It's the start of my quilting year...
When the calendar changed last month, I had a faint sense of welcoming from my days as a mom with kids in the house. I loved back to school time, My kids are now grown with kids of their own, but the sweet days of September still leave me with a faint sense of new beginnings. Cooler temperatures (that's supposed to be the case!), new notebooks, new shoes, a clean slate for projects which have been dormant too long. September this year brought me a LOT of engagements to work through, and now I'm looking at a desk full of things which need to get done. That's a good thing.
This season also marks the beginning of planner marketing season, and I've tried a lot of them out there.I use a planner as the one paper place to keep things organized, and the chaos contained. I have found through trial and error that the right planner for you is one that works for you.
It's been a scattered month, but I found this piece of Cork at a local shop, and fell in love with it as a planner cover. I used a purse snap that I found in the drawer to give me a snap which holds things closed, and the flower button is me. I'll be doing a tutorial soon on working with cork - it's very forgiving and fun to play with.
The guts of this planner is truthfully, a hybrid. I received a copy of the Quilter's Planner this year as a gift, and there are several sections of the planner that I have loved. My Quilter's Planner looks different from many you may have seen. I had determined that I like the way that a discbound system works for me, and I 'customized' my QP by removing the spiral wire and punching it a Happy Planner punch I had picked up. I was surprised at how easily it worked out, and I've been using it like this for the whole year.
My favorite part of the Quilter's Planner has got to be, hands down (or up!) the projects at a glance part of their system. It's a great way to take a look at your projects, and figure our what is needed or how you can work with a block of time - or in my case, deadlines. My planner page needs a good update, and refresh as I plan out what needs to be done in the next chunk of time this year. This is one section (along with others) that I will be pulling into the next planner I set up.
I found that the large size planner works best for me, and I'll be looking for one that has a horizontal orientation for the days of the week. Earlier this year, the Quilter's Planner announced that they are looking at a smaller footprint for their planner, and that won't work for me.
I think at this point, it's pointless to try to separate me from my color coded highlighters and stickynotes. I'll just fold them in. I'm beginning to look around for sales and coupons, and I'm sure I'll have a new one soon.