Jan Marie, I like your thoughtful signature.
I don't keep a journal, per se, but I have a quilting friend and we exchange emails about our work as we progress. They are archived and searchable, so that if I want to see when she made her Sunbonnet Sue quilt or I started the Summer in the Park one, it's easy to pull up the information. I usually take pictures of my progress and finished project and save them in a folder on my computer, which I try to remember to back up occasionally. The pictures are automatically date stamped, so that helps me to keep track of what I did when. Most often my quilt labels are just my initials and the year, but if it's a gift for someone I add other information, such as a baby's name and birthdate, for example, and a picture of that goes into my "completed quilts" folder, also. I don't think of my quilts as heirlooms, and don't make anything that I would offer up for judging in a show. My main objective is to make things that will be used and enjoyed until they wear out. The process of quilting is a form of recreation for me. I keep this sort-of record so that I can look back and hopefully see that I'm progressing in some way and that my efforts produced something tangible. Sifting through it helps me to get motivated to get back to work whenever I hit a motivational slump.