Welcome to week three of the New Quilt Bloggers blog hop hosted by Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl, Stephanie of Late Night Quilters, Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and my group leader Terri of Childlike Fascination. Participating in the Hop has been a wonderful experience.
My group is called the Sewcial Swarm and we've been very busy checking out each others blogs and working on our own. It's been so busy that at one point I was thinking we should have called ourselves the worker bees, but we are fresh off a two week break and it's my turn to share a bit about myself, so here goes.
I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario where I met my husband Dwight. He was from a smaller town and he didn't like living in the big city so after we married we moved to a smaller close by where we still live. We have two adult children, one in law school and one in teachers college.
This picture was taken a year ago when we helped out at a tree planting with my co workers. Dwight and I enjoy gardening with native plants and trees. We have a mini forest at the back of our yard which you can sort of see in the picture of my Swoon Quilt below. Now that there are leaves on those little trees it looks a bit more forest like.
Swoon Pattern by Camille RossKelly
I have a degree in Biology and I work full time in a Health Food Store. I fit as much quilting as I can into the evening hours and weekends. I learned to quilt just over 10 years ago. What started out as a very part time hobby has blossomed into more of a passion in the last couple of years as my children have left home and I have more hours to fill playing with fabric and improving my piecing skills.
Houses Pattern by Johanna Masko
My husband's only comment on the first four quilts I made was "That's bright." so I think it is fair to say that for the most part I prefer bright colours and strong contrasts. I do sometimes make softer quilts. I belong to a traditional guild and a modern guild and I make quilts in both styles. This past year I have been focusing on the actually quilting: free motion, walking foot and hand quilting.
Mod Blocks Runner Pattern by Lynne Goldsworthy
I've been blogging for about a year and a half. It took me a really long time to pick a name as it seemed like all the good names were taken. Here's how I finally picked my name.
Like many people who live in the northern hemispheres I can get quite low in the winter. One winter I decided to try a couple of creative hobbies to see if some creativity could help get me through. I tried mosaics and quilting, and the quilting stuck. I named my blog Sunlight in Winter Quilts as an expression of the joy I find in working with bright fabrics in the greyness of winter.
My blogging tip comes from an observation made by my critique group. They found my blog difficult to read because the print size was too small and was written in italics. So my tip is USE BIG PRINT. Another tip is to view your blog as a work in progress and make slow changes to it when you can. (this tip is really for me!)
My quilting tip is don't trust your 1/4" foot. If you find your piecing isn't lining up your foot is not accurate. I've found the most accurate way for me to get consistent 1/4 inch seams is to use the foot but move my needle over to position 4 on my machine. For me to make this change It took a workshop instructor pushing the button on my machine to adjust the needle. So if you, like me are slow to change just imagine me reaching out of the computer and pushing that button for you!
Joining this blog hop has been a wonderful thing. I've met a lot of great new bloggers and I've pushed myself to make changes to my blog that I just wasn't getting around to doing, or didn't know how to do. The process has also helped me to think about the direction my quilting and blogging has taken and to think about where I would like to go in the future.
I have some goals I would like to share with you.
1. More humour. When I was a little kid I had my family in stitches telling them stories about my day. It's hard to capture that spirit in writing. I'll try.
2. Work on more Modern techniques such as improv.
3. Design some of my own quilts.
How about you. Do you have a blogging goal or quilting goal you would like to share?
Random Facts:
Sign: Virgo on the Libra cusp.
Favourite Author: Miriam Toews
Favourite Book: Read to many to pick one but the best two in recent times are Your Face in Mine and All the Light We Cannot See. Currently reading War and Peace (Wish me Luck)
Love to watch Scandinavian Detective Shows.
As I come to the end of this very long post I would like to encourage you to check out the other members of Sewcial Swarm posting today. Here are links to their blogs.
Please also check out the posts at our organizers blogs: Terri Ann of Childlike Fascination, Stephanie at Late Night Quilter , Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl.
These women have put an incredible amount of time into organizing the blog hop and giving us encouragement and tips, so to the four of you I would like to share this photo of two things that showed up on the lunch table at my work. The sentiment on the card is for you:
I'm off to check out the other blog posts. I hope you join me.
