Twenty Twenty-One came to a close last night. And as with every year, I looked back and considered what I’d like to take into the new year, and what I’d like to leave behind.
Today is the first day of 2022, so this is yet another new beginning. As part of this new beginning, I decided to make my foray into officially embracing my quilter-hood – complete with a new website. (welcome, BTW.) I forgot how much work goes into making a new site. Man, am I tired!!!
Nonetheless, I’ll briefly share what this year has been like for me and my Average Quilterdom, and tell you a little more about my plans for Just an Average Quilter.
Work Life = Real Stress
In my real life, I manage a couple of public libraries. I work around 50 hours a week, mostly on site. This year was one of my more stressful and change-filled years with the Library. As you might imagine, the COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in our closure in 2020 and a subsequent reimagining of public service and a renewed focus on safety. We slowly reopened, offering an increasing number and types of services, and now we’re almost back to full, regular service. Since the pandemic started, we lost a number of staff at one of my branches due to attrition, and one to murder. Hiring is slow with civil service employment in the best of times, and the pandemic has increased the amount of time it takes to fill our vacant positions. We’ll get there, but it’ll take some time.
Even with all of that stress and change, some definite positives have happened in my day job. One of the folks I supervise received her Masters in Public Administration; another received her Bachelors in Nursing; and a third received a Bachelors in Psychology (she has also enrolled in Library School!). Three of the folks I supervised got engaged. We opened a completely new service location in partnership with our parks department. We started dipping our toes into in-person programming again. Things are definitely moving towards normalcy in the public library.
Personal Life = Reaching Some Goals
With the world basically stopping in 2020, my momentum on reaching certain goals came to a halt as well. With Daniel’s (major) support, I was able to re-start and re-focus on those goals that I’d set. We remodeled the backyard, to make it safe for our pups, welcoming for humans, and low maintenance for future renters. I re-focused on getting to a healthier weight while increasing my strength, and made some great progress. I added to my tattoo collection. We traveled to two states that we hadn’t visited before (Colorado and New Mexico), and visited some old favorites (Las Vegas, mainly). We spent more time with family, and finally got Niner’s arthritis pain under control.
Average Quilting
I made A LOT of quilts in 2021. Seriously. You should check out my Instagram – you’ll see them there. I gave away a bunch of them too. Some of the quilts I loved. Others were merely “meh.” Making quilts has continued to fill that creative need I feel in the pit of my stomach as “I MUST DO THIS”.
I spent too much on fabric, like so many quilters do. I lost track of the projects that I’d queued up and jumped into too many quilt alongs. Now I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of fabric and the number of projects waiting in my quilting room. There’s a plan forming to keep it all under control. I’ll be ready to share more in a bit.
I reorganized my quilt room and bought a Grace Q-Zone Hoop Frame Pro to help me quilt more quilts economically… and then promptly caused trigger finger with all the vibrations from the handle bars. You just can’t win sometimes. My index finger is finally feeling a bunch better, so I can slowly ease my way back into long arming. Wish me luck there.
Coming Soon in 2022
With all of the stress from work, and the insane amount of time that I spend quilting, it only really made sense to start a site to document my Average Quilterness. My plan is to make and review quilty things on Just an Average Quilter. So, follow along with my quilty trials, tribulation, successes, excitement and more. There might be fits and starts with this, but eventually I’ll get into a rhythm and things will flow.
In the mean time, my quilty project plans (in no particular order) for 2022 so far are:
- APQ UFO Challenge
- Happy Everything Quilt Along (hosted by Pat Sloan, started in 2021)
- Faux Feathered Star (kit)
- Lantern Lights (kit)
- Summer Season (kit, halfway pieced)
- Hocus Pocus (2021 Spooky Box, kitted up)
- Rocky Road (Perfect 10 book, kitted up)
- Bright Side Quilt Along (Sew Sampler pattern, kitted up, waiting for the blocks to come out)
- Crossroads (kitted up)
- Urban Farmhouse Gatherings II Jolly Bar pattern (kitted up)
- Swinging on a Star (kit)
- Heartfelt (kit on order)