FO challenges, HO!

If I could sum up my New Years Resolutions into a few words, they would be "Just keep it up"!

When making my quilty resolutions for 2013, they seemed to fall into 3 different categories: general intentions, UFO busting, and NewFO's I want to make.

The general category:

• get your scrap organized! - I am pretty comfortable about how I have my yardage organized, but my scraps are literally stuffed into a couple brown paper grocery bags.  Terrible, I know!  They really need to be organized by quality (I plan to use the low quality fabric for Ashley to practice on), size, color, etc.
• Continue practicing Free Motion Quilting - there is ample opportunity for this as I hope to do at least 2 Quilt As You Go projects!
• Continue having fun in blogland - I have committed myself heavily for the first few months, but then things ease up a bit.
• Actually attend a LA Modern Quilt Guild meeting - the group meets on Monday nights about an hour away and it is pretty difficult to tear myself away from the carpool, but I think I should do it at least once to see what I've been missing.

UFO Busting:

• I've made a new page of the "Master List" of UFO's for me to work from.  These are projects are in some state of "started", and I want to return to.  I've given away several and even trashed a few from prior lists.
• The first UFO from the list that I am going to tackle is the Blue One Block Wonder quilt.  The top is done.  It needs to be backed and quilted with a simple design.  I plan on donating it when done.  Yes, I am totally taking an easy one for the first month!
• Also this quarter, I hope to finish up my Beginner QAL quilt and How Far Will You Go? quilt (obviously, I didn't get as far as I hoped on this one).

NewFO's:

• Time to use up all those fabric scraps I've been saving and make quilts for the girls.  These scraps are taking up important "new fabric" space, so they have to go!  This is the NewFO, I plan on working on this month.
• Swoon quilt - I bought the pattern a year ago, and probably enough fabric to make 10 of them.  I just have to begin.
• 2 baby quilts for friends who are expecting soon
• A quilt for my own (king sized) bed.  Now that I have a few little things for myself, it is time I have a quilt for my own bed!  I have the pattern picked out, and some fabrics purchased.  Time to begin!
• Weekender bag - this one looks tough!  But I bought the pattern, so..??
• Then there are the bees and BOM's I've joined: the Make it Modern Bee, Simply Solids Bee, We Be Learning Bee, the Skill Builder BOM, and the Lucky Star BOM.  I am also continuing with the Star of Africa Bee, because I love those ladies so much!
• More to come, no doubt!

So then, how do I plan on accomplishing these items?  With the help of blogland, of course!

For my UFO busting, I plan on linking up monthly with the Lovely Year of Finishes group at Sew Bittersweet Designs, the Project UFO 2.0 Group at Cut to Pieces, and quarterly with the 2013 Finish Along at She Can Quilt.

For the NewFO's, I might as well join along with Cat Patches' New FO Challenge, and see how it goes.

A kind soul asked, "why link up with these "parties" at all"?  Well, if you are new to blogging, they are an excellent way to increase the traffic to your blog and show off your work to others in the net-community.  Now, I have stopped being concerned with "traffic" per se, but I love meeting new friends!  And I've been lucky enough to meet some great ones by them finding me via linky parties.  Who knows who I will meet next, right?

Jen