Planning the Attack

Remember all the works in progress I listed in my fabric tracking post? Well, over the last several months, I've found myself making the same to-do lists over and over. I guess I figured identifying the same quilts in progress several times would help me keep track of them better. Well, it hasn't worked and I've found myself not always able to keep my head around what I've started and intend to finish first thing in 2013.

So, I thought about how I could better keep track of all these WIPs. Enter Excel! I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I finally sat down today and entered all my WIPs into a simple spreadsheet where I've noted the status, plan of attack, finish by goal, and priority.

I think this is the ticket! I can easily see at a glance what I need to do with each quilt. Since it's in a spreadsheet, and since I've already been in the habit of tracking my fabric purchases, I think this method is finally going to click for me and help me know what it is that I need to accomplish before starting anything new.

First up, I need to turn those quilt tops into finished quilts. I have three bee quilts ready to go. I usually quilt my own quilts, but since these three have been sitting around for months (4, 9, and 13 months to be exact!), I decided it's totally okay to farm the quilting out to two of my longarm quilting friends as well as a fairly local quilter who provided a coupon for services at Sewing Summit (hooray for discounts!). That should help shorten my to-do list pretty quickly right off the bat.

I'm having a hard time not caving in and starting my own scrappy trip around the world quilt. But, I've made a resolution to finish all these other items on the list before I go jumping on any bandwagons. Wish me luck.