So, now what?

Now that I've named and shamed all my outstanding projects, what's next, you may ask. Well, I'm not going to set out to finish all of them - or even most of them - this year or anything unrealistic like that. But what I would like to do is this:

• Finish several of the larger quilts. The brown pineapple is the first larger piece on the list; then maybe the two single bed sized ones for the girls.
• Finish 4 or 5 baby quilts. Two I have pinned up already, so that's a good start. I'll need at least two this year anyway - and that's just the babies I know about already.
• Finish the little flying geese quilt, the multicoloured string quilt and the two quilts for the girls - even if they don't get quilted - to completed top stage. It's silly to have them so close without being done!
• Move as many groups of blocks as possible to the finished top stage - this might not be possible with all the birthday blocks and the Japanese lanterns, but there are at least 5 or 6 sets of blocks which will go together into baby quilts or small lap quilts with a minimum of effort - then at least they aren't hanging around as block sets.
• Not add more sets of blocks which don't get completed - except for the new birthday block swap (which finishes for me in June, so I won't stress if I don't do anything with those blocks for a while - besides, they may be hard to find something to do with, straight away) - this doesn't mean I won't make more block sets, which I might - or I might win on the block lotto again - but I plan to do something with them relatively quickly - like within a few months of getting them - at least moving them to the finished top stage.
• Finish at least two more of the Japanese block of the month blocks by the end of the year. In fact, I am going to start on the one which is already cut out and ready to applique today - not sure how far I will get as I may have to stop to buy the right colour thread for some of the pieces, but tomorrow I have to go to New Malden anyway, which is where my local haberdashery is, so it's a good time to see if I need anything in the way of thread before that!
• Finish at least one cat per month on the sawtooth cats.
• Don't start any more BIG quilts. This shouldn't be too hard a resolution to keep, as I am tending towards smaller works lately anyway, but I am going to resist the temptation entirely. I won't promise I won't start any new tops at all, but I am going to keep them all under 60" square, so that they at least stand a chance of getting quilted someday. And frankly, I shouldn't think I'll start many even at baby quilt or lap size as I have so many sets of blocks I could use for that size quilt now. Obviously, there will be mini quilts started this year, as I have signed up for several mini swaps already, but the nice thing about mini quilts is that they do get finished.

I think all of these things are realistic goals - many of them involve only NOT doing stuff, which at least I know I'll have the time for. Of course, there will be lots of work done this year (I hope) - a lot of which won't involve these quilt tops or blocks at all - there will be a few sets of postcards (though not so many this year), some ATCs, some miscellaneous swapping of various objects, some mini quilts, my house front swap, the Exquisite Corpse and so on. There will also be blocks made for others (birthday block swap, block lotto, African & Dear Jane swaps). But what I'd like to do is control the chaos and get it down to a point where I know that first of all, I like all the blocks and tops I have hanging around and that second of all, there's a reasonable chance the pieces will someday be finished.