My Year in Review

I probably say this every year, but I can't believe another year has gone by already.  At the beginning of this year, I started this blog and set a few goals that I wanted to accomplish over the past 12 months.  I did really well!

1) Make 14 items for charity.  

You've heard of Craft Hope, right?  Back in the beginning of the year, they collected birthing kits for the organization Konbit Sante to send to Haiti so women would have access to a sanitary and safe delivery.  I was more than happy to put together a couple of receiving blankets and toys for the new moms and babies.  Craft Hope was able to collect 2,510 birthing kits for the women in Haiti!  I am so happy to be part of such a great movement.  The best news is that Craft Hope recently heard from the organization and they shared that the birthing kits have made the women excited to seek out prenatal care.

In March I made a quilt block as part of a challenge hosted by Moda to send a quilt to an injured soldier.  It was my first time making a star quilt block and I was surprised at how easy it was.

And in April I undertook a sewing marathon to pre-make 100 I Spy games to give to patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.  We helped the kids that participated in Take Your Kids to Work Day at my workplace fill the bags with rice and charms and then we sewed them up.  The kids loved the activity and so did the kids at St. Chris!  Technically I only fully made 36 of the bags from start to finish, so I'm only counting those bags toward this goal.

End result: I made 39 items for charity this year, which was a tad over my goal.

2) Sew one wearable dress, skirt, and blouse.
I went conservative on this goal because up until January, I had struggled with garment making.  Thankfully I overcame my issues and was able to fulfill this goal.

From left to right are my Passport dress, Ginger skirt, and Pendrell blouse.  Although it wasn't included in my goal, I think my very favorite garment that I made this year is my Amy Butler Runabout Jacket.  The terrible thing is that I finished it in the early summer and I haven't been able to wear it yet!  I'm very excited to wear it this coming spring.

Thankfully I've made a few other garments, including another Ginger, another Pendrell (which doesn't fit me but fits my sister!), and another dress (New Look 6557).  I hope to increase the number of garments I'm able to make next year.  Some of these projects took me way too long!  I am glad that I'm slowly adding staples to my wardrobe, which was the point of learning how to sew my own clothes.

3) Make one quilt.

Although I started out thinking I would make a quilt for our house, I ended up making another adorable baby quilt!

This was my first attempt at log cabins.  They turned out to be so easy!

4) Knit 10 panels for an afghan.
I'm going to be honest: about a month ago, I didn't think this goal was going to happen.  But I've gone into knitting overdrive and am happy to report that I finished 10 panels this year!  I somehow managed to finish 4 panels in the past month or so.

So what am I planning to do with all of these panels?  Piece them together of course!  I have no idea how that works, but I'll worry about that once all of the panels are knitted.  Here are all of the panels I have finished so far, including the last two that I didn't get to photograph individually.

This isn't the order that they are going to be in when the whole thing is pieced.  I just lined them up randomly to see how  long and wide the panels are so far.

After I laid them out on the floor I realized that I am really close to being finished!  I'm going to knit two more panels so I have two of each of the colors and then figure out the whole piecing thing.  I hope to be finished before March!

5) Run the Broad Street Run in under 2 hours.
Mr. Pinds and I were able to finish the race in 1 hour and 55 minutes, a whopping 5 minutes under our goal! I was a little delirious at the end, but I'm so proud of our progress.  And we were able to raise $640 for Back on My Feet, which really makes all of the pain of training and running worth it.

For a full list of everything that I made this year, check out my 2011 Completed Projects page!

Come back tomorrow to see my goals for 2012!