OPAM and Initial Heart Swap

For January and a little late....

I signed up with  Peg at Happy in Quilting to join the OPAM challenge.  For those that haven't seen this before, OPAM stands for One Project a Month.  The idea is very simple......participants try to finish at least one project a month, be it quilting, sewing, knitting..... a "soft" craft.....and at the end of each month we post pictures of our item/s and a tally.  Thankfully it's a low-stress challenge, so no OPAM police banging on my door if I don't manage to finish anything.  Whew, sounds like my kind of challenge!  I decided to join because I have a few ...ahem!....ufo's tucked away, and a few projects I want to make, and this will hopefully motivate me to get on and finish some things.  And with other participants visiting to see what I get up to, I'll have a cheer squad to keep me going.....thanks ladies.

I only managed one finished project for January, and the reason I'm late posting for OPAM is that it was my gift in the Initial Heart Swap, and I couldn't show a picture until my swap partner had received her gift.  My swap partner was none other than Peg who organises OPAM, and she let me know yesterday her parcel had arrived, so I can show you what I made her now.

For this swap, we had to make a gift of a heart with our partner's initial on it.  The gift could be an actual heart, or a heart on something.  So I made Peg this little mini-quilt with embroidery and applique.  I stalked Peg's blog and saw on an older post that she liked linen, so I used a soft blue-grey linen for the background.  The design is a mix of ideas....I saw the quote on a poster on Pinterest and thought maybe I could incorporate it somehow with the "heart" somewhere as part of my swap gift, then I remembered a pretty little vintage caravan my fellow blogger Maria  here at The Next Stage had embroidered that I particularly liked, and decided an appliqued van would do nicely with the quote.

Thanks to Cheryll here for organising the Initial Heart Swap.


....til next time