Happy new year folks! Are you a resolution maker and planner or a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantser? You’ll be unsurprised to know that I fall into the latter category. I have tried to make plans and resolve to do a new year thing, but it’s just not something that works for me – it seems the more I plan, the more I try and wriggle out of it as the year goes on. I’m sure Freud would have a field day ;o)

Saying all that though, I have signed myself up for the #sew365project – theoretically it’s to sew every day, but I’ve tweaked mine to be working on something to do with my Pocket Full Of Posies quilt every day. It’s a big project, with a lot of wee decorative bits which I definitely think will take me some time to both assemble and attach – I’m also going to indulge myself with some experimentation to audition potential ‘posies’ even if the experiments don’t all end up on the quilt. Needless to say I’ve also decided to tweak the original pattern, because of course I couldn’t just follow as written. In Rachael’s original pattern the finished piece was around 48″ square and the flowers were 2D, however mine will be rather bigger with 3D flowers – it’s not going to be bed sized, but a good size wall hanging. I’m intending on assembling it in quarters to make it easier to add the embellishments, but who knows, in the end I might leave it as 4 separate pieces.

In another aim to kickstart my creativity, I also signed myself up for a couple of private swaps, so that should be a fun start to the year as well – I just posted a note on Instagram inviting people to take part, feel free to steal the graphic I ‘designed’ to set up your own swaps.

Finishes This Week:

Okay, so not strictly this week, but finished before Christmas and gifted. This is Ami (names after Ami Vitale, a National Geographic photographer who wrote a whole book on pandas) I started her around 10 years ago, but was trying to add so many new techniques that I totally freaked myself out and she got set aside, half done. I found all her parts in the great desk build of Nov ’20, and decided to finish her and give her to my dad for Christmas. She’s around 20″ tall, made from a lush, thick alpaca, with glass eyes, a moulded Fimo nose and velvet paw pads. She’s fully jointed, with a neck that allows for angled head tilts, and she’s really quite cuddly.

In Progress This Week:

It may not look like a lot, but this is the start of my 365 project. I spent 7 hours on Saturday on a call with a friend cutting out 13 different flower patterns to try out (that’s the pile of paper in ziplocs which I spent a good chunk of Friday looking for on Pinterest after I’d ripped all the jeans for the background). Sunday’s experiment was the felt flowers, two of the zipper flowers were made on Monday and the third yesterday. Today I had one final pattern (with a good 50 pieces) to cut out from my first set of pins/downloads, and I have some Sizzix dies arriving that will give me some more flower options.

I also did a bit more sewing on my next one of these blocks, which I forgot to take a photo of, but is not a dissimilar colour:

To Be Worked On This Week:

• 365 project bits
• Start on my swap items
• Maybe a little more curved log cabins

Hope you all have a great week and a fabulous year!