Scandinavian Inspiration.

A while back our Border's went out of business.  I assume yours did too?!  As I was in there on one of it's final days, I found a sewing book on super clearance that I had been wanting.  I didn't pass that chance up, and Scandinavian Stitches has been on my bookshelf ever since.

It's divided into seasonal projects, based on the four seasons.  During November I started looking at the winter projects and started dreaming about making every single one!

My mother's ancestors are Scandinavian.  When I was drawing a blank as to what to get her for Christmas this year, I decided it should be something from this book.  Enter, The January Quilt:

The pattern was straight forward, and I was able to pull from my stash all those different shades of blue!  I had everything on hand that I needed to make this project!

Other than the fox, my next favorite part of the project was how you were supposed to quilt the snow with starts.  I did free motion stars there in the snow!  I thought it was a brilliant idea.  The sky was supposed to have cloud shapes.  I managed to do it a few times, but it proved to be super tricky to get my hands and brain to do that cloud shape.  Go figure!

It was a very satisfying project, and I was happy to send it off to my mom, where she's going to use it as a seasonal wall hanging.

Of course, once you start looking through Scandinavian Stitches, it's really hard to not want to make one of everything.  I love the idea of seasonal decorating.  Which is why I'm dreaming of finding the time to make this sweet spring inspired scene.  Don't you want one too?!