2012 in Review

There’s no denying that I’ve been dreading creating this post – it seemed like an impossible task! But it turns out there’s a new feature in the WordPress add-on Jetpack that lets me make fun collage galleries quickly, so I thought I’d give this a whirl. (RSS readers, you’ll have to click through to my blog to see this.) Not only is this a cool collage, but mousing over each picture lets me share a bit about each individual picture, and if you click on any photo, you’ll be taken to a slide show with bigger pictures. Now, I tried to make these collages so they were as wide as my content, but I broke my site doing it, so for how, we’ll have to be content for 500 px wide…but at least I can sum things up without losing my mind!

Family Fun

Now, one important aspect of my blog is keeping track of what we’ve been doing as a family – here are the highlights of 2012.

Making

I did lots of making this year! I designed a couple of new silk palettes, started working with a new color palette and a new base cloth, oh so much fun!

Teaching

Making that collage helped me see that I did actually make quite a lot this year…because in my mind, this year was all about teaching! My 2 self-paced online dyeing courses exceeded my wildest expectations, and I’ve now got to continue on telling new people about these 2 classes, as well as create MORE! 🙂 I also had several publications (7!), the most exciting of which was being on the cover of Quilting Arts Gifts! I’ve also started teaching in person…dyeing in my backyard as well as sewing at the Redlands Sewing Center. Oh, what a wonderful year it’s been!

2012 Long Term Goals

Now the pretty pictures are over, it’s time to look at what I was thinking last January. I’ve grabbed my long term goals from last year’s post and I’ll briefly comment on how they went, I’ll use blue text for my comments.

My Word for 2012

Connect

I’d like to focus on connecting in couple of different ways:

1. Improving on how I connect with people online.
2. Combining different facets of my life, mainly finding new ways to become a teacher of what I do as an art quilter. I used to almost hide that I was a scientist while talking about my art, I really don’t know why, but I thought that I would be less of an “artist” this way. But I’ve received several compliments from people after they’ve either used a pattern I’d written or seen my DVD regarding on how much the like the way I create measurement tables, whether they are for amounts of dye or dimensions of fabric to cut. The way I approach dyeing and fabric construction resonates with a certain population of makers out there. I need to nurture that connection!

Did I connect as I defined it? YES! 🙂 Combining my scientific teaching side with my art side worked like gangbusters. I really enjoy this, and am happy to report that this part of my expansion has added to my family budget, hooray! 

I’ve never been a fan of resolutions, they set me up for failure. But “inclinations” help me focus without all the baggage that comes along with resolutions. The ones I had last year and the year are still important to my growth as an artist, thus:

My Inclinations for 2012

Create more Art!

Communicate my Art!

Long Term Artistic Goals

1. Continue to work more in 3 dimensions.
2. Explore the shape/idea of house/home.
3. Continue to work with restricted color palettes.

Although I didn’t get to all the dimensions and colors I had hoped for, those that I did investigate came out really well. I love my holiday row houses and my Autumn Splendor palette is giving my great joy to use. 

Long Term Business Goals

1. Keep on keepin’ on in the money generation department. Try very hard not to get hung up on the bottom line, but remember that contributing to the family coffers can bring joy and relief to all four of us.
2. Launch first online dyeing class.

Done, done and then some! I launched not one but 2 online dyeing classes, and they led to me more than “keepin’ on” in the money department. In fact, it’s this fact that is really making me worry for this year…how can I top 2012? ACK!

Long Term Online Goals

1. Find new ways to communicate with folks about your work: get Facebook fan page figured out, install some sort of commenting plugin that makes replying to comments easier.
2. Don’t get too hung up on stats. If you blog it, they will come! 😉

I’ve found a rhythm including social media in my everyday life without it completely taking over; Instagram had a lot to do with that. Combine the fact that it’s visual with how easy it is to post the same picture to Twitter and Facebook, I can post 3 places at once! I just wish there were a way to easily post some of those pics on my Candied Fabrics FB page. My blog stats seem to stay about the same, so that’s good!

Pie in the Sky Goals

1. Get published in print…again! I’ve had such a great experience with this, I want it to continue.

Yep, did this big time! I had 7 different magazine articles this year, with my row houses featured on the cover of QA Gifts 2012. With Interweave joining F&W media, I’ve had additional ways to have my work put out there. 3 of my articles were re-printed in leaflets that are going to be distributed in sewing shops throughout the country! The more ways people can find out about my little colorful part of the world, the better! 🙂

I did indeed accomplish all my goals for this year!