I heard from a number of readers about crafting SMART goals. Remember SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Have you taken time to craft your goals for the new year? I think it’s hard to set aside enough time to do a good job at these. I’ve made progress on some of my goals and want to share some tips to help you make progress towards attaining yours.

• Review your goals daily. I think the best time is first thing in the morning, so it sets your day off on a positive note. It’s also a good idea to review them again at night. Try visualizing the goal as already completed and yourself enjoying the rewards of completion.
• “Chunk” down the goal into small steps. That’s how any goal is actually achieved, with small steps. And a large goal doesn’t look overwhelming when you’ve broken it down. You could use a “mind-mapping” technique to accomplish this.
• Take five steps toward completion of your goal each day. Again, they don’t have to be big steps, just something that moves you towards your goal. The small steps compound.
• Ask yourself if what you are doing moves you closer to or further from your goal. If it moves you closer, you are on the right track. If not, you need to rethink your decision. The difference between action and activity is movement towards the achievement of your objective.
• Share your goals and action steps with a coach or friend who can keep you on track. I have a mini-Mastermind group with one friend and this helps both of us move forward on our goals.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes on goal setting, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo

The Winter issue of The Professional Quilter includes an article on goal setting using the SMART method. If your subscription is not current and you need to renew, or you want to start a new subscription, here’s a link to our order page.

Yellow. To be more precise it’s Mimosa, a warm yellow. Think the blossoms on a Mimosa tree or the cocktail. The Pantone Color Institute selects a color each year that is based on its general sense of the world’s mood. Pantone says that yellow expresses hope and reassurance, something needed in uncertain economic times.

“The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Mimosa also speaks to enlightenment, as it is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation.”

Here’s a more in depth article on the announcement in The Washington Post.

The Color Marketing Group also announced its color trends for 2009 and says yellow is the standout accent color. The Winter 2009 issue of The Professional Quilter includes an article on all of CMG’s color predictions.

Yellow is my favorite color and can be found in various shades on the walls in my kitchen, guest room, one bathroom, the laundry room and the hall outside my office. I might have to find a place for Mimosa!

I survived Thanksgiving, put a good dent in all the wonderful foods 14 of us shared and helped to polish off our favorite homemade family apple pie. The first week in December kept me busy with my church’s 34th Annual Christmas Festival. I’ve been the co-chair five years now and, along with my co-chair, am giving up the seat, grateful to have been able to share my skills in this way and grateful to pass along the duties to someone else. I’ll still be involved as I’ve volunteered to make the raffle quilt top next year.

One of my annual traditions is gingerbread house decorating with two of my nieces each year. We completed this year’s house on Sunday, and here they are celebrating their artwork.

The younger one also took some time deciding on her next sewing project. She loves the ideas in The Best of Sewing Machine Fun for Kids from Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith from Possibilities and picked out six. First up are the placemats; she said that making them it would be like making a small quilt so then she could be prepared for her own real quilt.

In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite holidays. This year, I’m cooking for a group of 14, including much of my extended family plus others. I always like to try out a new dish or two, but I learned my lesson about making too many changes to old favorites. Don’t we all have a treasured family recipe that we must have each year? In our family it’s the sausage and apple stuffing that my great-grandmother made.

As I look forward to the holiday, I like to reflect on the many blessings I have in this life: my family, friends and colleagues, my work. Here’s one of my favorite quotes on gratitude from physician Christiane Northrup: 

“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.”
 
For me, it’s a real joy to be able to work in our industry, and I thank all of you for helping to make that happen.

Join us in the PQ Café on December 16 when I talk to Linda Taylor about starting a longarm business. Linda is well known in longarm circles for her quilting skills and her teaching. She has made more than 4,000 personal quilts and has been involved in the creation of more than 16,000. She began teaching longarm quilting more than 15 years ago. She has appeared on numerous quilting and sewing television shows; hosts her own show, Linda’s Longarm Quilting; and has written/produced numerous books/DVDs for the longarm industry.

The teleclass is scheduled for Dec. 16 at 8 pm, Eastern Standard Time. Here is a link to the details. Hope to see you then. And, if you have questions you want me to be sure to ask Linda, just drop me an email and I’ll try to fit them in.

I don’t know about you, but as we get into November I start to feel bogged down with lots of business activity (maybe it’s the overflow/aftermath from Houston!) and then the holidays are on us. It’s sometimes hard to keep balance in my life. This summer I talked with a new friend, Laura Howard West, on how I manage to keep balance in my life and live my priorities. Laura owns a business called Joyful Entrepreneur. For me it’s all about scheduling what I say is important, whether that is editing the magazine, working on a new product, volunteering at my church, taking a yoga class or having an afternoon out with my husband, and then living up to that commitment. That’s not to say I don’t occasionally reschedule, but I try not to. Once the activity is written down, I know it’s something of value to me and I make my best effort to live the values. I think for many women, myself included, it’s easy not to set time for self-care. This is my way of doing that.

If you’re interested in listening to our podcast, here’s a link to Laura’s site. Just click on the Café Entrepreneur link and look for podcast #14.

I’d love to hear how you balance your life!

If you been following my niece Hailey’s quilt, you know she was working on her first quilt. When I asked if she wanted to show her quilt in my guild show, she jumped at the chance. So we set a schedule to finish in time. Here she is with the quilt at the show.

I’m really proud of the work she did on the quilt. I helped her get started, but I had little input into the finished product. She chose the pattern and fabrics, learned to rotary cut and operate the sewing machine. I helped her tie the quilt, so we could talk. I sewed on the front of the binding by machine and then she sewed down the back by hand. She even made her own label for the quilt, which she named Jungle King. On our drive back from the show, she asked when the next show was. I’m hopeful she wants to start a new project after Christmas.

You’ve just finished your latest quilt, are proud of your accomplishment and want to show it off. You first share it with your family, then with your small quilting “bee” and finally take it to show and tell at your next guild meeting. For some quilters, this is enough. For others, it is not. Many quilters want to see how their quilts stack up against the competition, whether that is hanging the quilt in a local, non-judged show or entering it in a major juried and judged competition. In addition to gaining recognition for your quilts, you also educate other quilters and the general public about quilting and its standards. For local guild shows, this is often a primary reason for holding a show. Additionally, if your quilt is entered in a judged show, you can set goals for improvement based on feedback from the judges or your own comparison with winning quilts. And, of course, you might just win a prize, either a ribbon, cash ! or merchandise.

Impartiality in judging is important and one way this is done is through use of a panel of independent judges, usually three. Judges can be trained and certified by the National Quilting Association, or they can be trained through experience. They all adhere to similar standards of judging, although final results will be varied based on the individuals.

Judging can take place either before or after the quilts are hung, and each method has advantages. Judging quilts after they are hung allows the visual impact of the quilt to be better appreciated. Judging quilts before they are hung is usually faster, but visual impact takes second place to the ability to view the workmanship.
Judges often use scorecards or evaluation forms and either a point system, an elimination system or a combination of the two to evaluate the individual entries. The point system uses a predetermined maximum number of! points to judge specific areas, for example, up to 20 points for the color and design, up to 20 points for construction, up to 15 points for finishing, etc., with the total equaling 100 points. Each quilt is judged on its own merits, and the quilt with the highest total number of points is awarded the first place.

The elimination system, on the other hand, allows each judge to evaluate a quilt, make comments on its technique and offer feedback for improvement. If the judge feels the quilt should be held for ribbon/award consideration, it is put aside. If not, it is released from the competition portion. After the quilts are judged in this preliminary fashion, the held quilts are compared to others in its category and the winners are determined.

Neither system is perfect. Regardless, judges evaluate quilts against the same standards. Here are just a few of the commonly held standards that judges use:

General Appearance
• The quilt makes an overall positive statement upon viewing
• The quilt is clean and “ready to show,” i.e., no visible marks, no loose threads, no pet hair, no bearding, no offensive odors.
• The quilt’s edges are not distorted. This is easier to gauge when the quilt is hung.

Design and Composition
• All the individual design elements of the quilt – top, quilting, choice of fabric, sashes, borders, embellishments, finishing – are unified.
• The design is in proportion and balanced.
• Borders or other edge treatments enhance the quilt appearance.

Workmanship
• Piecing is precise, corners match and points are sharp.
• Seams, including those of sashing and borders, are secure, straight and flat.
• Quilting stitches are straight where intended and curved where intended.

As noted, judges consider certain “standards” when evaluating quilts — and the list is really quite extensive — but how do they decide which quilts are the prizewinners? And what is more important, design or workmanship? In the end I think it comes down to design, the quilt with the greater visual impact. But even the quilt with the greatest visual impact cannot rescue poor workmanship.

The Professional Quilter has an ongoing column geared just for judges, but it’s useful for those who are entering shows. The current issue’s column by Scott Murkin focuses on phrasing judging comments. You can purchase Issue 104 or can start a subscription here. We also offer two resources recommended for those in judging programs. You can learn more about The Challenge of Judging by Jeannie Spears and Judging Quilts by Katy Christopherson on our resources page.

The morning after my lecture at Burke QU, I went to the quarterly meeting of the Mason-Dixon Quilt Professionals Network. It is a terrific group of area quilt professionals who share experiences and suggestions for business growth. We met at Artistic Artifacts Annex in Alexandria, the Annex being the physical location for Judy Gula’s online business that carries “creative finds for the creative mind.” I got home just in time to miss a heavy thunderstorm and to take some photos of the activity. The hail lasted about half and hour, and when it was done, it looked like winter in my yard. The first photo is looking at the back deck and yard. The second photo is looking out the door that leads into my studio from the front yard.

On Wednesday evening I gave my lecture “Open House Studio Tour” to the Burke chapter of Quilters Unlimited. It was a great group, and I had a fun time sharing my love of snooping in quilter’s studios. Prior to the lecture I had dinner at the Austin Grille with three friends who were members of the guild, Cyndi Souder, Mary Kerr and Kathy Lincoln. It was extra nice, as we usually see each other at meetings that have set agendas and rarely get to sit and enjoy each other’s company. Here is a shot from the lecture that Cyndi took.