I am a firm believer in making lists.  There are Best Seller Lists, To-Do Lists, Grocery Lists, Honey-Do Lists, in short, lists for everything.  A grand event in my world is making a list of tasks, then whipping out my yellow marker to cross them off when completed.  I even have lists of lists, and many of them are in my calendar. 

This is my list of what I accomplished in 2020, quilt-wise.  We won’t talk about the other stuff (like shoulder surgery–yikes!).

You haven’t seen number 18 Azulejos yet.  And in a little more housekeeping, Field Flowers, number 7 in the listing above, is listed as 188 in my Quilt Index, since I posted about the top back then, and like to keep them together.

Can’t believe I made five Merrion Square quilts.  But here they are.

I also made a couple more Tiny Quilts which aren’t listed; they are free patterns available in the tab “Tiny Quilts” at the top of the blog.

This was a highlight of 2019, as I am quite a fangirl of this magazine.

Here’s one you haven’t seen on this blog yet.  It’s Home Is Where the Heart is, a re-do of my Home, Sweet Home pattern.  Lots of people would rather piece in the doors and windows (the smaller version has you fuse them on), so I am in the process of refreshing the pattern; it will be available Febrary 1st in PayHip.

The backing shows scenes of New York City, and reminds me of my daughter, who is in totally besotted with that place.  She was born there, but we moved when she was still tiny.  The city is in her DNA, I’m convinced.

But I still have some work to do.  Tannenbaum was on my Christmas Day post, and it needs a few more tons more squares for the borders so it can live on my bed in December.  Small World is pin-baseted, ready for quilting, as is the City Streets variation.  And that Temperature Quilt will soon be finished (like tonight).

So, even though I started the  year with that surgery which sidelined me for a few months, I think my output has been decent.  I also visited seven different guilds, taught seven workshops, and wrote/refreshed many of my patterns.  I’m not listing the number of doctor visits, trips to the grocery store, visits to the car dealership, nor the trips to see my children/grandchildren/parents/family.  In this blog, all revolves around the quilt, and my Quilt Index (or Indices, if you want to get technical).

And why is a quilt index important for you?  I was sitting next to Judy R. in December’s Guild meeting, and the question came up “Who has made the most quilts?”  Several women raised their hands, but Judy popped her hand up and said “Elizabeth has! And has a Quilt List to prove it!” (She’s very sweet.) It made me, yet again, happy that I’d made a quilt index and kept it up to date.  In this new upcoming  year, I’d like to encourage you to start one, if you haven’t already.

If you are new to this blog, last year I wrote an introduction of who I am.  In this space, I generally talk about my quilts, places I go that are textile/quilty related, as well as discuss quilt/work/create topics once in a while.  I keep this quote of Thomas Merton’s handy, perhaps to help me keep perspective:

“We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the highest pitch of artificial tension, to strain every human desire to the limit and to create as many new desires and synthetic passions as possible, in order to cater to them with the products of our factories and printing presses and movie studios and all the rest.”

For now, for today, it’s time to unwind from that tension, take a break and close out this year, looking forward to the next.  In all ways, quilting can help.

Prosit Neujahr 2020!