Swooning...

I told myself that 2012 is going to be a year of finishing long languishing projects.  And I feel I’ve made real progress with that endeavour as I’ve been pulling numerous UFO’s out from the closet and working on them.  I’m certain that I’ll have at least two to three finished quilts by the end of the year as long as I stick with this mantra.  Having said this, I found myself cutting  fabric for a new quilt project last night.

A new project?  What?  Right, I know!  I said I wasn’t going to start anything new but I did have a caveat on that statement.  I gave myself some leeway in keeping focused on my goal in that I would allow myself to begin something new if it were fast and not too intense.  And this project I believe meets those criteria.  

I’ve begun work on the Swoon pattern by Thimble Blossoms .   

There are only 9 blocks and they’re 26 inches square per block– which is really large.  The finished quilt will be approximately 80 inches square finished.  I first saw this pattern on one of the blogs I follow and loved its graphic yet simple look.   As I spent all of 2011 submersing myself in reproduction Civil War fabric working on two separate Civil War commemorative quilts, I feel I need a break from that look and style.   I’m becoming very interested in the modern quilting movement with graphically appealing fabrics and freeform quilt construction and this pattern is in the fashion.  Though this is a pattern and not freeform, it’s a unique one and I’m using very modern fabric in its construction.  The focus fabrics are a group of fat quarters I purchased last year with a French theme.  The colour’s themselves are not in my usual palette – it’s in pastel-ish greens, yellows, pinks and blues - as I said, not my usual palette.  So it’s stretching my creative wings a bit outside my comfort zone which is good.  It helps me to grow as a quilter.  I’m hoping to put Swoon together reasonably fast, which again for me is out of the ordinary.  I’m typically a slow poke quilter and enjoy that pace the most.  But as I do want to continue on my target trajectory for 2012 in finishing, I don’t want to spend too much time on anything new.   I think Swoon will be achievable.  

I’ll keep you posted.