We've survived another heat wave, which is exhausting, but it's summer after all.  There were new records set all over our state, with 49°C at Pt Augusta where my brother lives, and 48.6° here.  That's 120° and 118°F , and that is just beyond a joke. The best way to get through these hot days is to focus on sewing and forget how uncomfortable it is. My sewing room doesn't have air-conditioning, but the workshop does; when I get too hot to function I can take a pile of stuff over to the workshop.  Dolly likes the air-conditioning more than I do, she's always ready to head on over there. Poor old girl feels the heat, she doesn't cope well with our fierce summers.

Flaked out on the camp bed in the workroom; she doesn't look happy....

My AC usually quits once it gets over 42°, so I had to spend the really hot day at Mereth's, in her tiny air-conditioned lounge room, with her and Matt and the three dogs.  We watched YouTube clips all day, and while it was better than being out in the heat, it made me realise how much I like to be Doing Things, not just sitting and watching. We watched a lot of videos of crafts in Ireland, a series from the '70s, and it was fascinating, but I'd rather be doing things myself.

With that in mind, I'm going to try and prepare a lot of projects that I can just pick up and work on here and there.

 I started a hand-piecing project last year and never touched it again, so I pulled that out and I've put in a few hours stitching.   

I need to mark a lot more pieces and then it will be easy to sew in odd moments of time, when I'm trapped in the air-conditioning.

I also want to make some small quilts this year, no bigger than 24".  Everything I do turns into a big quilt, and a marathon effort, and it would be nice to just play with little pieces and finish a small quilt in a day or two. Plenty of people in blogland have committed to one small quilt a month, and I feel like I'm quite capable of that. 

I definitely want my quilting to be more fun than it has been lately.  I always enjoy my sewing, but it's not playful.  I get so focused on getting through the project that I forget to just relax and see where the ideas take me.  I'd like to try more techniques, more string piecing, more crumb piecing, more paper piecing, more applique.  I already have projects started in all those techniques, so I need to pull them out and see if I can make them more enjoyable, and therefore more likely to be finished.

I intend to catalogue all my UFOs this year, 27 at the last count, and make a plan for getting them further towards completion.  The number of them doesn't bother me, but I'd like there to be newer UFOs at the end of the year, not the same ones that have been hanging around for 10 years or more.  I still love most of them, so it just needs some organisation on my part to get them done.

I haven't decided on a word for 2019, but I think it might be Commit.  I want to decide on a course of action, and then actually DO it.  If I actually commit myself to doing something, then it will lead to results.  Unfortunately, I let myself get derailed and distracted too often. Maybe this year I can focus on actually carrying through on all my good intentions....