Let me attempt to tell you the story, and explain what the coming months hold.

Way back on the morning of Day 5, or rather, on February 26, 2026, I was sitting on my back porch with my dogs, stitching away on the center block of the Jane Austen quilt I initially set out to be my focus for these 100 days. This has become my morning routine. After I finish dropping my kids off at school, I come home, grab my stitching, and turn my attention to my dogs. They get to enjoy having me outside with them, and I get to start my day in the fresh air with my needle, thread, and thimble. We all kind of win with this arrangement. Anyhow, I’m out on my back porch, stitching away in that rhythmic, slow, calming, repetitive, mindful manner that I love so much, and my mind begins to wander. . . .

This is what I love about hand quilting. It’s an activity that forces me to ground myself in one place, my hands are given a task, and my brain can heave that cleansing, cathartic sigh of finding a bit of calm within a crazy, hyperactive existence. Within these moments of calm, my brain can wander freely and explore the questions my heart holds the closest.

. . . And on that porch on the morning of Day 5, with the Jane Austen quilt in my hands, my brain once again began pondering whether or not I would be able to both hand appliqué and hand piece that entire quilt? It’s a question I’ve been pondering for months now, but there was something about the way the question had been growing within my thoughts that whole week. This idea of hand piecing a quilt was beginning to take over. It was calling to me, and on the afternoon of Day 5 I finally paused all that I was quilting, and turned my attention towards finding an answer.

That afternoon, I had begun working to excavate the enormous mountain of clutter that has taken over my sewing area these last six months. In doing so, I came across a couple of fabric sets and quilt pattern books I recently picked up at my local quilt shop. The pattern books were from Fabric Café’s 3-Yard Quilts series, and the fabric sets had been carefully selected and packaged by the crew at My Happy Place Quilt Shop. I picked the fabric package that spoke to me the most that afternoon, grabbed the quilt pattern I initially paired it with, and off I went! A short bit of cutting, marking, and stitching later I had found my quilting voice!

Suddenly, I was a Completely. Different. Quilter!

I have always loved the simplicity and mobility of hand quilting, but embracing the added step of hand piecing has felt as if I am home at last! It has peeled away and cast off so many layers of doubt, uncertainty, and anxiety I didn’t fully comprehend my quilting experience contained. I felt as if an enormous vice grip had released its hold on my chest and that I could breathe deeper than I have for months. I felt as if I found the calm in my body and a song in my soul. I felt as if I had finally found myself: who I truly am as a quilter.

I’m not one for “never” statements, nor am I about to get rid of my sewing machine, but discovering my affinity for hand piecing has unlocked a whole new quilting adventure for me. Very quickly, I began contemplating what to do with all of the quilt kits and projects I already have waiting for me. All of those quilt patterns are written to be used with a machine. They include steps using strip piecing and chain piecing and all these other sewing techniques I’ve learned that all require a sewing machine. How, I was asking myself, do I make these quilts I’ve already fallen in love with (and invested money into) and yet still feed my quilting passions by using my thimble? The answer revealed itself pretty quickly. I will be using my machine to finish specific projects, and I will trust the quilting skills and knowledge I’ve developed over the last 11 years I’ve been doing this, and I’ll adapt the other patterns to work with my thimble as needed.

I will hold off on elaborating more on this epiphany because it’s one of the exciting quilting paths I’m about to journey down. Not only am I planning on sharing my stories about what this will look like for me, but I also have the most perfect quilt project to start with that will beautifully illustrate my point. Stay tuned as this journey will be taking us to a Cabin Beneath The Stars!

This dramatic turn of events also opened a door that will allow me to chronicle a milestone year in my life through a quilt pattern I’ve been trying to find a project for, and I’ll get to do it while also learning about an iconic fabric line I’ve been super curious about. Put another way: I’ll be Stitching My Way To 50, thanks to Plains & Pine’s Temperature Quilt pattern, and a couple of Liberty Fabric bundles from DuckaDilly. I’m in the planning and prepping stage for this right now, but my “proof of concept” tests have been encouraging. This quilting adventure will start in just a couple of weeks.

And of course, there’s my Woodlands Creature Quilt. That’s what I’ve decided to call this 3-Yards Quilt project that unlocked the world of hand piecing for me. This quilt has taught me a couple of pretty important life lessons that I look forward to sharing more about, but those can wait until I have it finished. As I type this, I’ve finished the whole body of the quilt and I’ve begun adding the boarders. I’m hopeful I’ll have it completed within the next week or so.

As I said, it’s been an incredible 31 days. It’s a little bonkers to think about how I started these 100 Days working on one project that has been weighting on my heart for months, only to have three more quilt projects pop up and call to be worked on. Never fear, I’m not abandoning Jane Austen. I’m embracing an important lesson I learned from my personal literary pursuits: books have timing! Sometimes it’s just not the right moment in your life to read that particular book. Put into quilting terms: quilts have timing too! I needed that Jane Austen quilt to help me find this quilted path I’m now headed down, but it’s not time for me to finish it just now. I look forward to picking it up again in the future. Perhaps, I’ll do so for my next 100 Days.

I’m happy to share that I have returned to my writing, I have Episode 4 of the Hand Quilted Podcast ready to record, and with the start of my son’s soccer season, I’m back to quilting on the sidelines. So things are looking up for 2026, but admittedly they have been slowly looking up. I’ve been needing a big kick in the pants to fully shake myself out of the creative funk I’ve fallen into. That’s where an incredibly well timed peek at Substack yesterday delivered just the right nudge I needed to finish igniting my creative motivations.

Thank you, Jamie Gregory, for sharing your preparations for Lindsay Jean Thomson’s 100 Day Project. I love when serendipity comes out to play, and that’s exactly how reading your post felt! After reading about your preparations, I also spent yesterday preparing for the next 100 days. Recently I happened to have treated myself to Passion Planner’s Self-Care Gift Box, and it contained a little notebook that was exactly the right tool I needed to create my 100 day checklist, track my stitching progress, and even jot down a thought or two that I may want to keep track of over the next couple of months.

For these next 100 days, I will be working on my Jane Austen quilt from Riley Blake Designs, which was beautifully designed by Lori Holt. This quilt was created in honor of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. I signed up for what is called a BOM, or Block of the Month, which means I purchased all the fabric, stencils, and pattern for this quilt, but instead of getting it all in one package, I am getting smaller bits of it every month for the course of the BOM. In this case, that will be over 10 months that started back in August. The idea is to take the larger project of making a quilt like this one, and chunking it down into smaller, more manageable pieces. It’s not uncommon to fall behind when it comes to putting together a BOM. At least it’s not uncommon for me! For those checking the calendar, month 7 just arrived, and I’m still working on the first month’s block.

So, for the next 100 days, I plan to spend a minimum of 20 minutes everyday stitching away on this very special quilt project. Lori Holt carefully designed this project to be done easily on a sewing machine, but I have elected to do this one by hand. Most of the quilt is done using a technique called appliqué, which can be done by hand or machine. I have committed to myself to do all of the appliqué by hand, and I’m very seriously considering doing all of the patchwork piecing by hand as well. However, that’s a much bigger commitment that I’m not completely sure I’m ready for. So my plan is to give it a try when I get to those steps and see how the process feels. I’m currently loving stitching machine free, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

The 100 Day Project starts today, and I will be sharing my progress through these next 100 days here on Substack, but while I will be tracking my daily progress in my notebook, I’m not sure of my best posting schedule. It’s a lot like that patchwork piecing portion of my Jane Austen quilt. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself and commit to something that will become too overwhelming. When I get too overwhelmed I shutdown, and I know none of us what that.

So here we go, cheers to 100 days of creativity!