2023 Recap/2024 Plans

It’s hard to believe it’s 2024! New Years is a time when a lot of people like to reflect on the previous year and decide what goals, if any, you want to make for the current year. How much progress did you make on your goals for 2023? Do you have any new goals for 2024? I had a lot of good things going on with SnuggleBugStitcing in 2023. I flipped my quilty side-gig to my full time business in October of 2022. So, 2023 was the first time I started the year running my quilty business full time. There ended up being a lot of firsts for me in 2023. So, for this post, my first post in 2024, I’ll go over some of the things I accomplished in 2023, and tell you some of the things I have planned for 2024.

You can read my first post from 2023 and see the first quilt I finished in 2023 here. The first quilt I finished in 2024 was a wedding guest book quilt for my cousin. That was a first for me and a fun quilt to make. I’d definitely consider offereing these in my shop.

I made some quilts!

To say I made “some” quilts might be a little bit of an understatement. I know there are lots of quilty businesses who make more quilts than I do, but I feel like I made A LOT of quilts this year. For a one woman shop, 80 plus quilts feels like a lot. You can see most of them in this reel. There are a few I couldn’t include since they will be in publications that haven’t released yet. Most of the quilts I made were T-Shirt quilts. These are what I get the most orders for.

I wrote a pattern that is FREE and exclusive to my subscribers

This is my Partial Dreams Pattern. If you scroll my Instagram, you’ll see that I make a lot of T-Shirt quilts. People are always asking me how I make them. It’s really a huge process, but you can’t make them without partial seams. I also use a lot of partial seams in my Sarah Elizabeth Quilt pattern. This pattern is a great and easy way to practice partial seams before moving on to something harder like my Sarah Elizabeth quilt or a puzzle style T-Shirt quilt. If you don’t know what partial seams are, you will learn them with my FREE Partial Dreams Pattern. You can get that here.

I released a pattern

I released my Sound Waves Baby Quilt pattern in 2023. This was originally the bonus project in my Dublin Fancy pattern. It was such a quick and easy make, I decided to tweak it and make it a stand alone pattern. “Sound Waves Baby Quilt” was also the first pattern that I had professionally printed. So I also officially offered my first paper pattern with this one. It was pretty cool to see my pattern in an actual booklet!

I planned to release more patterns in 2023, but that plan got derailed in a good way. Partly because I was blessed with so many custom quilt orders that I just didn’t have the time to write as many as I’d hoped. Also, because some of my pattern ideas went elsewhere and were accepted to quilting magazines!

I hosted my first quilt along!

I had been wanting to host a quilt along for a while, and I finally made that happen in July of 2023. I decided to host a free quilt along using one of my free patterns, Checker Cakes. I have links to all of the posts for that quilt along on my Quilt Alongs page here. You can get the free Checker cakes pattern here. I have to admit I was a little nervous hosting my first quilt along. A lot of prep work and organization goes into putting together a quilt along, but that wasn’t what scared me the most. I was mostly worried that nobody would sign up. BUT, people signed up, and my quilt alongers were awesome!

My first quilt along was so much fun that I decided to squeeze one more in for 2023! I also hosted a quilt along for my Sound Waves Baby Quilt.

I had a few designs that were accepted by quilting magazines!

Submitting designs for quilting magazines was one of the new things I tried in 2023. I was blessed to have a few designs accepted! I really did not expect that my designs would be accepted. I thougth my chances were pretty low. BUT, I knew that my chances would be ZERO if I didn’t submit them. So, I sent some in to a few different publication, and two were accepted. You can see the first one I sent in in the picture below. You can get the pattern for that quilt and 8 other great quilts in Simply Moderne 35. I can’t share the other one yet because the magazine issue hasn’t been released.

I got to be on a podcast!

I was interviewed by Paula from A Quilter’s Life! You can listen to my interview here. This was actually my second time on this podcast. You can find the first interview here. Fun fact about that first interview: I was actually sick that day. I tried to talk as little as possible that day so that my voice would hold up for the interview. My teenage daughter says that my accent sounded less noticeable while I was sick. I suppose that was a compliment…

Paula is always fun to chat with. One of the things we talked about in the second interview is that people think they need to be more well known before they can be on a podcast. But, this is not the case for A Quilter’s Life. Quilters, Paula wants to hear your stories, and she would love to interview you! You can schedule your interview here.

I was selected to be a Benartex Ambassador for 2024!

This was another one of those things that I did not expect to be selected for. But again, my chances were ZERO if I didn’t apply. I am SEW excited for this fun year working with Benartex. I will get to bring you some fun projects and make some quilts using their gorgeous fabrics!

2023 Takeaway

So, I think one of the biggest lessons I learned in 2023 was to try stuff anyway even if I didn’t think it would work and even though it was scary. It’s really easy to get in my own way. Who am I to be doing (insert whatever thing here)? This attitude of not trying at all certainly didn’t get any of my goals accomplished.

This doesn’t mean you’ll get all of the things you apply for or that everything will work out the way you want it to, but maybe some of them will. My Checker Cakes Quilt Along, the designs that were accepted to quilting magazines, and the Benartex Ambassadorship are all things that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I didn’t post the sign up, submit the design, or apply for the ambassadorship. I still have a long way to go, but quitting won’t get me there.

While we’re having a little pep talk, there’s one more thing I want to cover. If you are building your quilty business, try not to compare your progress to others’. That beautiful pattern cover you see on social media? Well, the designer may be leaving out that she is very new to selling patterns and barely got any sales. The well organized newsletter you get from your favorite quilting influencer? She may be struggling to get people to subscribe to her email list. The person who posts pictures of all the custom orders she makes? She’s not mentioning that twice as many people run away when they get the price list. For the people who are actually killing it at all those things, they’ve probably been at it a lot longer than you have. Comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle isn’t really the best way to go. I am preaching to the choir with this one. So, maybe I’ll be able to better with this in 2024 too!

A few things I have on the agenda for 2024

I am hosting my first block of the month subscription this year. The first block went out on New Years Day! Stragglers are welcome though. Your welcome email will contain any blocks you missed, and you’ll get back on track with everyone else the next month. I’m sew excited about this. I’ll be making my blocks along with you using lovely fabrics by Benartex! You can get more information and register here. With this subscription, you will get the patterns to make 13 quilts for the price of 4 patterns!

I’ll be hosting a quilt along for Dublin Fancy in March. I sent out a survey to my subscribers about what quilt along they would like to see next, and Dublin Fancy just barely beat out Sarah Elizabeth. I’ll be making this one again with you using some beautiful fabrics by Benartex. More details and the signup will be coming on this one as we get closer to time for the quilt along.

I’d like to shift more of my focus to patterns this year, and I have a lot in the works for that goal. More information coming on some of those throughout the year.

That’s all I’ve got for today

I feel like that was a lot of pictures and a lot of information for this one. I guess I had more to say about binding than I thought I would…

As always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog!

I hope you enjoyed it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment or email me. I’d love to hear from you!

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Happy quilting!