dqs10 - received!

I finally got my doll quilt from round 10 of the Doll Quilt Swap! It arrived in my mailbox on Monday, all the way from Canberra, Australia! The lovely Leah of PuggleLogic made me this beautiful abstract quilt entitled "Birch in Winter".



With the quilt came a sweet little card and a Cherry Ripe chocolate bar. At least I think it's chocolate. I've never heard of it, but I'm excited to try it!

My photos definitely don't do this little quilt justice. The quilting is phenomenal! I don't know where Leah learned to quilt like that, but I am seriously jealous of her skills.



Thanks again Leah, I was super happy to get your quiltjavascript:void(0) in my mailbox!

DQS10 - complete!

It's done! And a week ahead of time, no less. A freaking miracle by my standards!

It took me weeks of doodling and waffling on all sorts of ideas, but about 2 weeks ago I finally decided on a plan and got to work. I was feeling pretty intimidated considering my swap partner said she likes more traditional patchwork and I don't usually work in that style.

I feel like it turned out pretty well!



There are definitely some wonky bits and some cut off points, but I did the best I could and I am happy with how it turned out. Of course, once I was done all the blocks, I looked up a tutorial today and found out it would have been way easier to assemble them as 4 patches instead of in rows like I was building a log cabin. Oh well, live and learn. Next time I will try it the other way.



The back is pretty simple. I added a pieced in label and since my partner won't get it for another week or so, I have covered her name to keep it a surprise. I also added a little hanging sleeve which is a first for me. I don't know why I had never done that before.



I also made a fun little reversible mug rug to go along with it. I hadn't made one yet and since they are very "of the moment" I thought it would be fun to add. I guess if I had to pick, technically this would be the front. Originally I was going to quilt it in concentric organic circles, but I got about 4 circles in and hated it, so I changed to straight lines.



And here is the back. Totally improv, and I think I might like it more than the front.



I also included a little hand written letter and a bundle of some favourite scraps. I wanted to send more, but shipping internationally from Canada costs an arm and a leg, so I had to try and keep the weight down. I actually really wanted to add this neat Kath Kidston book I have, but clearly that would have added too much weight.

I'm super glad to have been able to participate in this round of the Doll Quilt Swap, and will definitely sign up for the next round! Now I just have to post this little package tomorrow and sit back and wait for my little quilty to arrive.

DQS10

I. Can't. Believe it!

I GOT IN!

After trying to get in last round but not getting picked in the lottery, I am so excited to be participating in a swap with such stellar quilters! I'm feeling a tad intimidated, but I have lots of time to try a few things before I have to settle and finish.

In an effort to help my partner out I created an inspiration mosaic because well, I have like 20 pages of favourites and that is just a lot to go through. Here is my top 25 I came up with:



I am so looking forward to creating something unique for my partner and I sure hope that he/she loves it! And of course, I can't wait to see what wonderful little quilty I get in return.

I will try to add progress/updates and photos as often as possible during the process.

mini quilts - july/august

I posted previously about the amazing mini quilt I received from CASharp via the monthly (now bi-monthly) swap I participate in via Flickr.

Here's a quick recap:



UH-Mazing! Right?

This is what I finished for her:



This was my first experiment with half-square triangles, and even though they were a TON of work, I am in love! So much fun, AND as an added bonus, the entire quilt was made from scraps. Yay!

After I had finished piecing the zig-zags, I felt like it needed something extra special, so I added the embroidery.



I actually had a really good time doing up the embroidery part. It was really fun to watch it come together.

Since the swap is now bi-monthly, I signed up for both the anything goes swap and the themed swap. For the themed swap, I was so lucky to get paired with my dear friend Krissy. She is relatively new to quilting, like me and not only did we get to swap, but we got the opportunity to work on ours together (IN PERSON!) Okay, that may not seem like a big deal, but I have known Krissy since grade 5, and after many years of tumultuous friendship, we went to different Universities and have not seen much of each other since then. And when I say tumultuous, what I mean is, I spent years being a jerk and picking on Krissy and she spent years putting up with it and loving me anyways. (Thanks Kris!)

Well, as previously mentioned, we got a chance to go on vacation this summer, for the first time since our honeymoon 3 years ago. We chose to go to Portland to visit Krissy and it was awesome! We spent a total of about 2 hours in the entire week sewing, but oh well.

Anyways, here is what I sent to her:



The theme was landscapes, and I wanted to send her an aerial landscape to represent the amount of time she's spent flying and driving across Canada and the States in the last few years.

This is what I got in return:



Again, UH-Mazing!! I love the different fabrics she chose and the amazing job she did on the trees and the mountain. I *think* it's Mt. Hood...Right Krissy? Please comment and remind me!
Anyways, I'm in love and now it's on my wall with it's quilty friends.

So thank you to CASharp and Krissy for such a great swap experience and for sending me such beautiful minis, they are fantastic!

what i did on my summer vacation: part two

Powell's!


(Borrowed from Peyri's Photostream)

What can I say about this place? It's fantastic! I didn't actually spend a whole lot of time there but I loved what I saw. 5 stories filled to the bring with new and old books and all sorts of fun bits and pieces. A true book lovers paradise.

The reason I didn't spend much time there was because we took our sweet time checking out Bolt.


(Borrowed from john.murden's Photostream)

What a cool store! Easily my favourite fabric store outside of Canada. Cute, chock full of great fabric and patterns and super nice helpful staff. I found myself a delicious pile of fabric (after more than an hour of circling the store over and over again).



In that pile there is some stuff I don't recognize, but there are some serious treats there too. Some Far Far Away II, some Momo, some Echino. And all at wonderful, reasonable American prices!

I also picked up a pattern:



I LOVE this pattern! My problem is I don't have anyone to make it for. I guess I could make it for cute little Miss A, but I thought it wouldn't be fair if C didn't get something too. Unfortunately, there haven't been any totally awesome boys patterns that have caught my eye. I'll have to keep thinking on that one.

One of the things I had planned on doing was quilting with Krissy. We managed to pull each other's names in the August swap for Swap Till You Drop and had planned on finishing our quilts together and exchanging. Unfortunately (fortunately?), we did SO much adventuring while we were there we didn't really get more than an hour or so in. Oh well!

Krissy's mini is getting finished as I type (or well, not as I TYPE per-say because clearly I don't have more than 2 hands, but you know what I mean) and the plan is to send it out on Tuesday. More on that when it's done.

mini quilt: favourite things

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.  Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.  Brown paper packages tied up with string.  These are a few of my favourite things!"





I have officially finished my second mini quilt!  This one was for the month of June in the STUD (Swap Till You Drop) mini quilt swap group.  I was lucky to be partnered up with sweetteamom.  Our theme for the month was "Movies."

Initially, I was really excited about the theme and thought it would be easy coming up with a concept.  Movies are an endless source of inspiration, right?  The idea was to send your partner your favourite movie as inspiration for the mini they were to make you.  Neither my partner or I could decided on just one movie as inspiration (the first of many problems) so we each sent a list of 5 movies (and a tv show!) for each other to choose from.  I sent:   Up, Toy Story, Garden State, Willy Wonka (the original), The Office and The Big Bang Theory.  Sweetteamom sent: Willy Wonka (the new one), Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, Psych, Breakfast at Tiffany.

Her list is pretty great!  Originally I had thought about doing the iconic picture of Audrey Hepburn from the Breakfast at Tiffany poster.  Then I thought about the opening scene from Sound of Music.  When both of those concepts failed, I turned to "Favourite Things."  (As it turns out, my partner was having some trouble coming up with a working concept as well so we agreed to extend our June 30 deadline and try again.)



I`m not really sure how "Favourite Things" slipped my mind to begin with.  Who hasn't had that song stuck in their head before?  (Before I go any further I should make the shocking confession that ... wait for it ... I have never actually seen The Sound of Music.  I know!!  I'll have to remedy that soon.)

After many hours spent cruising Flickr for inspiration, I decided that rather than a whole lot of applique (which I am currently boycotting because I want to by some Lite Steam a Seam 2 but refuse to pay the marked up prices of The Store That Shall Not Be Named) I would try my hand at foundation piecing.  I figured I could try it out in preparation for (hopefully) someday making the Geese in the Forest quilt by Twiddletails, and if it turns out I hated it then it would only have to be for this quilt.

It took me days to either track down or create the patterns for the first five items in the Favourite Things song.  It was painful.  But it's done, and I'm happy.  Other than the foundation piecing (which I may just be crazy enough to try again, and only because Twiddletails makes it look easy) I got a chance to try some embroidery.  My favourite bit is the phrase "these are a few of my favourite things".  I grabbed a couple of fonts off Word and traced the words onto the fabric before embroidering so it would be perfect.

I sure hope sweetteamom likes it!

my first mini quilt

I recently joined the Swap Till You Drop (or STUD as it's known) group on Flickr. It's a monthly mini quilt swap with a different theme each month. This month's theme was "Wish You Were Here" and we were supposed to create a mini quilt that was representative of where we live. I took that literally and made a quilted map.

This was my inspiration:



A GooleMap of my community, which by the way is a giant circle with a shopping area in the middle. I think it looks really neat on a map.

And here is the finished product:



I think it turned out pretty well! And major bonus, it only took a couple of hours. I'm not actually sure who long exactly, but I think it was about 3 hours of piecing and quilting and then another 40 minutes or so to bind and label.



The backing is a piece of Heather Bailey fresh cut fabric. I believe that the flowers are roses (correct me if I am wrong) and so I chose it because the official provincial flower of Alberta is the wild rose. It even says it on our license plates! Alberta - Wild Rose Country.



Finally, the label is written in Sharpie (oops, I didn't have a fabric marker, and there was just too much writing to consider embroidering it). And I grabbed an iron on Canadian Flag patch from (gasp) the hated Fabricland. (Geez, for someone who hates it so much, I sure do get a lot of things from there.

I'm happy. I was inspired by these wonderful people who make the most gorgeous hand stitched map quilts.  one day I hope to do one similar to theirs, but for now I will settle for some machine stitching.


P.S. For those of you who are here via Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day list, check the previous post for my giveaway and to comment. If you like the blog, please consider following!