Great Mail Day!

I participated in Doll Quilt Swap 9.  Remember?  I sent this quilt to Karen in PA. The mailing date was Sept 1 for international, and Sept 8 for domestic mailings.

Well, the quilt sent to me seemed to be taking it’s time coming to me, so I figured it was coming from an international destination.  I was told it WAS coming.  So I was anxiously waiting, and waiting, and waiting. 

Finally yesterday TWO packages arrived on my doorstep.  Almost 2 months later.

My DQS9 quilt came from Vancouver, Canada.  It just got stuck along the way.  Karen, from Canada, must have been going crazy wondering where it was!

What a cool quilt she sent.  She was inspired by my flickr image galleries and created this wonderful work of art.

I love daisies and check out all those french knots she made for the center of the flower!  I can’t imagine how long that took!

Are you wondering about the second package?  Well, the swap mamas must have determined that they would send me an angel quilt since my LOVE quilt was taking so long to arrive.  Can you believe both quilts ended up arriving on the same day?

Carol is the amazing artist who made this pinwheel flower angel quilt and sent it to me.  Wasn’t that so sweet of her?

They are both up on my walls now. 

 

Thank you again Karen and Carol!  I just love them both!

Scrappy Pincushion Swap

My secret swap partner for the Scrappy Pincushion Swap likes birds. 

Originally I bought this book, planning to make something cute out of it:

There are so many cute projects inside these pages.  I picked one out and was excited about it.  But then I went to the San Diego Quilt Show at the Convention Center this past weekend and saw this cute pattern:

I loved the idea of it and the vintage salt shaker used as the base filled with small buttons. I bought it as a kit so it came with the salt shaker and fabric to complete the project.  But when I looked back at my partner’s blog and flickr photostream I decided she needed a more modern approach. 

I hope she will like my interpretation!

I am still waiting for my doll quilt to arrive from the doll quilt swap.  It must be coming from a far away location…I keep checking my mailbox and nothing yet.  Hopefully soon!  The one I sent off was received and she loved it! Yay!

Celebrating!

Lots of deadlines met today.  So I’m celebrating meeting them all and getting projects crossed off my list!

Tonight is card exchange and here are my cards, all ready to swap.  My card drawer is seeming a bit empty.  I guess I can blame that on missing card group last time (too much going on to participate), only swapping 1 card a couple times instead of 2, and giving away more cards than I am making!  I’ve got to stock up for Christmas gifts!  Not much time left for that.

Also got my DQS9 quilt off in the mail today!  Now I’m watching my mailbox closely wondering when mine will show up.  Can’t wait to find out who made me a quilt!

I also completed a little job I have of maintaining a craft show mailing list today and got the goods delivered.

Can’t wait to show you all the cute cards I get tonight.

DQS9 Update

My DQS9 quilt has actually been done for a few days (well, all except the label).  But we got the stomach bug at our house last week.  So I’ve been a little preoccupied.

I’ve have a little fun extra to put in with it, but it might give away too much information to my secret swap partner if I reveal it :).

Hope my partner likes my little creation.  It was fun to work with a different shape and get what was in my head translated into a quilt.

Since Monday is a holiday I’ll really be cutting it close, but it will be in the mail bright and early on Tuesday.

Sewing Update

Looking back I realized I never shared these 3.5 inch blocks I made for July/August bitty block committee on flickr.  The theme was ocean/beach.  So I decided to make these snails trail blocks since they remind me of waves.  Here are 9 of them, but I made 13 in all.

And here’s my doll quilt for DQS9 so far. 

This is the top.  Just need to quilt it and get it bound and labeled.  You can check out the amazing doll quilts that are being made here.  One of them will be mine.  Can’t wait to see!  The mailing deadline is Sept 8, but lots are already in the mail.

I finished up Mockingjay.  It was just the perfect way to spend my time for the first couple days the kids started back to school!

Summer Sewing

Today we’re working on a project for a friend who is having a baby boy.  Miss K is at the sewing machine right now as I type this.  

And here’s what I did last week.  I had fun designing this block and figuring out how I was going to piece it.  It is the beginning of my DQS9 doll quilt.  I’m still working on what the rest of the quilt will look like.  I have ideas, but I haven’t made any final decisions.  Hopefully the rest of the quilt will work out as well as the center did!

Dear Jane-ing

(One of my doll quilts was featured in a top five favorite list over on the doll quilt swap blog.  How fun is that!)

Believe it or not, I’m working on my Dear Jane blocks. (I know, shocker!)  It’s slow, but eventually we’ll get this thing done :).  Summer has been so busy, running my kids around, that I haven’t had much time for sewing or much of anything else!

Here’s a block I worked on yesterday.

I only had a little bit of the fabric left to make the second block, and I was worried that I was going to run out.  Luckily my sister had a bit more of it she would send to me if I needed it.

Amazingly when I got done piecing the center there were 2 strips left over and they were the perfect length for the outside borders.

Here are the scraps I had left…nothing big enough to do anymore piecing with.  I couldn’t believe it worked out just perfect!

I just love it when things like that happen!

Doll Quilt Swap 9

has begun!  There’s been a lot of chatter going on at the flickr group as sign-ups, acceptance, and matching up has been going on.  The anticipation has been building, and today we found out who our secret partners are.  Now the stalking, scheming, plotting and designing begins!

There are 200 of us participating so you can imagine the logistics of getting all those quilters organized and matched up.  The swap mamas are doing a fabulous job!

I’m excited about my secret partner!  I’ve been checking out everything I can about him/her.  He/She’s given me some good stuff to go on, so hopefully I can make something that he/she’ll love!

This is the 6th round that I’ve been able to participate in and it’s always so much fun!

Here are the quilts I’ve made for my partners in previous rounds: 

1. DQS4; 2 DQS5; 3 DQS6; 4 DQS7; 5 DQS7 (angel quilt); 6 DQS8

And here are the quilts I’ve received:

1. DQS4; 2. DQS5; 3. DQS6; 4. DQS6 (angel quilt); 5. DQS7; 6. DQS8

The deadline isn’t until September, so we have all summer to decide on and to create the perfect little quilt.  And it will be so fun to check out all the sneak peeks that are posted to the Doll Quilt Swap flickr pool.  That’s one of my favorite parts! There are some really talented artists involved so it’s so fun to see all the wonderful creations.

This swap, like so many others, has a button that participants can put on their blog.  Each round there has been a new button, and this time there was a contest.  Anyone who wanted to design a button could submit it to be voted on.  That sounded like fun, so I submitted a button and it ended up being the winner! 

So I’m looking forward to a fun round.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress!