Skip to main content

2015 [reflections]

So it's that time of year again to look back over the previous 12 months and proclaim it good! My year has been somewhat mixed, I feel...

We spent 11 months of the year moving house.... from the day we started clearing out and packing on 3rd January to when we finally completed on the house on 3rd December! We swapped houses with Michael's Mum, Linda, and while this meant we avoided estate agents, we couldn't avoid the packing, the unpacking, or the solicitors. I always thought that no matter what my children decide to do when they are adults, I would be proud. But I think I'm changing my mind. My recent dealings with solicitors have not been successful, so here's hoping they don't pick that career path! We physically moved on 4th April - Easter Saturday, and both of us then proceeded to do a lot of work on the houses we moved into. Our builder came in on 7th April, and the final new carpet was laid on 5th November. I know I've said it before, but never again! But we do now have a beautiful house - big enough for us to grow into, entertain the family, and live very comfortably. It's full of the memories of Michael's child hood, but we've put our own stamp on it and it feels so right to be living here now.

The day that the living room carpet was laid was also the same
day that Mia walked by herself with no encouragement at all!
The other thing that has dominated my year has been my pregnancy. I can't wait to welcome our new baby girl in April next year, and I had a bit of a turning point mid-December, where I stopped feeling quite so ill and just started feeling pregnant! An improvement of sorts! Mia is a bit little to fully understand what is happening, but she has her own "baby" and will tell anyone who asks "what's in Mummy's tummy?" that it's "cake"!



In between 11 months of moving and 6 months of feeling ill, we've had some fantastic family holidays: a week in my favourite place in the world - Tenby in South West Wales, and a week in Sidmouth for the Folk Festival.



And you know what, I've been doing a little sewing as well! Though I haven't been anywhere as prolific as last year! Working full time on top of everything will have that effect! Here are the stand out sewing moments and themes of my year:

The only large (read: bigger than a baby quilt) that I finished this year, was my oldest WIP, this sampler quilt. But I finished it way back in January, so it really feels as though there have been no big finishes this year: something I hope to change in 2016.



But 2015 was the year of the swap for me: I took part in 10 swaps in all: here's what I sent.

Modern Fabric Postcard Swap; Easy Swap UK zippy; UK Mini Swap; Cotton and Steel Swap (angel); Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap (round 3); Thimbleblossoms Mini Quilt Swap; Hand Pieced Mini Quilt Swap; Harry Potter Mini Quilt Swap; Whimsical Woodland Mug Rug Swap; Cotton and Steel Mini Quilt Swap; Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap (round 4)
And what I received: there's a slight discrepancy between then two mosaics: I also made an angel mini for the Cotton and Steel Mini Quilt swap, and I never received anything in the Harry Potter swap and the Swap Mama stopped communicating.... I also sent three modern fabric postcards and only received two. Despite these disappointments, I still really enjoyed participating in the swaps this year. Next year will definitely be quieter - I'm not currently signed up for anything and it needs to stay that way for a good while!



Hand sewing has been a feature of the year: for starters, why begin one long-term EPP project, when you can begin 2? I decided to take the plunge and make a La Passacaglia quilt in the spring: I'm picking anything and everything from my stash and looking forward to seeing where this adventure takes me over the next few year.



At about the same time as I started this project, I stumbled across the New Hexagon Millefiore quilt. And because I couldn't chose between the two projects, I started that too! To make it specifically different from the La Pass, I'm limiting myself to aquas and low volume fabrics for this quilt.

And then there have been the mini quilts and cushions for me...and some for Mia!

Rainbow Squared cushion, Jingle Bells cushion; Camper Van cushion; Woodland log cabin cushion; Lucky Stars mini; Darth Vader cushion; Karen Lewis Mini; April Showers mini mini; Wildflowers Mini; Mia's advent calendar; Marsala Clams; Patchwork City mini
And the baby quilts....

Trellis; Pink Plusses; Mia's Cat Quilt; Power of Nine Baby Quilt; Whales quilt

And even some clothes: a hat for me and a dress for Mia!





And the nursery hoops....



I started and made differing amounts of progress on a few other quilts as well. I'll have a separate post on those: I have plans to finish some things next year!


Comments

Diane-crewe said…
lets hope the positive start for the year continues and 2016 is a GOOD one xx
Anthea said…
hi Jennie, happy new year! wow you sure packed a LOT into 2015, it's been great reading your blog & IG, & seeing your beautiful work!
Allison said…
Happy New Year! Hope these next few months give you a chance to really enjoy your newly completed home and sweet little Mia before the baby arrives and the next phase of your family life takes shape.

Popular posts from this blog

365 Quilt Challenge 2016 [A finish]

I can't believe I've just typed that heading! When I made the block for January 1st 2016 I could not have imagined the journey this quilt would have taken me on. So make yourselves comfortable and grab a cup of tea, because this blog post may get lengthy! I'd seen the 365 Quilt Challenge on Facebook. I think every quilter on Facebook must have been aware of it. Loads of my friends had signed up and it kept popping up as a "Page you might like" thing. In the end, in November 2015, I joined the group, had a poke round. Decided it wasn't for me. One of the things that really put me off were the fabric requirements: you needed x amount of dark dark fabric, x amount of medium dark fabric, x amount of dark medium, medium, light medium, light, background.... I just couldn't get my head round those requirements. I'd looked at the mock ups on the wesbite and couldn't bring myself to pick a colour. I put it to the back of my mind. But I had obvious

Hidden Agenda [A Finish]

This is very possibly my favourite ever finish - I know I've said that in the past, but this one is going to be hard to beat. This time last year, I attended a day long lecture/workshop with Tula Pink and it was inspiring. Having not really loved her fabrics in the past (but loved her patterns), I suddenly saw them in a new light, linked with my 2018 new year's resolution to try more fussy cutting). Fast forward 8 months and I confess that my Tula stash has expanded quite a lot. I found some UK shops with older ranges of fabric, splurged on a few destashes and found the odd piece of her fabric already in my stash. The plan was always (and remains) to make a Smitten quilt, but I'm well aware that I have plenty of fabric to make other projects as well! So when I saw the Hidden Agenda quilt pattern by Angela Pingle, this fabric sprung instantly to mind.... and we all know I love a rainbow! And what could be better than rainbowfied Tula? I was ably assisted by my friend Ti

February Embroidery Along [A Finish]

I've really been enjoying my embroidery this year, after not doing very much last year. One of the challenges I set myself at the start of the year was to learn to colour tint my fabric before adding the embroidery - I love buying the pre-printed panels, but I'd like to do this myself as well. And the opportunity to learn this arose in February. Meg Hawkey of Crab Apple Hill Studio hosted a stitchalong to celebrate National Embroidery Month, and the first step was colour your fabric. I bought the pencils she advises,  the blending stumps, something called fabric extender and the pigma pen. And I gave it a go. My first attempt ended badly. Because the one thing I didn't buy was a new, clean paintbrush. So when I came to add the fabric extended, it went all bleary and muddy as, despite cleaning the paintbrush thoroughly, it obviously wasn't clean enough. It was unsalvageable so I started again, and I was so much happier with the results. The practice piece was, in

Labels

Show more

Archive

Show more