2024 Roundup!

Well hello there to 2025, which means it’s time to take a look back on 2024 and see how I did, creatively speaking!

So in January of 2023, I made my Sewing Journal binder and I’m still completely happy with that system! It’s one I can easily manage and keep up to date, and most importantly, it is a great resource that I can refer back to if I ever need to! Just for a refresher, here’s a picture of my binder and the sheets I use in it for every single project I make:

It’s a pretty basic form but it has room for all the details that are important to me, and on the back is just lines so I can add any additional information I want to, and I really do try to add lots of notes because you never know what might be important later on! Also, in the beginning I wasn’t writing everything down, saying to myself “you’ll remember that, you don’t need to write it down”, and guess what lol…..yup, totally forgot whatever it was I was going to remember!!!!

Those are examples of how I fill out the sheets, it might seem like gibberish but it makes sense to me lol!

So yes, I kept that up for the whole year and will be keeping it going for this year too! I have a file folder that holds each years papers and they’re still near to me so I can easily access them to refer to whenever needed so my binder is all ready for some new entries!

Before I wrote this post, I reread my January 2024 post to see what my plan was for the year and if I kept up with it. I said I was going to add a Cricut section to my binder and a journaling section. I can honestly say that I did add them….but never used them lol!!! Ok, well I did journal for January and February but then just suddenly stopped and I don’t even know why! It’s such a good thing, I do enjoy doing it and I find it very therapeutic so I’m going to try it again for this year! As for the Cricut section, I never used it but that’s only because I figured out that I could add all that information right onto the Cricut design site, right into the project page so that’s what I did and on several occasions I referred back to those pages for information!

One other “system” that I implemented this year, and perhaps, now that I’m thinking about it, is maybe the reason I stopped journaling! I put up a bulletin board in my sewing room and on there I put a little calendar. Any day I did something creative, I jotted it down on there. Here’s an example:

As I said, it’s just a little calendar so not room for a ton of information but it’s still nice to look at and see with just a quick glance all the things I accomplished! I thought about adding in the amount of time I’m actually working on the project each day but I don’t know about you, but rarely do I just sit and work on a project without getting up to do something else several times lol! I could say I worked on a project from 6-8 but did I actually sit there for 2 hours straight? Highly unlikely lol!

So those were the 2 systems that worked the best for me this year and I will/am continuing them for 2025! In my calendar, I jot down when I Sew, Cricut, Puzzle and I’m excited to add in a new entry to my calendar this year….reading!!! I love to read, always have, but I don’t do it very often because it completely takes over my life lol! If I’m reading a good book, there’s nothing else I can do until it’s done! This was a problem when I had small humans I needed to care for because I didn’t even want to stop reading to feed them or change them, or even just look after them in general lol! Well, those days are long over, the ones I live with now can fend for themselves so I told myself this was my year to get back to reading!

Alright, so finally, my total number of SEWN projects is 39! A few less than the year before but I’m still happy with that number! I never have a goal of a certain number of projects I’d like to make in a year, the amount of projects doesn’t really matter to me, it’s just fun for me to see how many I actually do! Hmm, I think I’ve just given myself another idea, I don’t think I’m going to keep a running total this year, I’ll wait till the end of the year and then count all my Project Pages and then I’ll really be surprised by the total!

Well friends, that’s it for now! Thanks for checking out my roundup of 2024! Do you have any systems set out to keep your projects organized? I’d love to hear all about them, sharing is caring….and maybe we can all learn about something that can help us too!

Wishing you all an amazing week….keep warm and stay safe!

Shawna