SewbySanne

Every year, Deveney from Het Naaldbos hosts a finishfeestje at the end of the year — two months dedicated to finishing as many projects as possible. These can be any kind of handwork: quilting, embroidery, sewing, or knitting. The goal doesn’t necessarily have to be a full finish; you might aim to complete a quilt top, a section of a larger project, or just make visible progress.

Each year, I make a very long list — one that I know I won’t completely finish. But I like to see how far I can get! Maybe that’s why it’s better to call it a wishlist rather than a goal list.

Some of my goals have hard deadlines — for example, goals 1 and 7. Both are swaps with specific mailing dates. Goal 1 is actually already finished as I write this blog post; it just needs to be mailed out.

Goal 2 also has a pretty firm deadline, at least one I’ve set for myself. I have a few quilt tops that are almost done but no longer have a destination — or that I’ve simply fallen out of love with. These will be donated to two different charities. On Saturday, November 8th, there’s a Dutch MQG get-together where you can drop off donation quilts. So I’ll work on these until then, and whatever’s finished by that date will be handed in — the rest will go back on the shelf.

Goals 4, 5, 6, and 9 are all quilt projects for which I’d like to finish the tops before the end of the year.
Goal 3, my Elizabeth Hartman fox quilt, was started on November 1st. I bought the kit at QuiltCon, and it’s been calling to me for months. Last Saturday (November 1st), I had a full sewing day and made great progress — it really helped that I’d pre-cut almost everything so I could just chain piece!

Goal 5, the #100BlocksUntilChristmas, is kind of an accidental QAL — I wrote about it earlier in this blog post. The aim is to have the top finished by Christmas Eve, December 24th.
The Kona BOM is a project I started early this year, but it ended up forgotten in a corner. Time to give it some love again!

And then there’s the Queen of Diamonds top — which has been on this list before (maybe even twice… oops). All the blocks are done; only the sashing remains. Surely this is the year to finally get it done!

Goal 3 (yes, another one!) is to make some progress on my Tula Nova quilt. I’m halfway through the star border — I’d like to get that attached and maybe even start the next round with the pentagons. I definitely don’t expect to finish this one by year’s end, but any progress counts.

Finally, goal 8: the small WIPs. While tidying my sewing room recently, I rediscovered a whole bunch of little projects — a bag with quilted panels ready to assemble, an EPP project that’s more than halfway done, and some mini FPP ornaments where I only have three or four left to make. I’d love to see how many of these I can tick off. Most of these are projects that could be finished in one or two afternoons or evenings, so let’s see what happens!

As I said at the beginning, I have no illusion that I’ll finish everything — but I do have quite a bit of time off in December, so hopefully that means lots of sewing time. Even if I don’t get much done, it’s still been a great exercise to reflect on which quilts and projects deserve a bit more attention again.

Follow along on social media to see how I do! What do you think — how many projects will I actually finish? Or will I get distracted and start something completely new instead… Let me know in the comments!