Starting month 9 in my Create Daily Tracker

In January, I started another Create Daily Tracker (my 6th) with the continuous goal to do something creative with my hands every day of the year. No pressure for perfection—just taking a little time for myself, and carving out a space in the schedule for making. 

With over 240 days of making behind me, it’s interesting to see what the year entailed thus far. 

Create Daily Tracker 2025. September 6, 2025.

Over 8 months of creative endeavors 

My creative practice so far this year has included a wonderful mix of mindful stitching tasks, improvisational projects, and a few structured challenges. All were achieved with an assortment of daily short stints and longer inspired binges. Here is a breakdown of the percentages of time spent along with a comparison of the status check from June.

• 2% garment sewing (down from 5%)
• 4% free-motion quilting (down from 7%)
• 47% slow stitching and mending, including the 100 Day Stitch Book (up from 40%)
• 14% patchwork (down from 18%)
• 16% art projects—collage, mixed media, painting, art journaling (up from 11%)
• 17% yarn—knitting, crochet (up from 12%)

Thirty-three entries of patchwork and using scraps paired with 9 entries of free-motion quilting resulted in charity quilts. Sixteen kitty quilts were donated to two local vets early in the year, I’ve made two more this summer, and a few lap quilts got quilted and bound for my guild’s Cuddle Quilt project. 

Free-motion quilting a charity quilt. I attach the binding by machine.

Mending was the uppermost technique during “A Winter of Care and Repair Challenge” and my 100 Day Stitch Book entailed a lot of slow stitching. I found The 100 Day Stitch Book to be a very rewarding project. I learned the slot-and-tab binding method which resulted in the making of two additional textile books of stitched collage compositions from my 2023 100 Day Project. At the suggestion of my students and the urging of my cohorts, I hope to develop a class around soft bookmaking. 

Slow stitching compositions from the 100 Day Stitch Book project.

My art practice included 37 sessions of slow drawing, mixed media, watercolor, and participation in two month-long Junk Journal Challenges—Junk Journal January and Junk Journal July. Following daily prompts, the Junk Journals became tactile, expressive pages with layers of paper, paint, and hand lettering to convey stories and messages. 

Junk journals for January and July 2025.

A few days of garment sewing resulted in a Make Nine finish—a remake of the Siena Shirt using a fun fabric line called Perfect Points. 

Make Nine 2025 worksheet. September 2025.

A log of 40 entries creating with yarn resulted in the stack of hand knit dish cloths. Pattern research last month unearthed a scrap-buster project for my Make Nine “yarn” prompt, so lately, I’ve been heavily engrossed with crochet. I’ve completed 8 out of 9 prompts on my Make Nine list and the last prompt, “yarn,” is well underway. 

Why the Create Daily Tracker works for me 

My Create Daily Tracker is more than just a checkbox system. It’s a gentle accountability partner that helps me: 

• celebrate small wins that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, 
• stay focused on a daily practice—even when motivation wanes, 
• document my makes,  
• make space to honor the act of creating, one day at a time. 

If you’re on a creative journey or want to develop a daily art practice of your own—no matter what your medium—a daily tracker might be helpful. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just a simple document to capture successes, new techniques, and creative risks, such as mine shown above will work. Ease of use is the key.

Reflecting on the Simplest Things Challenge: A 5-day drawing journey

This week, I took on the Simplest Things Challenge, a 5-day slow drawing Challenge with Amy at Mindful Art Studio. The Challenge encourages the exploration of making simple marks and seeing where the process leads. 

Day 1 prompt: Closer

Simple supplies

I’ve done the Simplest Things Challenge a couple of times. Sometimes I draw in a sketchbook, sometimes on small pieces of card stock or watercolor paper, and often the compositions become fodder for pages in my art junk journals. 

As I was traveling earlier in the week, I packed a small 4” x 6” sketchbook and a few Micro pens in my travel bag. This weekend, I opened a small palette of watercolors and pulled out a paintbrush. So, even the supplies for this Challenge are minimal! 

Day 2 prompt: Squiggle

Daily prompts

I like the low-pressure nature of the daily prompts. There are only 5 of them! It’s a short, easy Challenge to do. Responses to the prompts can go in any direction.

Another version of Closer (Day 1 prompt) with Dots (Day 3 prompt).

Another version of Day 2 prompt: Squiggle. Watercolor and line drawing.

Day 3 prompt: Dot

The prompts offer an opportunity to let the mind wander while interpreting them. The slow drawing makes you present and in the moment.

Day 3 prompt: Dot

Day 4 prompt: Branching

Day 5 prompt: Smash

The simplicity of the prompts makes the Challenge accessible to any skill level. If you’re looking to spark your creativity without feeling overwhelmed, the Simplest Things Challenge is a perfect way to dive into drawing and mark making. Use any art supplies you have on hand—pencils, markers, paint pens, watercolors, anything!

Day 4 prompt: Branching

This Challenge is a reminder that sometimes, art isn’t about complexity—it’s about slowing down, showing up for your art practice, and seeing the beauty in the smallest and simplest of things.

Scrappy charity quilts and free-motion fun

There’s something satisfying about turning a pile of leftover fabrics into something cozy and full of heart. Easy patchwork, fun sewing, and a bit of therapy at the sewing machine—it doesn’t get much better than that. 

Kitty quilt with improv patchwork and free-motion quilting.

I brought two “kitty quilt” [charity quilt] tops to my Intro to Free-motion Quilting workshop at the Folk School earlier this month. I used them to demonstrate basting and the Kwik Klip tool. 

Demonstrating basting with the Kwik Klip tool on a charity quilt.

Students also got a chuckle over the “franken-batting” I made by zig-zagging leftover batting scraps together.

Pieced batting using up batting scraps: “Franken-batting.”

Using up scraps, the patchwork for these quilt tops (as well as the batting) is simple and improvisational. These tops are the perfect canvases for some easygoing, free-motion quilting. One top was used in class to demonstrate free-motion zig-zags. 

Two completed charity quilts for the Cat Clinic.

The quilts are finished with scrappy bindings that are attached with a machine zigzag and a variegated thread. 

Scrappy bindings applied all by machine.

Bonus: the flannel trimmings from the quilt backings were pieced together for the back of a future kitty quilt! Hooray for more scrappy improvisational patchwork!

Making do: fabric trimmings were used to piece another quilt back for a future quilt.

In addition to quilting the kitty quilts, I also pieced a cuddle quilt top for my guild’s charity. 

Charity quilt top ready for basting and quilting.

Scrap quilting is always a joyful process for me. It’s a great reminder that even small, forgotten pieces can come together to make something beautiful and meaningful.

Can you envision a scrap-buster quilt in your future? I hope so.

A kantha-stitched book cover: completing a 2017 project for Make Nine 2025

It only took eight years, but I can finally call this small hand-crafted artist’s book “finished”! I’m counting it as fulfilling the second UFO prompt for Make Nine 2025. 

Artist’s book with a kantha stitched fabric cover.
Interior pages consist of various mark-making techniques and collage.

A book of mark-making 

This piece began as a mark-making exercise in a workshop with Dorothy Caldwell in the summer of 2017. The interior pages of this book are made of long, narrow strips of paper that were painted, inked, and collaged—experiments using different mark-making techniques and tools.

A page spread of the book.

Each page spread is a little world—layered with marks, pattern, shadow, and intuition. Some feel like meditative sketches with spontaneous marks. 

Another page spread with inked marks and collage.

The pages are folded into three signatures, sewn together with a woven binding. The book, when opened, can lie flat. 

Woven binding hold the three signatures together.

The kantha stitched cover

The cover was also a long narrow piece of black cotton fabric. The texture and hint of color is created by rows and rows of simple running stitches—the kantha embroidery technique we were learning in the workshop. I used embroidery floss, both single strand and multi-strand, and let the needle meander across the fabric. 

Kantha stitched cover.

The single strands of colored floss provide a subtle contrast to the black fabric base, and a soft, delicate complement to the more dominant, white stitching lines. This cover was stitched intentionally—not fast, not perfect, just by being present. 

Running stitches with colored and white embroidery floss.

Combining cover and signatures… just do it 

The stitched cover and the book pages lay together for years, knowing they were meant to go together. My dilemma, however, was how to attach the cover to the text pages. Make a wrap-around cover with a tie? A cover with a snap? or button closure? This was the step that stalled the completion of the book for so long. 

Returning home with energy and excitement from a recent quilting class at the Folk School, I had a burst of inspiration and immediacy to complete this UFO. The time had come to just “figure it out!” I decided to create a “book jacket” (of sorts) for the book. The two short ends of the cover were turned to the inside and stitched, creating pockets for the first and last pages of the book to slide into.

The ends of the cover folded over to create pockets for the book.

Front page inserted into the book jacket.

The kantha stitching was completed in 2017. The edges of this fabric piece, however, were stitched this month (August 2025) with a blanket stitch to enclose edges and minimize fraying.

The last page inserted into the book jacket.

The final result is a tactile skin for my little book of marks: a soft cover, richly textured with slow stitching, that wraps around pages already brimming with expression. The perfect complement! The imperfections of the stitching as well as the painted and drawn marks show the hand of the maker… from cover to cover. 

Finished artist’s book with a hand stitched cover.

Inserting the signatures into the pockets of the “book jacket” felt like the last step in the ceremony. After all this time, the project finally had its resolution. It was not just a collection of pages and fabric, but a completed book. A united entity unto itself.  

Creativity is not linear

There’s something deeply satisfying about finishing a long-dormant project. It reminds me that creativity isn’t linear—that even unfinished work holds value, and that returning to something old can still feel fresh and alive. It reminded me of the past experience when it was first created, but it also resonates with the present.

Make Nine 2025 UFO prompt fulfilled.

So here it is: another UFO prompt for Make Nine 2025 completed. Not late, just… right on time.

Make Nine 2025 tracker. August 2025.