My plans, goals & dreams for 2026

Hi and welcome 😊 Although I'm hosting the Plans, goals & dreams linking party, I was not ready to even think about 2026 until it started. Time is now running out for the party - and I seem to be overwhelmed already! I'm probably going to over commit, but in the end, what ever gets done, gets done😉

Goals

I'm so glad that I took a couple of weeks to prepare my Best of 2025. This helped me reflect on what I did and what I want to keep doing. I realised that my favourite projects were the scrappy cuddle quilts, the hand-stitched mats, the coiled art pieces and hand-weaving on paper. All of these have the same thing in common - they're scrappy, small, as well as playful and experimental! Of course that doesn't mean that I won't make other things but if possible, I will choose to keep my projects scrappy, small, playful and experimental!

Plans

Now for a few details about what these might be.

UFOs

Like most quilter, I have lots of UFOs (Un Finished Objects). Quite a few are at the sandwich and FMQ stage. I really would like to do more FMQ this year and flimsies are perfect for this since they only require backing, sandwiching and then quilting. I have mentioned previously that sandwiching is one of my least favourite part of quilting - but when it leads to some FMQ, it's not as bad!😀

Since finishing up the Christmas Panel Quilt, I realised that I had missed  FMQ and would like to keep my skills up. 

I just washed the flannel backing for the Cowboy panel quilt. I'm hoping to start quilting it this week. This project is also my January OMG (One Monthly Goal), a party to which I will continue to participate in the hope that it will help me get things done!

Cowboy panel quilt - first in line to be quilted

I also have these cuties to FMQ.

Scrappy orange baby quilt

SAHRR 2023

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL flimsy

Baby Quilts

JJ has three friends who are going to be mothers soon! We have three baby quilts to make! We'll be using some of the fabric below as well as Kona solids.

Some of the fabric for the baby quilts

Challenges

SAHRR 2026

I would like to participate in the SAHRR 2026 this year, but it needs to be scrappy, small, playful and experimental! I'll look in my stash for a finished block and then work like the panel quilts, making only one of each week's block. Hopefully I can come up that will let me experiment with.

 SAHRR 2026

Project Quilting Season 17

The first challenge of PQ 17.1 came out today. A clean state was interpreted as a blank page. I'll be participating to any of the challenges that interest me.😊

A blank page - to be filled up :-)

A Quilters' Cove QAL

I've decided to participate in A Quilters' Cove QAL with Kat of Scrapbox Quilter. We'll be making a quilt with houses based on the colours of the #Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm justifying this to myself that it will replace the Table Scraps Challenge that is no longer running. You'll be hearing more about this since I'll be hosting the linking party at the end of each month. BTW, January's colour is blue. 

Look for the linking party at the 
end of each month!

Bloomers SAL

I'm looking forward to finishing up my Bloomer's SAL. 

Bloomers SAL - a little more work needed!

Declutter Challenge

I came upon the Declutter Challenge last week. I've been receiving and reading the posts - there are excellent ideas for decluttering. Unfortunately I'm not quite ready to tackle this - I need to start by putting things away before I can declutter. I plan on decluttering this year - anything I do will be better than nothing!

Hosted by Just Get It Done Quilts

Fibre Arts & New Techniques

Although I will be playing and experimenting with weaving on paper and coiling art, I would really like to learn more about watercolour painting. This isn't to make beautiful landscapes (I'll leave that to other artists) but to make interesting marks on paper to then embroider into them. I like embroidering on paper, but I believe that it becomes magical when it's done on designs that you've created yourself.

Handweaving on watercoloured paper

Coiling projects - Desert Landscape

There were made based on a workshop presented by Sam Owen in July 2023 with Textile.Artist.com Stitch Club. This Christmas, JJ got me a virtual course with Helen Wells, a British artists whose sketchbook practice I love. I just posted the results of the Creating Bold Botanicals course and I'm really looking forward to the Nurture and Nature course.

4" x 4" abstract watercolour and stitch

Echinacea flower

 

Playing with watercolour and stitching

I also have two wedding art quilts that I've been thinking a lot about. It's time to get them done!

Embroidery

In the Fall of 2024, I enrolled in a Fibre Arts Take Two course - Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods. I really enjoyed it but didn't finish any of the projects that I started. I'm really hoping to advance these projects this year. (that's pretty much what I said last year!)

These are two of the flower embroideries that I worked on 

I also want to keep working on my not-so-daily stitching project, as well as my Narrative textile squirrel book  I really didn't get much done in 2025. Maybe I'll be more successful this year.

Another square on the not-so-daily stitching project 

Narrative textile squirrel book

As I was putting all of these WIP and UFO embroidery projects together, I discovered that I have many, many more unfinished embroidery projects. I hope that some of them will interest me enough to get back to them. I guess we'll all find out together!

I haven't made any new journals or hand-made books since 2024. I think that it's because as much as they are fun to make, I've given them away to almost everyone I know who would appreciate one. My son and DIL gave me an amazing package of Japanese paper scraps for Christmas. I will probably make more hand woven projects on paper with them....but who knows, I do have a huge stash of journal making supplies that either need to be used....or....decluttered!  😕

Dreams

I guess that I did put that in the title, so my dream is for a healthy, stable, happy 2026. I hope that your dreams for 2026 come true 😍

Goals for 2026

Linking parties

I'm linking up to several linking parties, including Plans, goals & dreams for 2026, I Quilted This!, Beauties Pageant, 

If you've subscribed to my post, I promise that the rest of the year won't be quite as busy. Thanks for following me on my journey - I really appreciate it!