2025 Quilting Habits: August Update

Click on the image above or HERE for the video!

My 2025 Quilting Goals/ Habits

How It Begun:

I decided in December 2023 and the beginning of January to change some things in my quilting life that just weren’t working for me. After evaluating the good, bad, and ugly, I came up with my top five habits I wanted to implement in 2024. If you want to check out those videos, here’s the 2024 Quilting Habit Goals playlist.

Since 2024 was so successful for me and helped inspire you, I am continuing this series in 2025! Each month I will update you on my progress. If you would like to follow along and create your own goals, I have a worksheet to help you. You can download this free blank worksheet HERE.

I will also offer a worksheet for each month, too. You can find August’s habit worksheet HERE and July’s habit worksheet HERE. Since I missed June, too, click HERE for that one. These videos and blogs have helped keep me accountable. After all, I know I will be reporting to all of YOU on this, and I don’t want to let you down. I highly recommend having someone to keep you accountable, if not in a public way like I am doing, then in a group of friends. It helps me so much!

Here are my 2025 quilting goals:

Some Highlights Since I Last Posted:

August Happenings!

Imagine my surprise when I went back to look at the last habit update video that I made, only to realize it was posted on May 25th! WHAT? Time just slipped away, I guess! I figure I have two choices: stop posting these (which I am not going to do) or just pick up where we left off and carry on. I am going to offer myself grace with this. It has been a crazy summer, and although I didn’t get the habit videos recorded, I have been working on the habits I want to continue to establish. That said, I have to admit that without the accountability of the videos, I don’t think I did as well as I could have. Let me know what you think!

So much has happened since my last update, with the biggest being that Daisy, our sweet golden retriever, tore her CCL (the human equivalent is the ACL) on her right side on July 6th. She ended up having surgery on July 22nd to repair it.

I also hosted Christmas in July 2025 in July where I posted a video each day in July. I covered all kinds of topics such as organizing, using scraps, planning holiday gifts, and projects. In fact, I posted 11 tutorials during the month to help others get well prepared for the holiday sewing season.

I have also been thrifting, yard saling, and sewing up a storm! Let’s see how I did with my goals over the past two months.

August Update: How Did I Do?

Goal 1: No Home Zone

Score: 0/5

Okay, okay. This flew completely out of the window with Christmas in July. My space, including the No Home Zone and my cutting table were a mess throughout the last two months. Although I thought I was prepared for the Christmas in July series, I wasn’t as prepared as I needed to be. Whomp, whomp. The entire area was (still is?) a mess.

Glow: I am proud of myself for not getting too hung up on this and having it derail all of my efforts. Sigh. It is hard forgiving yourself sometimes!

Grow: IF I do another series like this, I am going to have a better plan in place, like I do with the Countdown to Christmas box. Live and learn!

Goal 2: Being Intentional with Quilting-Related Purchases

Score: 5/5

I am happy to say I purchased very little since May! YAY! And what I did purchase, I mostly bought used. I bought some supplies to get ready for the Christmas in July event, and 90% of the items I used came from my quilt guild yard sale. During the month of July, I also had a Thirfty Christmas (Day 22) where I showed how I would use my thrifting haul to make holiday gifts. I ended up using the item I purchased to make a few things:holiday coasters from scrap fabric wreath; a snowman pillow (tutorial coming soon!) from two sets of pajamas; scrunchies, and more! I still have items left from this haul to make a lot more items. I also bought some supplies to make a panel quilt for a quilt drive my friend is holding for a friend of hers who died last year from cancer. Since her friend was a veteran, her goal is to collect 50 patriotic quilts to donate to hospice.

Glow: YAY at keeping this under control! Although to be fair, I was a bit busy to buy and things did kind of show up.

Grow: Continue to keep in mind that I don’t need to buy to make beautiful things. I have plenty of fabric.

Goal 3: Paring Down My Scraps

Score: 5/5

I knocked it out of the park with this goal! Woohoo! I made this Sew Merry quilt completely from scraps for the Christmas in July event, I made other small projects like pocket journal pen holders, key fobs, cell phone pillows, coasters, and more. I did work some on the hexagon project, too, but not as much as I would have liked. As for the leaders and enders project, that kind of took a backseat over the past few months. I hope to get back to that soon. Overall, it was a super successful month!

Glow: I am reaching for scraps more and more these days! I love that this is becoming a habit.

Grow: To continue to look at my scraps first before buying fabric. It is so rewarding.

Goal 4: Getting Out of My Quilting Comfort Zone

Score: 1/5

At first I thought I didn’t do well with this goal at all, but then I got to thinking about it. I was a little brave after all! I started hand quilting this quilt (if you want to see more about this quilt, I did a Lessons from an Old Quilt video and blog on it. You can see that HERE). This has been a big adventure! I have tried a few different ways to do this, including a small hoop, a big hoop, a hoop stand, and in my lap. I have landed on the in-my-lap method since it is less uncomfortable for me. I am still not sure I am doing it right (what is right anyway?), but it is getting quilted and that’s all that matters. It is also nice to snuggle under while I quilt it. Win, win!

As for the shirt from May 2025, I still haven’t started it. Yikes!

Glow: Look at me figuring out hand quilting! Or am I figuring it out? Time will tell!

Grow: Make the dang shirt, Kris. Make the shirt.

Goal 5: Better Health/More Movement Breaks

Score: 2/5

Well, I can’t say I am exercising much, but I am happier than I was in May and the pain from shingles is so much better. One thing I really focused on while recovering was journaling how I was feeling. This was a simple task of writing down a few notes each day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Because the recovery takes so long, this helped me see how I progressed through the days, weeks, and months. Slowly I realized I was doing more, giving myself more grace, and actually feeling better. Is it completely gone? No. But because I saw the progress along the way, I am confident I will continue to get better.

Glow: I am okay with slow and steady.

Grow: Continue with the baby step approach to recovery.

I would love to know how you are doing with your goals! Let me know in the comments.

Happy Quilting,

Kris