goal setting.

In our church, we have a program that is designed for the young women. It is called Personal Progress. As one of the leaders of our young women,  I have the opportunity to do this program right along with the girls.

There are 10 values that we focus on. Each value has specific goals that we work on individually. As we accomplish these goals, a parent or a leader signs off that it is completed.

At the end of each value, there is a place where you can think of and write down a more personal goal, that should take at least 10 hours to complete.

The values that we work on and try to incorporate into our lives are;

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice & Accountability

Good Works

Integrity

and Virtue

I have been working on my 10 hour value project in Choice & Accountability.

At the beginning of this year, I decided that I wanted to do something that would help me decrease frivolous spending and  increase our savings account. I thought of several things that I could do to accomplish this goal.

 I thought of a few things to do but recently decided to dig a little deeper.

I wanted to do something that really stretched me.

So, I recently amended my big goal and added more to it.

As most of you know, I have a fabric hoarding problem. It hasn't gotten to the point where it's unable to contain or anything, but I buy fabric, sometimes for no specific reason. So, I decided that as part of my 10 hour project, I would set the goal to not purchase any more fabric for the rest of the year. If I wanted to make something I would need to use what I had here already.

I would like to share two projects that I have finished up with out buying anything new.

A few months ago (and before I set this specific goal), I found some jelly rolls at Walmart that were on clearance for $9 a piece. There were two different styles so I picked up one of each.

I made these two projects using one of them.

This is a little baby quilt. I sewed 5 strips together and then cut them into 10" squares. I had some jumbo ric- rac that I got in a grab bag and thought I would put it around the edge of the quilt. It was about 5" too short so I decided to sew a piece down each green strip of fabric. It worked out perfectly. Then I alternated the direction of the blocks as I sewed them together. I had some pink fabric already that I used as the border and then bound it with some left over strips of fabric from the jelly roll.

This is the back of the quilt. I bought this piece of fabric as a remnant about a year ago and forgotten about it.....(Oh, the dangers of fabric hoarding! :) )

This is the second quilt top I made with the jelly roll. I used the same idea as before put put it together differently. It is a larger quilt than the previous one. I used some green fabric that I had for part of the border and again, used some leftover strips for the binding.  Somewhere I lost the picture of the back, but it was also a remnant. It's bright pink with green polka dots.

I machine quilted them both. As you can see on the above picture, the fabric got a little pulled in one area and the lines look crooked. Any ideas on how to avoid that?

Anyway, I have many more projects in mind to do the next 7 or so months. I know I will be working longer than 10 hours on all of them, but that's okay. I am excited to see what I can do with what I have.  Working on this goal has opened my eyes to many other things I can do to try and save some money here and there.  I love the saying,

 "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

 I think of it every time I feel tempted to revert back to my needless spending!

I am not really a goal setter like I need to be and I am so grateful for this program that teaches me how to be better at it!