Tag: 2025 Goals

#craftygoals: December 2025

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Debrief: November 2025 #craftygoals:

Rachel Brooke, wearing a light pink formal gown, and her family at the Daffodil Princess selection ceremony
  1. Daffodil Princess Dress: The dress was altered and hemmed in time. Rachel looked so beautiful! Nathaniel was her escort and I was so proud of the two of them working together. Rachel wasn’t selected as Daffodil Princess, but she says she learned a lot about public speaking and the like, and she really enjoyed “princess lessons,” so the net sum of the experience is positive overall.
  2. Penguin Party Quilt: I attached the bottoms sashing to two rows before deciding that I really do need to take some growth/width out of the penguin block rows to get them to fit the sashing strips better. Life has been an absolute carnival with Daffodil Princess prep, the school district K-12 musical, battling COVID for the second time this year, and Thanksgiving, so I’ve not got back to working on this since then.
  3. Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: No progress
  4. Woolly Wee Sheep Ornament(s): I started one! It’s a finicky pattern, but I’d say I’m about 2/3 done with it.
  5. Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: Haven’t done anything with it since finishing the stitching. I have the frame for it in possession and just need to do all the things you do to frame an embroidery piece.

December 2025 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: I blasted through finishing up the stitching for this so I could display it this year, so I better get it framed!

Wee Woolly Sheep Ornament(s): They’re meant to go on the tree so I need to finish them.

Fair Isle Christmas Balls: I was on a bit of a kick with planning the Wee Woolly Sheep Ornaments and decided to go all in on knitted ornaments, so I bought the books and yarn to make some Fair Isle ornaments, too. Hopefully I can get at least one done!

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

  • Penguin Party Quilt: Fixing the width of the rows and hopefully finishing this top!
  • Say-It Sew Along: Lori Holt has designed the cutest seasonal banners to go along with the release of her newest fabric collection, “TYPE/ography,” and I want to sew along! She released the instructions for the “Merry Christmas” and “Let It Snow” banners at the end of November and I’d really like to make them.
  • Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: I’d be lucky to get to work on this in December, but I’ll put it on the list anyway.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: No plans for anything this month.

Knitting: The above-mentioned Christmas ornaments.

Embroidery: No plans for anything this month.

There’s so much going on in our lives in December, so I’m not optimistic about how much progress I can make on crafty things, but it’s better to have a plan just in case, rather than finding myself with some free time and no idea what to make when I finally disturb the cobwebs in the craft room!

Happy December to you all, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and hopefully I’ll be able to report back with some beautiful progress on some feel-good projects that elicit those wonderful Christmas-y heartwarmings that we’re all in search of in the darkest month of the year! Drink your cocoa and play your happy music!

That Crafty Cara's Crafty Goals for the month

#craftygoals: November 2025

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that we’re halfway through the month, but it’s better to do the thing late than to not do the thing at all. And I really do love to read through my #craftygoals posts years later, so here we go.

Debrief: October 2025 #craftygoals:

  1. Penguin Party Quilt: Coming along well. Really thought I’d have the top done by now, but life keeps interrupting. Life be like that.
  2. Rainbow Coin Strip Quilt:  Ha ha ha. I think I’m getting too old to have multiple projects in-progress anymore. I don’t think I even literally touched this quilt once.
  3. Peppermint Blossoms EPP quilt: Some progress made, but I need to be honest with myself and admit that I’m just not feeling this anymore, so I should probably set it aside or figure out a way to make something from what I’ve already got prepared, like a pillow or table runner or something like that.
  4. Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: This was not done at the end of October, but it’s done now!

November 2025 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Daffodil Princess Dress: Rachel is running for Daffodil Princess this year, and the selection ceremony is coming up. As such, she needs a dress for it, which we have secured and, SHOCKING, it needs hemming. All I do is hem formal dresses for this kid! Ugh. It’s a very pretty dress, though, so at least I’m working on pretty things. It’d be torture if they were ugly dresses. And this dress doesn’t have five skirts like that one prom dress at one point. That was pretty torturous, that one. So, hemming…STAT.

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Penguin Party quilt made with pastel plaid flannels

Machine Stitching:

  • Penguin Party Quilt: So close. Really, really hoping the top is done and I’ve got this bad boy in the mail to the quilter by the end of the month.
  • Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: Prewash the fabric, maybe get some of the cutting done? I don’t know if I’m going to make it to working on this quilt in November.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: I don’t know what I want to do here. I might take a break and focus on knitting instead.

Knitting: I want to knit some Christmas tree ornaments. I cast on a Churchmouse Woolly Wee Sheep today, so I think I’ll focus on making those for the next couple of weeks.

Embroidery: Get the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler framed.

There’s not a lot of November left, and Christmas prep is surging forward, so we’ll see how much we get done on these goals! Wish me luck!

Cali & Co. fabric used in That Crafty Cara's (Cara Brooke) King David's Crown quilt for the Fat Quarter Shop

Goodbye 2024 & Plans for 2025

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2024 Recap:

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I always make plans that are way too big for practicality, so I’ve done a lot of thinking and planning to try to keep my aspirations grounded in reality. I feel like I didn’t do a lot of crafting in 2024, but then I remember the prom dresses and the Layer Cake Latte quilt and the Baking Doodle Cowl and I feel stressed out all over again by it all, ha ha. I really hit the ground running hard at the beginning of last year, didn’t I? That was pretty intense. No wonder I took the remainder of the year off!

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I was busy in the garden all summer, and did it ever reward us with a delightful crop! I’m so proud of the garden this last year, it was great!

And then autumn came, and with it a whole lot of difficulties. Thankfully, two of those hardships now mean that I’m stronger and more available to do crafty things in my free time. Yay!

Something will need to change in regards to the Christmas season next time ’round, though. I’m drowning every year and family members were complaining this year as well. It’s hard to step back from doing good things, but I think we’ve officially reached the point where we’re doing too many good things and need to cut back.

Looking Ahead in 2025

I have a Fat Quarter Shop quilt a-brewing in the background right now, so that’s fun.

I’m trying to declutter my craft room because it’s officially too full of junk to be enjoyable to work in. I had an epiphany regarding my quilting stash the other day as I was decluttering, and I’m hoping that it will lead to more quilts made from my scrap stash in the future!

Plans for Winter Quarter 2025 thus far:

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  • Fabric:
    • Finish King David’s Crown quilt for Fat Quarter Shop
    • Begin Star Climber Scrap quilt
  • Yarn & Handwork:
    • Piscis project
    • Finish my Christmas socks
    • Begin the Cherry Twilight socks

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And I’ve learned that it is foolish to plan out further than a quarter at a time, so I’m just going to make do with winter plans at the moment.