block for a sympathy quilt for the family of a a friend who passed away in
• one plastic canvas ornament for a swap
• three placemats for a quilt guild charity project
  

i am still a member of the local quilt guild and still their webmaster (and Yahoo Group administrator).

For accountabillity, I participated in WIPocalypse 2015 and International Hermit and Stitch Weekend 2015 as well as this blog.

Now for the negatives:

I hadn’t signed up for any new classes and the ones I signed up for and never finished in 2014 (finishing with Funk & Weber, a Seed Bead Botany class,  two Janet Perry classes - (one a stitch guide practicum and the other a background stitch notebook, and several Craftsy online classes for quilting) were barely touched.

I didn’t start TAST 2015 since it was basically a rerun of TAST 2011-12-13.

Long-standing UFOs from precious years weren't even taken out, let alone stitched on:

•     "Angel of Love" - started before we moved to England in 1992!
•     "Celestial Angel"  - started before we moved to England in 1992!
•     "Map of England and Wales" - started in Saudi, sometime around 2001
•     "Nature's Song" (excerpted from a larger chart) - started in Saudi sometime around 2001

to say nothing of an ancient crewel-work pillow (I'm sure the moths have done in the wool by now), all the top work on six or seven needlepoint pieces that all predate 1992, and 19 or so of piece-worked tops from quilting classes in Saudi...  And then there is my Round Robin piece from 2006 --- I still need to finish that off. (If the preceding words look familiar, they are almost verbatim my reports from 2013 AND 2014!)

There are still all the years of Janet Perry needlepoint exercises that require finish-finishing; and a Chinese coins quilt top still awaits its sandwiching, quilting and binding. In addition there are two crazy quilt wall hangings assembled but not sandwiched, quilted or bound and a third not yet assembled… and the three years of TAST samplers are still unbound…

Also stitched on, but unfinished in 2015 are two "true" WIPs and two travel pieces:

•     nine "Roll Your Own" mandalas from InkCircles (seven are complete, two have partial outlines and that leaves two to go!)
•     An Elizabeth Almond blackwork sampler SAL called "Save the Stitches" (issued in 24 installments, fill is completed in13 and outlines completed for 24 more...)
•     A small souvenir piece from a summer road trip called "Historic Biltmore" (which has become a travel piece)
• the border has most of a second color done on “Palm Tree Elegance” (a needlepoint which is my go-to travel piece
  

As for 2016…

Like in 2015, I hope to make 2016 a year of catching up and maybe even re-organizing my crafting space (which is currently a hot mess! - that’s right — no progress made there either). So my stitching goals are to finish what I call the "makeable WIPs": the "Roll Your Own" mandalas and the blackwork sampler; If I feel motivated,  Crazy Quilt Journal Project and Bead Journal Project will also take it's place in this list. I will limit my goals to these, and if anything else inserts itself into my schedule, I should have the time to work on it...