With my January quilting project off being quilted I thought it would be the perfect time to start the next one on my list; Swoon Quilt.

I’ve had the fabric selection for this quilt sitting in a tub for nearly six months now just waiting for me to make a start.  Normally I’m pretty gun-ho about fabric selection but for some reason I was hesitant, to the point of procrastination, about making the cuts.

Then one day I was surfing Instagram when I saw this image from Michelle (of The Crafty Little Fox):

Image source: The Crafty Little Fox

The fox fabric she had used for her center block was the exact same fox fabric I had pulled for my Swoon Quilt but was too afraid to cut into because I wasn’t sure how the pattern would look cut into triangles.

This image convinced me to go for it; make the cuts. I love seeing the little foxes poking out from their points.  I wasn’t afraid any more to make the cuts.

I pulled the fabrics again and had another look at the combinations.  I knew I would be using white for the background and I really wanted the combinations to be bright, bold, pops of colour.

I posted this image on Instagram and asked for feedback.  I was so lucky to get some. I wasn’t 100% comfortable, something just felt off with the selection and the feedback I received helped me put my finger on what was off.

So a bit more fiddling and sorting through my stash and I came up with a selection I was more comfortable with.

I had kept some of the combinations that I was really in love with and tweaked the ones I wasn’t happy with. I was ready to get to cutting.

This was the first time ever I had cut to such a tight pattern requirement – the whole fat quarter would be used.

I had cut into some of the fabrics in my selection as part of the Christmas stocking debacle and so they weren’t whole fat quarters.  I made up templates of the pieces I needed to cut out to make sure that there was enough fabric to cut.

Simple right… wrong. I still managed to screw it up.  The very first piece of fabric I cut into I was short 1 3.5″ square. I could have cried.

I put the call out over social media to see if anyone had a piece they were willing to swap me. I found a very generous soul and made arrangements to swap a piece.

I went back to cutting.  I cut another 2 pieces of fabric before I screwed up again and ruined another fat quarter.  With 2 pieces of fabric ruined I decided I would just bite the bullet and order in replacement fabrics.  (I checked my stash and there was nothing suitable to replace them with…)

I let my swap buddy know and decided to retire for the night.

The next morning I revisited my fabric choices and cutting. I made some tweaks based on how much fabric I had and continues to plug away with cutting.

 It became obvious that I wouldn’t have enough of some fabrics and it was as if the universe heard because that day I received a parcel of fabric I had won on Pile O’Fabric‘s site.

It was the new Joel Dewberry line; Notting Hill in Poppy. I nabbed a fat quarter from the bundle and added it to the selection.

Over the next couple of weeks I plugged away at cutting the blocks.

There’s 9 blocks in the pattern and I managed to ruin 4 of them through dodgy cutting. (I have learned a valuable lesson; no quilting after 9pm!)

Side note: because I don’t get to sit down and quilt in one go any more I store all my pieces in clipseal bags so that they don’t get mixed up and I know where I’m at with it all.

The final fabrics I have chosen are:

Swallow Skies in Gypsy & Meteor Shower in Sunset

Modern Monet Floral in Violet & Spa Ikat in Orange

Foxy Too in Blue & Daisy Dates in Cherry

Broken Herringbone in Pink & Sketch in Turquoise

Aviary Lattice in Lilac & Verona Dot in Rouge

Haystack in Fuchsia & Metro Living Circle in Chartreuse

Eyelet in Green & Metro Living Circles in Fuchsia

Apple Dot in Red & Historic Tiles in Poppy

Sketch in Nectar & Modern Colour Burst in Citrus

Background is Kona Snow

I’m so excited to start working on this quilt. I’ve lusted after quilts in this Flickr Group; The Swooning on a Hop Along.  I can’t wait to add my own blocks to this collection.