Friday Finishes - Modern Quilt Guild Swap!

The Modern Quilt Guild hosted its first swap and even though I have so many things to do and get finished I had to sign up,  I didn't want to miss the first swap and thought they are only little, mini quilts, of course I can spare the time.  And am I glad I did!

This gorgeous mini arrived in the post to me this week!  Thanks you Shelly for such a perfectly happy, totally me mini!  I have the perfect spot for it near my sewing machine! 

This is the finished mini I made and it has safely arrived with its new owner.  Thanks Cecilia for the photo - I couldn't resist bringing it to our guild meeting just before popping it in the post!

Each of those little hourglasses are 2" square so it was a little bit fiddly but great fun to work with.

The quilting pattern was straight lines using Christa's fractured line design I saw on her class (The Quilters Path) on Craftsy and the label was made using the embroidery function on my Husqvarna from a pattern on Urban Threads.

For the first time ever I decided to make a biggie for myself as well as a mini to give away.  I thought I was going great guns yesterday evening finished the flimsy until I realised I'd made 2 piecing mistakes - that's what happen when you sew when tired, cranky and sporting a neck injury! 

Oh well, I can take my time rippity rip ripping this evening!  I really like the low volume background fabrics and was thinking about leaving it be but then decided no, get it right.  I might just write this up as a pattern and it needs to be perfect for that!

So that's my plan for the weekend sewing.  I do hope to follow along a bit with the not going to Quiltcon on Instagram too.  It will cheer me up while I rip and redo! 
Happy weekend everybody!

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap

When I shared a photo like this one on Instagram describing how much fun I was having shredding fabric I got some very quick reactions.  The fabrics were from my scrap basket of prints and solids so not the end of the world if my exploration into confetti quilting didn't work out!

I had an idea for the quilt I wanted to make for the Schnitzel & Boo round 3 mini swap but it didn't seem to fit right with my partners taste in fabric.  My swap partner is a big Lori Holt fan liking white backgrounds and clear bright colours.  So instead of an orange peel multi-coloured project I decided to give this technique a try. 

I saw this project by Kerry @ Pennydog Quilting in this months Popular Patchwork magazine.  It involves chopping up fabric with your rotary cutter and using fusible to hold some of the pieces in place.  Cover with sheer net and quilt over it. 

I really liked the idea of it for clear bright rainbow colours so thought I'd go for it with letters instead!

I printed these using a font called Berlin Sans FB Demi and used them to cut templates from fusible paper and trace on the fabric background (Kona Snow) with an air erasable fabric marker.  It allowed me to place the fusible letters and then sprinkle the fabric pieces in place.

I initially thought about using the water soluble stuff that you quilt over and then washes out but i couldn't find any so I stuck with Kerry's instructions and bought some fine lightweight tulle that is used for wedding veils!  It practically disappears over the bright white fabric.

To keep it in place I handstitched around the letters with perle cotton.  I hoped this would give the letters some definition too.

I did get a good bit of pulling  and puckering after the handstitching and was a little worried at this stage that this letter idea was not going to work!  I may have overstuffed them a little bit too!

Thankfully after trimming around the letters and cutting into the net the tension in the piece relaxed quite a bit.

I was quite careful on the basting too and spray basted the back, wadding and top together.  Then I made sure it was a smooth as could be and pin basted near the letters too.

It worked a treat and flattened it back into shape!

Even under the net the pieces move quite a bit so a dense quilting pattern is recommended.  I decided I'd try coloured matchstick quilting. 

I had previously made a cushion and used this technique with just white and quickly got bored with it.  Changing up the colours and straight line quilting this small piece went very quickly and was really lots of fun!

I used 9 different threads, 3 variegated and 6 solids in colours close to the rainbow letters.  Threads were Auriful 40wt and YLI 50 wt.   I used a light and a dark and spaced them 1/8" approx apart.

This round in the Schnitzel & Boo mini quilt swap is trying to support animal rescue which is a subject near to my heart.  Our Basset Wilbur is a rescue that was very close to being put to sleep.  If it wasn't for the volunteers and kindness of Ash Animal Rescue, Wilbur would not be with us. Even he decided to leave his mark on this quilt!  

Every now and again Wilbur gets bored of sleeping and eating and wants some attention (Bassets are incredibly lazy dogs!).  He has a long bony nose that he likes to stick under your arm and flip very quickly into the air.  It's funny most of the time except when you have a cup of tea or are quilting.  There is one really wobbly line because of this that I'm calling the Wilbur wobble.  As it is a special cause we are supporting I decided to leave it be and not rip it out!

Charly, on the other hand, spent the day watching out for the neighbour's cat and tearing into a new toy my cousin sent from the states as part of a Christmas parcel.    The rest of us were ignored completely!

Leaving me to crack on and finish the quilting complete with Wilbur wobble.  I was quite surprised by how much the letters changed with the matchstick quilting.  They got well and truly squished and G in our sewing group described them as organic looking. Not what I expected!

I chose purple for the binding and finished it up with a label on the back prepared for the quilt swap by Ali.  I can't show you the label as it is a secret swap and this mini is going in the post this Friday! 

Really hope by partner likes this.  It's not quite the clean and crisp Lori Holt style that I intended but it was a real learning and quilting exploration all the same!  I did put a bit of work into it and tried my best to make it work.  I hope to make up for it by adding in lots of goodies.   Fingers crossed she's not expecting something completely different!

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt swap round 3!

So with everything going on, Christmas swaps, Night Sky Quilt -A-Long, writing my second pattern and making table runners and cushions for family, I decided to join another swap!

Received in swap round 1 - thanks Christina!

Made for swap 1

I really enjoyed rounds 1 and 2 of the Schnitzel & Boo Make a Quilt, Make a Friend swap, so I didn't want to leave myself out of this one.  Plus this one is on Instagram and not the usual blog/Flickr platforms, and I wanted to see how that would work in comparison to the last two swaps.  There has been a lot of talk on Instagram taking over from blogs and some people trying to cut down on social media are avoiding Facebook and deleting Flickr accounts in favour of Instagram.  A really good blog post looking at this is Whipstich's I thought it might be Instagram but it looks like its your phone's fault.

Made for round 2

Received in swap round 2 - thanks Lisa!

I like Instagram.  I like the simple picture format and the back and forth one line banter - seems to me a bit of Twitter and a bit of Flickr combined.  I miss the longer discussions though and for me still prefer the blog.  I've been on Flickr since 2008 and have a bit of an emotional attachment to it!  And I like big pictures.  I have a large smartphone Galaxy Note 2 and still would prefer to see bigger images but Instagram is not designed for PC.  Sure I can do the pinchy thing and zoom in but I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on something on Instagram.  So many hashtags, so many images in my feed and I only follow 180 people. Is that too many?  Swaps and de-stashes seem to happen and I've blinked and missed them.    Do I need to be more selective?

Anyway, I'm jumping in with both feet this time around to see what happens and this is my mosaic for my swap partner as inspiration.  I normally try and pick 16 likes and do a 4 x 4 to give a good selection but conscious of this going on IG I made it 3x3 so they wouldn't be too tiny - change in format is already having an influence on me and my decisions!

1. Diamonds mini quilt, 2. beautiful applique, 3. Thimble Blossoms Dwell Mini, 4. sewing machine cover, 5. Forest mini quilt, 6. The Snow Ball Mini Quilt, 7. Girl's Weekend Swap - My mini for Elena, 8. Pretty in Patchwork Doll Quilts, 9. DQS 13 Ready to Send!!

Still I'm looking forward to another mini quilt swap.  The social nature of sharing in progress and making with a secret partner in mind is great fun regardless of platform.  I will keep you updated of progress here on the blog and on IG and for old times sake I'm posting to Flickr too!

In the spirit of being social I'm linking up to Lorna at

Virtual Design Wall Monday - Scrappy Swoon

One of the swaps I took part in last year and enjoyed immensely was organised by Schnitzel & Boo.  Over 200 of us took part in making mini-quilts 6" square to 24" square maximum.  I made this applique mini quilt for my partner in Washington, USA and I received this quilt from New Jersey from Christina.

This year 600 people signed up!  I got my partners information over the weekend and as it is a secret swap I can't follow her officially but I have been having a look at her website and favourites on Flickr trying to figure out what to make for her.  Yes I've been stalking!  Only occasion I can think of when this is actually a good thing!

My swap partner loves Thimble blossoms, bright colours, Rainbow quilts and Heather Ross.  Now I have no Heather Ross prints in my stash (I know, I should probably go shopping!) but I do have a book and pattern or two by Camille Roskelly of Thimble blossoms fame.  I love bright rainbow colours so have a bit of that on hand and that got me thinking.  How about a Rainbow Scrappy Swoon?

I couldn't help myself, I had to play with background colours.  I really like the black background on this but I think my swap partner would like the white. There's even a nice square in the middle for a fussy cut something (this could be good place for a Heather Ross print if I can find one!)

The Swoon block is 24.5" and I think I could be forgiven a 0.5" over on size.  More than likely shrink on quilting too as I think this could be a great candidate for trying out matchstick quilting!

Of course I didn't stop there on my virtual design wall.  How about 4 mini swoons with space for 5 fussy cut prints?   I could definitely see this in a 60" quilt to brighten up the living room.  Is this one a bit too much for a mini?

Linking up to Design wall Monday and