mini quilt swap = mini swoon

Last year I participated in round 2 of the schnitzel & boo mini quilt swap. It was a good distraction before the dreaded house remodeling started and it got me dusting off my sewing machine. Anything to get me sewing is always good in my books.

I was given a bit information about who I would be sewing for, their fabric likes/dislikes, designers they admire, pattern likes, etc. Armed with that information I choose Camille Ross Kelley's mini swoon quilt pattern. I've been crushing on her big swoon pattern for quite a while now and thought my foray into the swoon world via a mini would be a good place to start.  
My partner favoured cool, neutral colours. The fabric was an easy selection for me as I too am partial to the cool neutrals. I used Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley fabrics paired with Robert Kaufman's Essesx in flax. It was my first time sewing with the Essex. It was definitely easier than sewing with straight linen but pairing it up with Hope Valley - quilting cotton - in a mini quilt made getting points perfect a bit challenging. I think the weight of Essex might lend itself to larger projects but I'll have to confirm that when I attempt that next.

quilt stats:

fabric: Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt, Essex (flax) Robert Kaufman
backing: (not visible) Hope Valley
pattern: Mini Swoon by Thimble Blossoms
quilting: straight crisscross lines by me.
dimensions: approx. 22" x 22"
gifted to: Sarah of duck egg threads

In a nutshell

Hello blog world.

It has been almost 8 months since I wrote my last blog post. A terribly long time to be away from one's blog don't you think? At the very least it is a sure fire way to lose all your blog readers. While I didn't intend to do that, I'm sure my switch from blogging platform Typepad to Blogger last March (2014) didn't help in that arena as well. Good thing I'm not in it for the readership.

In spite of my effort, I will press on in blog land, in one form or another. It's a nice space to come to. I know the blogging thing has morphed over the past few years. People don't read them as much, and a lot of the new ones that pop up now are super techie with tons of advertising. It's all fine with me, people have to do what they feel led to do, after all no one size fits all.

June 2014

July 2104

Sept 2014

Oct 2014

Jan 2015

Jan 2015


For me however, I think I will keep this space simple. When I first started this blog - back in 2007, it was for me an online journal of sorts. A place where I could look back and see some of my accomplishments and also capture snippets of my life with 4 kids - those young magical years filled with sweet times together. I love looking back on those years in my blog; mostly because I have been lousy at putting photo albums together and  those images of my little kidlets are readily available.

So if this is the case - keeping the blog alive - where have I been for the past year? Well, as with all things best intentions get laid aside for practicality, and I am a practical girl. The short version is the hubby and I continued our 6 year long renovation on the duckyhouse. We started in July optimistically thinking we could rip it off in 3 weeks. Excuse me while I pause and laugh my face off. Hahahaha. Good one. Well it lasted until Christmas, mostly. Then I feverishly threw the house together for Christmas, including wrapping gifts until 4:00am on Christmas Day. Lame I know. Such was my year in 2014. I was very happy to see the end of it and start a new year.

So far this year has been good. I'm a month into 2015 and I finally got my word -  "fearless". Yup, I'm planning on being fearless this year. I might need help with it once in a while but fearless it is. I've got a few big decisions looming and perhaps, just perhaps being fearless will help me get to where I need to go.

Photos are from my instagram account June 2014 - Jan 2015