Year End Review 2017

Experimental doll. 

It is the day of New Year's Eve.  I usually try to take a look back and see what I have accomplished this year in my crafting endeavors.  I generally approach this with a bit of dread because I always feel as if I have not gotten anything done.  Generally I am surprised when I go back through this year's posts.  I have completed quite a lot, even though it does not feel that way.

Please note:  the photos may be all over the place on this post.  Whenever I make a long post, the blog platform gives me a lot of grief over positioning the photos.  I finally gave up on adding captions.  In order the pictures are: experimental doll, pin cushions, spiral bowl, needle keepers, wall hanging, lap quilt, star and leaf quilt, painting, sandworm, Jupiter sphere, and challenge quilt.  Sorry if the post looks messy. 

At the beginning of the year I set a rather loose set of goals for the year.  I find that setting too rigid a schedule causes me to become stressed and frustrated rather than enjoying the process.  Some years I am able to meet all the goals.   Other years, like this year, I only partially met those goals.  Life sometimes gets in the way of the things I want to do.  Other times, I was out there having so much of a good time that I could not even get into the studio.  At any rate, there were things I accomplished this year and things I did not. 


The goals I set for 2017 were fairly modest.  I wanted to make a doll of a Flamenco dancer, refurbish my painted Jupiter sphere, and make a quilt in a Star and Leaf pattern.  The doll and the quilt were large projects.  Refurbishing the Jupiter sphere was a moderate project.  Other than that, I planned to do some work with my quilting guild. It seems like a small enough agenda, but I also did a few other projects along the way. 

The Star and Leaf quilt, a large quilt 72" x 72" (182.88 x 182.88 cm.) is put together and half way through the process of being hand quilted.  I confess, this quilt would have been completed if I had followed the quilting suggestion that came with the pattern.  However, I chose to go off on a quilting tangent, and this quilt is only half way finished.  The way I began quilting it, each block takes about six to seven hours to quilt.  I work on it steadily, but sometimes I just have to put it down for a while and come back to it when I am in the mood. 

The Jupiter sphere has been repainted.  I recently showed a picture of it on the blog after I painted the base coat.  Since then I have done more work on it, but have not had time to get on the blog.  The holiday season had me tied up every day one way or another.  I was exhausted, even though I had a nice time.  I will be showing pictures of the completed sphere after the first of the year.

The Flamenco doll never made it beyond the initial planning stage.  I made a basic sketch of my idea for the doll, but that is as far as things went.  I was doing so much quilting and hand work this year that something had to fall by the wayside.  However, this project has been slated for the new year.  I haven't given up on it.  This doll is an ambitious project.  I could have started it earlier this year, but I hope to enter this project in the state fair in 2018.  The rules state that the project must be made in the year that it is exhibited.  I have held off starting until after the 2018 begins.  I did not think I would have time to finish the project in time for the 2017 state fair.

So now that I have reviewed my goals for last year, it is time to get on to what I actually did in 2017.  I began the year working on an experimental doll.  It was an attempt to use an existing doll as a mold for a papier mache doll.  I wanted to see if I could modify the position of the doll's arms and legs and make a doll with a different stance from the original doll.  The result was a doll named Barbara. 

Another experimental project was a spiral paper bowl.  I had seen some objects on Pintrest made from spirals made of paper and thought I would give it a try.  I did make a bowl, but it was not very sturdy.  However, it was a great fidget project for sitting and watching television.  Making the spirals kept my hands busy whiles viewing shows.  That left my daytime crafting for other projects.

The rest of the projects for this year were almost all textile projects.  I completed 18 pin cushions for my quilting guild and 20 needle keepers in folk art shapes for gifts.  The pin cushions were sewn on the machine and stuffed with fiber fill.  The wool felt needle keepers were all hand work.  It seems like these would be fairly quick projects, but they were not.  I spent days and days stuffing the pin cushions.  The blanket stitch on the needle keepers took much longer than I thought it would.

Although I have not finished the Star and Leaf quilt, I did complete two other quilts this year.    One was a small scrap quilt made from some leftover fabric.  Fabric has become so expensive that I try to use up what I have before going out to buy more fabric.  I was making this quilt for display at my guild.  The other was a small quilt for the paint chip challenge.  You had to go to the store and pick out paint chips with paint names that started with the initials of your name.  From all the combinations of paint chips with your initials, you had to find colors that coordinated enough to make a quilt.  There were many paint chips to choose from, but the problem was the fabric hunt for colors of fabric that matched the paint chips.   Then you had to put the quilt together.  Those two quilts kept me busy for the better part of the year.

I am also working on a quilted wall hanging of an elephant.  I take that with me to the sit-and-sew.  I got bogged down on that one because I decided it needed to have beading on it.  I wanted to make it look like an elephant that might have been outfitted with fine fabrics and gems as if it was in some sort of royal procession; perhaps one that might have been ridden by some raja in a bygone era.  I don't exactly know where this quilt is going.  I have one more section to bead then I will begin quilting it.  Sooner or later I will finish it.

I always want to make something to add to my Halloween collection.  This year I was pressed for time, so I did a painting.   I don't usually do paintings.  I think this one came out pretty well considering.  My other Halloween project was an edible project.  I made a Sandworm from the Dune series.  It is actually a cinnamon roll recipe set to look like a creature from a science fiction series.  I did not come up with the idea, I saw it on the internet.  It was fun,and my friends really enjoyed seeing (and eating) it.

So all this was accomplished while traveling out of town for seven trips this year.   As I said earlier, I really did not feel as if I had made much progress on anything this year, but I actually did get a fair amount done.  I hope this year will be better.  At least, I hope that I will be able to work on projects that will further my crafting goals for 2018.