I did it!

It’s here!  The very first Darcy Quilts post!

This website still needs a lot of work, but I wanted to get the first post up and shared.

I’m so excited to write about and photograph what I’ve been up to in the craft world.  Mostly, I quilt.  But I enjoy other types of sewing as well, and the occasional craft project that doesn’t involve fabric at all.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions, and most years I don’t make them.  But… this website is my 2018 New Year’s Resolution.  Just 12 days into the New Year, I’ve accomplished what I set out to!  Yeah me!  I actually had this idea back in November(ish), and let it grow in my mind for several weeks before telling anyone about it.

While trying to decide what an introductory post should include, I decided a new year and a new venture meant it was a good time to set some goals.   Somehow, in my brain, that is not at all the same thing as a resolution.  I’m not resolving to do or not do a thing.  I’m a to-do list kind of girl.  I like crossing completed tasks off the list. (If you put “make to do list” at the top of your list, you get one extra item to cross off as accomplished!)  I also need to have a plan, or I’ll freeze up when I’m idea-less and don’t know what to post.  A goal will ground me and give me direction.  My goals are thought out to be specific enough that they can be declared complete, but not so specific that creativity is lost.

My hope is this blog will eventually become a full website, and even a small business, but to get my feet wet, I decided to start with a blog.  You’ll find my finished projects, tips, techniques, tutorials, and eventually full patterns and other products for sale here.

My 2018 quilting goals.

• Finish works in progress. Specifically, the binding for these 5 quilts!  5!  Five!  Many quilters have multiple projects in work at any given time.  Normally, that’s not how I roll.  Start a task.  Complete a task.  Don’t get distracted.  Like I said above, I’m a cross things off the to-do list kind of girl.  Once a quilt has been quilted, it needs to be bound.    Then it can get into a crib or onto someone’s lap.  And yet, currently there are 5 quilts, totally ready to go, except for the binding.  They’ve gotta get done.

• An equilateral triangle pattern. This is my favorite example of a pattern that existed in my head, which I could not find in stores or online that has made it into reality.  It’s part of what made me start this blog.  I’ve made this pattern twice and LOVED both.  Once with Christmas fabric with larger pieces, and once in all shades of purple with smaller scraps.   It looks complicated, but it’s one of the most satisfying and not so difficult quilt tops I’ve ever made.  I want to design patterns.  I think this one is a good contender for the first.

• I want to make a New York Beauty quilt. The blocks are such a stunning blend of curves and triangles.  They look very complex.  But I’ve sewn curves.  And I’ve done paper piecing.  I firmly believe this is within my skill level.  Maybe right on the far edge of my skill level, but isn’t that the place to be?  We don’t grow if we don’t push our limits.  I’ve wanted to make one of these for years.  The first time I’m setting quilting goals seems like a good time to commit to making a New York Beauty quilt.

• I have always favored tone on tone fabric.  That doesn’t mean solids (no thank you!) but rather that the design on the fabric is a variation on the same color as the fabric itself.  I want to work with more multicolored fabrics.  I’ve gotten really good at using one multicolored print, and then matching tone on tones to that one colorful focus fabric.  I want to get better at using multiple focus fabrics.
• Free-motion quilting. Quilting is the stitches that baste together a quilt top, batting (the insides) and backing.  I can do straight lines.  I can do wonky stars.  Free motion quilting is squiggles that meander; in the sewing world this is called stippling.  You can do this easily with a long arm quilting machine.  They are huge, one would take up my entire little house. And expensive.  Like, new car expensive.  So, no.  An alternative is a walking foot, which is a specialized sewing machine needle, and can be used on virtually all basic sewing machines.  Not all machines are compatible, so there is a possibility that meeting this goal is out of my control, but as long as my machine can do it, I want to learn, practice, and perfect free motion quilting.
• Improve photography. I take pictures of all my completed quilts and keep them in a scrapbook.  Let’s call it a portfolio.  And a memory.  And inspiration for new color combinations of patterns I enjoyed stitching together.  Now that I’m blogging, I’ll be taking lots more photos, and I’ll want them to be better than what I have now.  Better lighting.  Better composition.  Better background.  Better all the things.

This is a good example of a stunning quilt, that I did not photograph well.  The lighting is bad.  The quilt doesn’t even look like a rectangle with 90* corners!  It might be my tired eyes, but I think it’s blurry.  There’s a lot of room for improvement.

There you have it.  My quilting goals for 2018.  Not a list of how many quilts I’ll make, or who they’ll go to, but tangible goals.  I don’t have every post already thought out for the life of this blog (although I do have a list of topic ideas) but I’ve decided my first post and last two posts of each year are planned and will be consistent.  First post: goals for the year.  Not just this year, but all the years.  Last two posts: (1) number of goals completed and a description of how I attained them and (2) photos of all completed quilting projects for the year.

What are your crafting goals for the year?

I’m excited, and I hope you are too!