It’s that time of the year when I start thinking about my Quilting Planning for the New Year, and today I’m sharing 7 tips and tricks to help you get ready for your best quilting and sewing year. I have lots of tips in today’s post and also have a new video where I share a bit about these ideas. Happy planning (and sewing)!
Quilting Planning for the New Year: 7 Tips and Tricks
The tips and tricks below are the things I make sure to do each year. I generally use the final few days of December to get everything planned out and ready. And I love being able to sew on New Year’s with a great plan in place. I also have a system where I review regularly and don’t feel bad about changing up my goals at any time.
1. Clean up Your Sewing Area
Do a quick clean up of your space. But don’t get overwhelmed by this step. You don’t need to completely declutter your space or reorganize your stash. Just do some basic housekeeping so that you can move forward. If your area needs lots of organizational love, plan to start working on that at another time in the year.
2. List all of your Works in Progress
Listing your Works in Progress is one of the very most important steps to take when doing your quilting planning for the new year. You can use any notebook or quilting planner, or download a works in progress tracker. You can use the notes section on the planner to jot down your current progress for each project.
3. Create a Project Bucket List
The next thing I like to do is to go over my project bucket list. I keep an ongoing list of projects that interest me and update it frequently. If you don’t have one, just start a list in your planner or notebook and think about which of the projects you might want to incorporate into your upcoming quilting and sewing year.
4. Think About Quilting Challenges for the Year
I also like to take this time to think about possible quilting challenges for the year ahead such as:
- Making a block a day
- Trying a new technique
- Making a certain number of charity quilts
- Finishing a certain number of works in progress
You can also choose a quilting challenge on a monthly or quarterly basis if that would work best for you. And remember, you can always change up your challenge ideas. It’s your quilting life 🙂
5. Use your Calendar
Next, I like to look at my calendar and schedule my sewing time. I always save Saturday mornings for spending time in my sewing room. (If something comes up, no worries, but it’s on my general plan for the week). If you have a regular schedule you can probably schedule in a few sewing session time blocks each week that will work throughout your year. And if your schedule changes frequently, you can schedule your sewing time on a weekly basis.
6. Make a Quarterly Plan
I like to come up with a plan for the first quarter of the year. I usually don’t plan specific sewing projects further out than a quarter at a time. But having the quarterly plan in place has been really helpful for me. I look over my works in progress and my bucket list items and choose at least three things to work on for the quarter.
7. Schedule Regular Reviews
Along with setting goals and scheduling time for quilting, I have a regular review time. This scheduled review helps me not feel tied to any particular project, and I don’t feel guilty when I decide to make a change. I love having the flexibility to change things up whenever I feel like it! I actually review everything at the end of each month when looking ahead to the new month’s goals.
My 2024 Planning Video
Watch my recent video above or on our YouTube channel to hear a little more about the projects I plan to work on in the next quarter.
My 2024 Plans
I already have a feeling for what my first quarter sewing will be in 2024–we have exciting new sample yardage that arrived just before Christmas! (I actually have two projects already in progress with it). Here are a few other things I’m looking at working on during the first quarter of 2024:
- Village House Quilt (I plan to finish this during the first quarter of 2024).
- Moda Blockheads 5 (I’ll continue to work on these blocks and hope to stay caught up or ahead of the game).
- Fat Quarter Shop Moonbeams Sew Along
- Honeybun Scrappy Blocks
- Letters to Santa…if I make one word block the first quarter, I’ll consider that a success!
- A Quilting Life Block of the Month–we begin on January 1st!
- New zipper bags (with the new fabrics, of course)!
- An Exciting Sew Along (top secret for now) I’ll share in February 2024
I hope some of these ideas from my Quilting Planning for the New Year: 7 Tips and Tricks have given you some ideas and some motivation to get a jump-start on your 2024 quilting and sewing. You can find even more ideas on planning and organizing your quilting year at the links below:
Happy quilting!
Kathy Sipe says
Here’s wishing you and your family a wonderful New Year! Looking forward to what 2024 will bring and thank you for your tips and tricks for a successful 2024.
Ruma C. says
I purchased your planner last December. I love that the monthly blocks are blank because we traveled a lot and I didn’t do any projects for several months. Now I can continue to use the planner in 2024. Keeping an eye on UFO’s and bucket list projects is great. And I filled in with spontaneous projects & sewing days with my friends, so even though I may not have finished some big projects, I can see that I still did a lot of orojects! I even entered knitting, embroidery, and cross stitch projects!
Helen says
I just finished inventory of Christmas decorations and where they are in our house. Many thanks for your suggestions on this!
Patti McConnell says
Here’s to a Quilty 2024! Thank you for so many incredible projects that you share with us. Looking forward to sewing along with you.
Theresa Baethke says
Sherri,
I feel so blessed to have found you a few years ago! My quilting has improved tremendously by doing your 2023 BOM. I still hope to go back and do your 2022 BOM. I saved all the block patterns. I just loved how your tied it all together with the churn dash.
Thank you so much for this post! I wrote down all 7 steps and can’t wait to plan out my year. Mostly I want to complete at least 5 quilts for my grandchildren!
Happy New Year!
Theresa Baethke
sherri McConnell says
Thank you so very much Theresa! I really appreciate your kindness!
Patricia says
thanks for the great tips. Looking forward to more inspiration that I get from your posts. cheers to a new year of quilting.
Carla Perry says
Thank you ~ Sherri. Very excited to have this excellent list to get us started for the new year. It’s always great to take some time to think about and actually write down goals for quilting.
A very happy New Year to you and your family.
Blessings,
Carla Perry
Angela says
Thank you so much for all the great ideas and the quilting videos throughout 2023! I hope to do your block a month this year….Happy New Year to you and your family,
Lisa says
This is awesome, Sherri. Thank you! For some reason, I’ve never approached my quilting in this way, and I have the unfinished projects and stacks of fabric to prove it. I’m going to get myself in order. Thank you for all you contribute to the quilting community. I’ve learned so much from you!
Millie Klinnert says
I’ve been trying to find the PDF of blocks to make and haven’t been able to find it.
Thanks!