Checking back in on 2024 (Yes, 2024!) My ultra simple record keeping method

For some time now I’ve realized I’m really behind on many things.

One of the things I’ve done yearly is keep up a list and photo album of all my finished quilts in every given year.

However…

I hadn’t finished 2024 even! It was time. Past time. My folder for 2024 was mostly empty, much less 2025!

So I started going through my blog posts, and listings and quilts and trying to remember everything.

Let me show you that file folder and the pictures that go with it. I was determined in 2024 to give away 50 quilts beyond what the charity ones, and I did succeed. I had forgotten that I had reached that goal til I clicked my list which I had thankfully put in the file folder.

So one of the things I’ve been doing lately when I have a few minutes at the end of the day is make the file folder and pictures for 2024 complete. I’m happy to say that I did just finish it.

(One of the things that caused me to do this was working on finishing up quilting my UP greens series and I realized I hadn’t updated my photos nor witten some patterns for some of them. It’s been niggling at the back of my mind, but it wasn’t on the forefront anymore.)

It was well past time. I’ve got to get busy on my 2025 folder before I forget everything! Going all the way back to 2024 seems like, in some ways, a long, long time ago, whereas in other ways, just the other day. When it comes to my quilts, it feels like a long time ago. Some of them I barely remember.

Just for curiousity, here is what the listing looks like: This is a screen shot of a Word document. Actually, it’s four screen shots.

Since 2024 was a busy year, the listing is crazy long!

Here is what’s in the file folder. The photos correspond to the listing on the Word Document.

I had kept all the 120 charity quilts pictures in a separate file, so they were easy, though I needed to incorporate them into this overall folder. That took some time as I re-numbered them, but thankfully I had already put them in their own folder called 2024 charity quilts.

One thing to remember about all these quilts - First of all, 120 of them are charity tops. I didn’t actually make the majority of them, though obviously I did quilt and bind all of them. I did add borders to most of them, however, to fit the size I needed. Then, the quilts that were remaining, some of them were quilted in FL by long armers who do it for the shop. That was so much easier for me!!!

So there’s that. That means I finished up 88 quilts that were not charity quilts - well, anyway, I had my hands on 88 quilts, anyway. The vast majority were quilted by me - maybe 10 of them by long armers in Florida. So there’s that. the majority of them were queen size, but I did make a fair number of lap size there once I started in on house or building quilts, a lap quilt for my daughter and a couple of baby quilts for my granddaughter, etc. I hadn’t made many lap size at all so they were a fun size for a change and it is easier to make something that has a scene on it if is a bit smaller. Charity quilts start at 89 and go to the end.

While I wanted to put them in order of completion, because I waited til this year to actually compile this, I didn’t manage to do that. I’ll try to do better. I NEED to do better in 2026. But it is what it is. I can’t go back and do better in 2024.

I found several quilts while doing this that need their patterns written up and need to be featured on the blog. For that reason alone, I’m glad I did this little exercise!

So, now you know. I know you weren’t even wondering, but I do try to keep track. I don’t have any fancy method, software or notebooks. I wouldn’t do it if it required something that takes any more time than this.

This was a very big year. Maybe my biggest to date since I’ve kept track. Maybe some other time I’ll work on a graph to show myself (and share with you). It’s not a contest, and sometimes one year has a lot more finishes because they were ready to quilt, and just needed quilting, AND more time than a different year. Other things happen as well. We all know that. I did not finish nearly as many in 2025, I don’t think. Obviously when you do finish 120 charity ones, the numbers are already big, but in my own mind, I really hardly even count them. I mean, I do “quilt them and bind them”, but somehow, it’s a different category, as you already know.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this.

Becky PetersenComment