13 Weeks; An end and a beginning

Soooo .... my first 13-week personal challenge has ended! 3 more check marks this week (all goals accomplished). Here's a (lousy) pic of this week's quilt: 

(It was taken quickly, and with the phone, after I nearly forgot!!)  It's all feedsack repro fabrics and is really quite fun.  Maybe a better pic later...


Anyway .... here are the statistics:
13 quilts got made. Some are actually FINISHED(!!!), most are quilted.
17 pounds left my body. Hooray for that! (I should've also counted the miles I've walked! 5 miles, almost every day)
13 new recipes got tried. Some were big successes, others were big failures. I tried one 3 times before I finally just gave up. I will go in search of a different recipe for beer bread!


So that's the "end". The "beginning" is the start of the 13 Weeks of Autumn. Yes, I'm going to do another 13 week segment (because as I said in my very first 13-week post, I don't think I can commit to a year of anything!!) (OK I can commit, but would I follow through? Doubtful.)  Over the next 13 weeks/3 months I will try 13 new techniques, lose 13 more pounds, and accomplish 13 things.  Now I realize that's kinda vague ("accomplish"), but you know all those things on the to-do list (even if it's only a mental one) that never seem to get done? Well, I'm going to do one a week for the next 13 weeks.  Some may seem insignificant and small - and maybe some folks wouldn't even consider them an accomplishment .... but this is my personal challenge, and if I consider "it" an accomplishment, it is!! (insert your idea of a smiley face here)


I'm not giving up on quilting, though.  Oh, no indeed! (I have entirely too much stash for that!!)  What I  am going to do is work on some more complex quilts - the kind that can't be made in a week. I'm thinking one quilt a month, so I'm committing to 3 quilts during this Autumn "term".  I can even tell you that they will be my "premium aged" Tree of Life (that has been sitting around for YEARS), and two new ones - a "slashed" Christmas Tree quilt, and Midnight Garden (from the book Divide and Conquer).


Those are my commitments for the next 13 weeks. Who knows what else I may tackle during that time? I'd like to keep trying new recipes because I do enjoy cooking, especially now that I have time for it. I may make a few more simple quilts to keep adding to the donation pile, I'd like to blog more than once a week; maybe the "new technique" will spur me on toward that goal. I know this, though - the past 13 weeks have been fun, challenging, successful, and most importantly a huge learning experience for me!  I take all those lessons learned into this new 13-week challenge and hope these 13 will surpass the first.  I hope you'll stay with me, and I hope some of you will play along!!


Thanks for stopping by!