Goal Planning for 2026

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We're almost to the end of the year, so I've been thinking about my goals for 2026. I actually have two sets of goals each year - the mostly quilty ones I share in these annual posts and the business-related ones that stay behind the scenes - which means I spend a lot of time thinking about how I want the next year to look. Before I dive into my 2026 quilty goals, let's take a look at how I did on the 2025 goals.

1. Keep making small quilts

I define small quilts as anything baby size or smaller, and as of my mid-year review, I had made two. Since then, I've made another five and quilted one that was already pieced. All of the ones in the second half of the year were baby quilts, except for my Bright Side Up mini quilt for the inaugural Quilt the North box. (And if you missed the first couple of Quilt the North boxes, but you'd like to get in on the fun, you can sign up for the Spring box or sign up for a whole year of quarterly boxes!). 

If you like the Bright Side Up mini quilt, stay tuned for something fun that will be happening with that pattern in 2026!

2. A Roman Adventure

The 2025 QAL and Devotional Journey was great!

3. WIPS-B-GONE 2025

Another successful WIP-busting challenge! I finished one baby quilt, finished making my blocks for the Kitchen Party BOM, and worked on a few other long-standing WIPs during October and November. If you took part in the challenge, how many projects did you finish?

4. Quilt the cover quilt for These Three and release the pattern

5. Make my Night Court wall hanging

Oops. I didn't get to either of these.

6. All the Stash Artists things

I love the Stash Artists membership! In the second half of the year, I released another three patterns (Cross-Stitch Heart, Showstoppers, and Disco Squares, which hasn't made it to the blog yet) plus we met over Zoom every month. I always look forward to our Zoom Sew Together Sessions! 

7. Go to Quilt Market

I decided to postpone the trip and go to the H+H Americas show in Chicago in May 2026 instead. 

8. Keep working on the Hexie Rainbow

Yes! As of the mid-year review, I was working on the first of four lines of yellow quilting and I'm now finished the last of the yellow and started on the first of two lines of black in the next ring of hexies. I just shared a post about my hand stitching progress, on both the Hexie Rainbow and my Shoo Fly Garden blocks.

9. Keep doing the strength workouts and get that step count a bit higher

Like it was in June, this is a yes and a no.

I'm loving my morning strength workouts! I do workouts by Lindsey of Nourish Move Love and I am amazed at how good I feel. I highly recommend her if you're looking to increase your own strength and mobility! The workouts are all free on Youtube and she has a bunch of 2 week programs, so you never have to figure out what workout to do next. I've been doing them consistently Monday-Friday since September 2024. When I went for my flu shot a few weeks ago, the nurse put her hand on my shoulder, then said, "Oh, nice deltoids!" It was funny, yes, but also felt good because you can't really see all the work I've been doing, but apparently she could feel it 😊

As for the step count...it's still around 7,000/day on average over the last 12 months, so there's plenty of room for improvement.

Now, what are my goals for 2026?

1. Keep making small quilts

We're doing a 'Mini of the Month' in Stash Artists this year, rather than a BOM, so there will be plenty of mini quilts over the course of the year. I have ideas for a bunch more, too, so this might be the year of the mini quilt for me. 

2. Make my Night Court quilt

I really would like to hang this in my sewing room, which will be much easier to do when it actually exists 😅

3. Make a Spring Sling bag

The Necessary Clutch Wallet I made myself back in 2018 is looking worse for the wear these days, so it needs to be replaced. After debating for a year or more about what to make, I ordered the Spring Sling pattern and all the interfacing and hardware needed from Emmaline Bags, so now I need to get to the making part.

4. Go to H+H Americas

My hotel is already booked. Next up, getting a new passport, since mine expired a few years ago, and booking flights. I can't wait to go and actually get to meet some of the quilty friends I've known online for years!

5. Keep working on the Hexie Rainbow

As I said last year, I don't want to set this aside and not pick it back up again. Progress will be slow, but as long as I'm still working on it, it's all good. How far will I get with another year of stitching, I wonder?

6. All the Stash Artists things

In 2026 there will be new multi-size patterns, plus the 'Mini of the Month' patterns, plus the monthly Sew Together Sessions... I'm looking forward to all of it! Here's a little hint about the January pattern that will soon be available for members (no, the stars aren't arranged like this in the final pattern). If you'd like to join us, get on the waitlist so you'll ne notified when the membership doors are open for new members.

7. Stick with the strength workouts and work on that step count

I've set myself a goal that I'll need to buy 20lbs dumbbells before the end of 2026. I started doing the workouts with 3lbs and 5lbs weights, and now I mostly use 10lbs and 15lbs, all of which we already had. We don't yet own 20lbs ones and I'm looking forward to the day I'm strong enough that I need them.

As for the step count, I'm not setting any particular goal, except that I'd like the daily average for the year to be higher than the 7,000 it is now.

Have you set quilty goals for 2026?

I'm linking up with Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl for her last Goal Planning Party.

Hand Stitching Progress

I've been stitching my Shoo Fly Garden blocks for a few months now, so today felt like a good time to take them all out and see what I have. 

This is what the finished throw size quilt will eventually look like. Emphasis on eventually!

That's 154 flowers made of ½" hexies, hand stitched to their backgrounds and with black snowball corners machine stitched. I'm nowhere close to that yet!

So far, I have 15 finished blocks, plus another 2 that have half their corners sewn on. I've been using these as leaders and enders, doing one corner at a time as I've been doing other piecing.

I have another 25 flowers stitched to their backgrounds and awaiting corners. I'm using mostly tone-on-tone white fabrics for the backgrounds, with some solid white thrown in, too.

And I have another 23 flowers stitched together. Pinned to the design wall like this, they remind me of insect specimens 😆

That's a total of 65 flowers, so I'll still be basting and stitching these for a while yet! This is my travel project, though I've worked on it at home now and then, too, mostly while talking to my mom, Aiden, or Zach on the phone, or when we have company.

If you want to make a Shoo Fly Garden quilt of your own, the free tutorial is here.

My other big hand stitching project hasn't received as much attention this year, though I have made progress. I'm hand quilting my Hexie Rainbow using Aurifil 12 wt. thread and I'm now working on the last line of the yellow quilting. Each of the coloured rings of the rainbow gets four lines of quilting and the black rings get two lines of quilting, on the inside and outside edges of the hexies. This morning I set myself a mini goal of having this last line of yellow finished before the end of the year.

The black thread pretty much disappears into the black fabrics. The coloured threads are easier to see, though they still blend in on some of the fabrics.

All of the quilting shows up on the blue backing, though!

It's really hard to get a good picture, but I love how the rainbow is appearing on the back. The texture is fabulous, too!

Both projects are obviously not going to be finished anytime soon, which is fine by me. I'll keep picking away at them and it'll be fun to see where I am this time next year 😊

Cross Purposes in Make Modern

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A new issue of Make Modern magazine is out now, including my Cross Purposes quilt! There's so much fun diagonal movement in this baby quilt!

When Paul and I went to a local trail to take these pictures back in September, I already had the pattern written and the diagrams for it created. This is a square quilt, so it's not immediately obvious that there is a top side, but if you look at the diagonal lines, they're different going from bottom right to top left and from bottom left to top right. It's not like looking at it one way would be wrong, just that I needed the pictures to match the way the diagonal lines went in the pattern. Of course, I completely forgot about that while we were out taking pictures. It wasn't until we were home and I was editing the pictures that I realized the quilt was rotated 90° from the pattern. Sigh. My first thought was that we'd need to go out and take new pictures, but a few minutes later, I realized that all I needed to do was rotate the diagrams in the pattern and then they'd match 😆 Problem solved!

I used Northcott Chroma fabrics, with Colorworks white for the background. Blender fabrics are my favourite, and I love the variation in colour in the Chroma fabrics.

I originally designed Cross Purposes during the 2024 Stash Artists BOM. Each month of 2024, I shared a block with members, along with a few different quilt designs using the block, and the Crossing block was one of the blocks. In Cross Purposes, I paired it with a four patch as the alternating block. Actually, 8 Point Meadow, which was in the previous issue of Make Modern, was also designed for the same reason. There may be a couple of other designs in that folder just waiting for their turn to be made!

I love that the Crossing block is designed so that the lines don't match up at the corners. You don't have to worry about matching those points!

I used one of my (many) off-cuts of Warm and Natural batting for this baby quilt. Most of my batting scraps are too small to make piecing them together into bigger battings practical, but this one was the perfect size without needing to be pieced. And don't worry, I'll be doing a Mini of the Month series with the Stash Artists members in 2026, so I'll still be using those smaller batting scraps!

I quilted it with my go-to double loop design using Aurifil 50 wt 2021. I love the extra movement the curvy quilting gives the straight lines of the piecing.

I debated between the light teal and the purple for the binding, but in the end the purple won out. The biggest reason the purple won was that I used the light teal as the backing and I wanted the binding to show on the back, too.

Our trail doesn't look much like this now. We've had a lot of wind the past few weeks, so all the trees are bare. That means there's a lot less colour, but it also opens up the view to the water in places. 

If you want to make your own Cross Purposes baby quilt (or any of the other fabulous quilts in this issue), get your copy of Make Modern issue 67 here. Or subscribe and get a new issue full of great patterns and articles every other month!