Your Best Year Yet!

Jenny Ditzler

Grand Central Publishing; $13.95

One of my favorite planning resources is Your Best Year Yet! by Jinny S. Ditzler. I’ve been using this little book for years and recommend it widely. It offers a framework to define your personal values, identify the various roles you play and create goals for those roles. Here are some of Jinny’s questions plus a couple of my own:

1.    What did I accomplish?

2.    What were my biggest disappointments?

3.    What did I learn?

4.    How do I limit myself and how can I stop?

5.    What are my goals for next year?

6.    Where do I need to find education or support to get there?

7.    How can I make sure I achieve my top goals?

I find one of the most empowering aspects of Jinny’s system is the look at the successes of the year. It let’s you focus on your successes and not get weighed down by what didn’t work. It also lets you get off the treadmill of working on your business to see if you really are on course.

Here’s a quote from the book I particularly like: “We must prepare our soil before we’re ready to plant the seeds we want to grow in the new year.”

1. Set a stretch goal.

I’ve often heard of this as a breakthrough goal. The idea is that once you achieve such a goal, you break through to a new level in your business. Look back to a really big goal you set and how you felt when you achieved it. Could you really go back to how you felt before? Look for a goal that would make a really big difference in your business and focus a little each day until you achieve it. It could be writing that book you keep thinking about or getting your portfolio together and actually contacting galleries to show your work or submitting your teaching proposal to a national show.

2. Take action.

Achieving any goal is all about taking action, whether that’s giant steps or baby steps. Both will get you there. Decide today to take some action each day toward your stretch goal. Write down what you plan to do each day.

3. Track your results and make necessary adjustments.

Every day take time to look at what you accomplished that day. I also like to do a weekly review. When you do this and see yourself moving toward your goal, you’ll build your confidence and keep going.

4. Get support.

Support comes in many varieties. It can be a coach (that’s one of my favorite support systems) or mentor. It can be business friends also growing, and you’ll network and encourage each other. It can be a class environment where you learn something to build your business. And, it can be family members if they understand that you are trying to grow. Be sure the people on your support team are people like you, truly invested in their own success and who want you to succeed as well.

5. Watch your mindset.

This one stops a lot of us. “What we think, we become.” said the Buddha. Take action to eliminate negativity and small thinking from your life. Read or listen to uplifting books, leave affirmations where you’ll see them and start a gratitude journal. These seem like simple steps, and they are. They can have a profound effect on your goals.

Lastly, I want to share my favorite resource for planning my year, Your Best Year Yet! by Jinny Ditzler. It’s the book I took on my personal retreat. I’ve recommended it before and everyone who uses this process finds it valuable. I’ve reprinted the review from last year below.

Please share your thoughts below.

Best of Fons & Porter: Favorite Quilts
Marianne Fons and Liz Porter
Leisure Arts; $24.95

This collection of 25 quilts was chosen by Marianne Fons and Liz Porter as their favorites, and the quilts are also some of the most popular from their more than 30 years as quilting partners. They range from quick and easy to more challenging quilts. Styles include traditional and contemporary and feature a variety of fabrics from reproductions to batiks. The book also includes 15 Sew Easy™ technique lessons plus general instructions and information on quitting feathers.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt shop or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

A feast for the eyes, this second edition of Masters: Art Quilts features work by 40 of the leading contemporary international quilters. In curating the collection, Martha Sielman, executive director of Studio Art Quilt Associates, has selected approximately a dozen quilts from each artist, which are shown on ten pages per artist. Martha introduces us to each artist and then lets the work tell the story, with occasional quotes from the artist about his or her work. I loved both seeing work of artists I knew and learning about those I didn’t. If you are a fiber artist or have an interest in this medium, this is a wonderful addition to your library.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt shop or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

Beautiful Wildflower Appliqué
Zena Thorpe
AQS; $26.95

Master quilter Zena Thorpe says we are always impressed with the big, showy blooms that we neglect to see the wildflowers. With that in mind she used all wildflowers as the background in her quilt “Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness.” Beautiful Wildflower Appliqué includes appliqué directions and patterns for 32 native wildflowers in that quilt. In addition to the individual flowers, Zena offers complete instructions for a wildflower wallhanging with 10 flowers. A wonderful addition to your appliqué library.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt shop or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

Fast, Fusible Flower Quilts
Nancy Mahoney
Martingale & Co., $24.99

Well-known author, teacher, fabric designer and award-winning quilter, Nancy Mahoney, has released her 11th book with Martingale. Inspired by memories of her own gardening and the vast selection of floral fabrics on the market, Nancy has created 11 easy-to-make, full-size block quilts, which can easily be adapted to a size of your choosing. To simplify the appliqué, all but one quilt features fused floral segments, with fusible and quiltmaking instructions. The last includes folded flowers with patchwork blocks. I liked that the samples were both in bolds and 30′s fabrics offering a wider appeal. And, I particularly liked the bolder quilts, including Orange Marmalade, which included a secondary pattern, as well as the clear-toned Precious Peonies, a favorite flower.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt shop or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

Lark Crafts & The Dairy Barn Arts Center

Lark Crafts; $27.95

Subtitled The Best in Contemporary Quilts, this catalog from Quilt National, which is held every two years, celebrates the best in contemporary quilts from around the world. From more than 1,000 entries, the three jurors were able to winnow the submissions to 85 quilts that comprise the show running May 23-Sept. 5 at The Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio. Each quilt is shown on a full page, and some have detail shots. The photos are accompanied by an artist’s statement about the work.

I love the diversity of style and technique, from those pieces that clearly have a connection to our patchwork roots to those that don’t. I also enjoyed reading the statements of the three jurors, Nelda Warkentin, Eleanor McCain and Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, about how they approached their task.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

Jen Eskridge

Stash Books; $22.95

Who could resist this book title in a week with a patriotic holiday? At some point military uniforms become decommissioned, and quilter and military spouse Jen Eskridge takes the position that we should upcycle them to celebrate service members. Jen starts by showing you how to deconstruct uniforms then offers 23 projects for using your pieces, Projects range from the simple tote to quilts. Jen asks early in the book, “What matches a uniform?” She answers with, “Everything.” Yes, uniforms are a neutral and can be your light or dark. It was interesting to see how they just become the background among pinks and blues. The book also includes a techniques section that might be helpful for those who come from a non-sewing background.

Look for the book at your favorite quilt retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon  if you would like to learn more about the book.

“Quilt as desired” can often leave you wondering exactly what quilting design works with your quilt top. What style is it? Do you want to enhance or contrast the lines of the quilt top? How much quilting do you need? Those questions and more are answered in this collection of quilting designs from 26 years of Quiltmaker. The motifs are shown as a single design, put into corner triangles, border strips with corners and squares in various sizes.The book has a hard cover with a spiral binding, which makes using the patterns easier. In addition to an index of designs alphabetically, a size index is included that shows designs in various size squares, rectangles, triangles and borders. If you are looking for inspiration for a design for your next quilt, this is a nice collection.

Look for the book at your favorite book retailer. Here’s a  link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

1. Passion. This is the first obvious. These kids love basketball, and for them it is their art. What we pay attention to grows. Just as the college athletes pay attention to basketball and their skills and love of the game increase, our skill level in our art increases with increased attention. Our knowledge and love of the art grows as we look at more quilts, go to more galleries, take more classes. And, our skill level at marketing, and our passion at marketing, also increases proportionately to the effort we put into it. How much effort are you putting into growing your business?

2. Practice. For these teams to have made it this far, they had to practice quite a lot. It takes discipline to get to this level, and I know of players who spend extra hours in the gym to practice their free-throw or three-point shots. I often hear longarm quilters talk about the three Ps: practice, practice, practice. We can’t expect to get good at anything without putting in the work. Do you schedule time on a regular basis to develop your skills?

3. “French pastry” isn’t necessary. I can remember the late Al Maguire, college basketball coach and TV commentator, call the fancy moves kids made up and down the court “French pastry.” Sometimes it’s fun to watch all the fancy stuff; sometimes it pays off with a score; sometimes it doesn’t. At a quilt show, we all ooh and aah at the quilt with all the complicated piecing and appliqué or the quilt with the elaborate feather stitching. It’s a real treat, though, to see that quilt with the simple design that is just exquisitely executed. Fancy isn’t always the answer.

4. The small guys can become the big guys. By the time the teams in the basketball tournament made it to the finals, none of the top seeds were left. One of those teams (VCU) was seeded number 11, meaning that at least 40 teams out of 68 in the tournament were ranked higher. We can see this in the quilt world. All the “big names” started out as “small names.” I think what makes the difference in moving from small to big is a vision, practice and determination. It’s a cliché to say, “it’s anybody’s game,” but it’s true. You just have to decide to get in the game.

5. It’s a team effort. It’s not one person on the college basketball team who wins or loses the game. Basketball great Michael Jordan is quoted as saying “There’s no ‘i’ in team, but there is in ‘win.’” Most of us in quilt or creative arts businesses need others on our team to make us successful. It could be the longarm quilter who turns our outstanding quilt top into a masterpiece, the group that tests our patterns before they get to market, even the babysitter who watches your kids so you have time to design.

6.Successful teams and athletes have winning coaches. I thinks it’s important at almost any stage of our business to have someone to provide feedback, help you fulfill your vision, keep you accountable, and provide support. Successful sports teams or athletes have coaches that do this. Successful creative arts professionals also seek help, whether that’s a formal arrangement with a business coach or a local support group with like-minded artists.

I can think of other comparisons between basketball and our business. I’m sure you can, too. Please share them here.

The International Association of Professional Quilters offers resources and networking opportunities for you to create a success from your quilting business.  Learn about all the benefits of IAPQ membership and join here.