2024 Habits: February Update
To watch the video for this, click HERE or on the image above.
February: How Did I Do?
I decided in December 2023 and the beginning of January change some things in my quilting life that just weren’t working for me. After evaluating the good, bad, and ugly, I came up with my top five habits I wanted to implement in 2024. I have a video on this, which you can find here and a blog post, too! You can find that here.
Now that it is the first day of February 2024, I am going to evaluate how I did in January by giving myself a score and where I did well and where I need to improve. Since I am a former teacher, I am going to stick with what I know, using the terms Glow (where I did well) and Grow (where I need improvement).
If you are interested in tracking your own progress with habits, click here for a worksheet to help you out.
Let’s get started evaluating January’s progress!
Habit 1: Keep My Cutting Table Clear
This Month’s Score: 5/5
Much to my surprise, this sign actually worked! Most of the time, at least. I resisted the urge to dump things on my cutting table by simply looking at the sign. Who knew such a simple solution would have so many positive results? That’s the way it is sometimes, isn’t it?
Glow: My cutting table stayed clean, I was able to use the whole thing when working on a project, and the entire room was less cluttered. Win, win, win.
Grow: Even though I didn’t dump things on the table, I did tend to dump them elsewhere in my sewing room. I am going to work on this moving forward by cleaning up the space more and actually putting things away.
Habit 2: Finishing Projects
This Month’s Score: 3/5
Although I didn’t actually finish any old projects, I did finish the projects I started this month, and to me, that is progress. In fact, this may be the only time in my YouTubing career that I actually did finish a project right away. If you want to see the video tutorial for this project, click here or on the photo.
As for the older projects I wanted to finish, I didn’t work on any of them this month, BUT I did evaluate what I need to finish them and really thought about why I didn’t finish them. One of the reasons is the lack of batting. Solution? I order a big roll of batting from JoAnn Fabrics. Twenty yards is currently in transit to my house. Yay!
Glow: I finished the projects I started in January: hourglass quilt and hourglass table runner. Yay! I did order batting, however, after assessing why I didn’t work on the projects. This helps!
Grow: I didn’t finish any other backlog of projects.
Habit 3: Creating More Healthy Quilting Habits
Focus For This Month: Improving Air Quality
This Month’s Score: 4/5
I have three sub-areas in this category which are:
Staying Hydrated
Improving Air Quality
Taking Movement Breaks
Although I did attempt to improve in all three of these areas, my primary focus in January was on air quality, and wow, was this eye-opening!
As many may know, I reached out to AirThings about this topic, and they sent me a View Plus unit, which measures the air quality in a room, looking at seven different areas: Radon (Radioactive Elements), PM2.5 (Small Particulate Matter), CO2, VOC (airborne chemicals), Humidity, PM1 (Super Small Particulate Matter), Temperature, and Pressure. Each of these areas are measure, and the wonderful app gives you a score and a level. The levels are good, fair, and poor.
Here are the results from the View Plus. Some are surprising!
Radon (Radioactive Elements): Good We have a Radon Mitigation System, so I was happy to see the radon levels are under control. In my area of the country, we tend to have high radon levels. Just getting the verification helps with my own peace of mind.
PM2.5 (Small Particulate Matter): When Not Sewing: Good; When Sewing: Fair and Poor This was fascinating and exactly what I expected! When I was sewing, the levels quickly increased. This proves what I thought was happening.
CO2: Overall, Good This fluctuated from good to fair throughout the day, which really surprised me! Some ways we are addressing this is by getting an air purifier and bringing some plants into the space.
VOC (Airborne Chemicals): Good Slight increase when I was using basting spray. This to be expected since I am terrible about doing it in a ventilated area, as suggested. I am going to be better at this morning forward.
Humidity: Fair Wow, I was surprised by this! It is way too dry in my sewing room. This can cause eczema, dry skin, and even affect your concentration! Who knew? We are going to address this area to help mitigate the low humidity issues in my sewing room and home.
PM1 (Super Small Particulate Matter): When Not Sewing: Good; When Sewing: Fair and Poor Just like the PM2.5 levels, the same thing happened! When I was sewing, the levels shot up almost instantly. It makes me wonder how much I have been breathing in over the almost 30 years of sewing!
Solutions:
We bought a air purifier for the sewing room, but it has only been set up for a few days. It detects when the air needs to be cleaner and kicks on automatically. We actually purchased the air filter (not sponsored). Click here for a link to the one we bought.
Putting a plant in the area
Adding a fan to the air
Review of the View Plus: I love it! It is easy to use, easy to set up, the app is great, and the support/resources on their website make it easy to understand what the levels mean and how to fix them. I would highly recommend this product. Moving forward, I am interested in seeing what the levels are like in other airs of our home. After all, the air we breathe is important, right? I mean, it’s AIR. We need it.
Glow: Look at me taking my head out of the sand and actually addressing an issue that has been bugging me for a long time! I want to give myself a high five for this one! Hopefully the solutions we are implementing will at least start to improve the air quality in my space. I will let you know in the February Habit Review.
Grow: Work on the other areas of hydration and movement. This is needed. Let’s get healthy!
Habit 4: Learn to FMQ (Free Motion Quilt) On My Domestic Machine
This Month’s Score: 0/5
Unfortunately, I didn’t practice this habit at all this month. Sigh.
Glow: I thought about it! :)
Grow: Take the leap and practice FMQing in February.
Habit 5: Further Embrace My Quilting Community
This Month’s Score: 3/5
I did pretty well with this one. I attended several guild events, including one where I helped trim up the half-square triangles for our raffle quilt. I also went to the guild meeting this month and got together with some quilting friends. I was also more active in online groups.
Glow: I was pretty active! I enjoyed getting together with other quilters and interacting with the online groups.
Grow: I want to take an online class. This will help me with this goal this year
Let me know what you think! This helps me stay accountable, so please feel free to give me any suggestions!
Happy Quilting!
Kris