Fabric Basket Swap Goodies

I got my anticipated fabric basket and goodies last week.  It was well worth the wait.  I got the Noodlehead divided basket, some zippers, embroidery thread, sewing case and a cute wall hanging.  I appreciate the time and effort that my partner put into both fabricating the the basket and wall hanging and coming up with what goodies to share.  The goody part is always hard for me.  It is hard to guess what your partner would like.  I am pleased as punch.  Have not figured out what to put in my basket yet but I am sure I will come up with something good.

I finished up my Anything Goes Quilt.  I was in a strip swap where the theme was anything goes.  There are a whole lot of "interesting" fabrics in this quilt.  I made a pledge to myself to use up items from my stash so this is my way of making a charity quilt from fabric that I would not necessarily choose for myself.

I used the Wistful pattern from Villa Rosa Designs.  It was a bit time-consuming to cut but I like the result.  

Swaps and Bees and Charity Quilts

I have been very busy with my swaps, bee and charity quilts.  I am in a Hexie Bee.  I made my first hexie block last month.  I finally got it sent off to England today.  She wanted hexies sewn in the shape of a sewing machine.  My size was 1" hexies.  Those were pretty easy compared to the one flower hexie shape she wanted out of 1/4" hexies.  That was a challenge.  See the picture below.

See how teeny that flower is.  I don't think I have a 1/4" hexie quilt or any other project in my future.  It was fun.  The very first time I have put hexies together.  I have some basted and waiting to be put in a project but had not done the actual whipstitching.  It wasn't hard once I got the hang of it.  Next month's project is a teeny easier.

I finally cut the threads off the back of my charity quilt for Hand 2 Help.  My quilt is going to go to Happy Chemo.  The pattern is from "Scrap Republic" by Emily Cier.  I am sure that I have other quilts from that book in my future since I have so many scraps.  I pieced the back from lots of pink prints.  I quilted along the edges of my log cabin strips.

I also managed to get three more blocks done on my City Sampler.  They are shown here on my very own autographed copy of Tula Pink's book.  

I have acquired quite a few yellow, black and white fabrics to use in my sampler.  I also participated in a rainbow charm square swap.  I mailed two yards of fabric cut into 56 charms. My colors were blue and purple.  I used a blue from Simply Color and Laurie Wisburn's Tufted Tweets for my swap fabric.

Forget to snap a photo of the blue but it was the Ikat pattern.  

Fabric Basket Swap

I finished up my basket for my fabric basket swap.  I used a tutorial on Leslie's Art and Sewing.  It was pretty easy to follow. I made a sample with some polka dot purple fabric first and then made the blue one I was planning on giving.

I loved the polka dot one so much better.  So the polka dot basket is going to my swap partner.  Hope she likes it. I then made a polka dot matching folder for the postcard quilt patterns from Villarose patterns.  My friend Jessica carries all the patterns since her "quilty mom" is the author of the patterns.  Jessica even has some patterns of her own under the label Homegrown. I still have to run by the store and get some velcro for the tab.  As you can see from the picture it is flying in the wind.  I also threw in some mini-charm packs  and a spool of some pretty green Mettler thread. I really had a good time with this swap.  I would do another basket swap any day.  Hmmm.  Good idea for an Austin Modern Quilt Guild swap.

Villarose Patterns and Mini-Charm Packs

Pattern Card Holder 

Blue Basket

Block Swap

I was on vacation for a week so this weekend I was catching up on chores.  I did manage to get my block done for my Block Swap.  She wanted mauve and green.

As usual I went to Quilt Pro to find a design and then resized to 12" and printed out my cutting instructions.  I find Quilt Pro very handy when my swap partner does not specify what block they want.

I had a lovely Mother's Day.  I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my oldest son and my middle son sent me a gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop.  I do admit I sent him a hint.  They had 20% off gift certificates.  My husband got me a Craftsy class and an autographed copy of Tula Pink's "City Sampler".  Can't wait to get that baby in the mail.  I do have the book on my Kindle and it really comes in handy in the block making process.  You can use you finger to flip pages back and forth and you don't have to flatten the book out to get it to stay on the page you want.  It does have a disadvantage in that you can't flip through the book very easily to see the blocks that are coming up.  Now I will have the advantage of both.

Flea Market Fancy Quilt

I finally got out my Russian Rubix pattern and all the pieces I had started cutting for my very special quilt using my remaining stash of the original Flea Market Fancy.  I cut my strips into squares and started trimming my hexie's.  I had started this quilt with fabric I did not love it so I stopped in the middle and started this.  Getting out the project was prompted by my offer on my City Samplers QAL to give my FMF scraps from this project to the first person who put up a picture.  I hope to have my hexie's trimmed up by the weekend.  I still have to cut up my triangles and sashing pieces.

Russian Rubix Quilt with FMF

I had bought mostly pink fabrics.  As you can see below I put the yellow posy in with my scraps.  I had enough fabric for the baby size quilt without it. I even threw in some salvages.  Got to love those salvages.

FMF Scraps

Quilt Labels and a Give-Away

I just spent most of the afternoon and evening churning out four quilt labels that I needed to get done.  As usual, it was hit or miss with my Singer embroidery machine and the chosen design.  Urghh.  Done at last.  Here is one ready to be finished.

I finished my two blocks for my Block Swap Adventure this morning.  My partner wanted scrappy and I didn't know if that meant scrappy modern or scrappy traditional so I made one of each.  

I finished up blocks 5 and 6 for my City Sampler QAL last night.  The pieces were not so teeny so they went together smoother.  Had to give that project a rest today to get the rest of my stuff done.  

Block #5

Block #6

I am feeling motivated to share some of my swag from Quiltcon.  Please leave a comment and I will select at random on Friday the 26th.  It is a 6" charm pack by Free Spirit called Essentials.  Mostly dark blenders.  

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:1   Powered by RANDOM.ORG

I have a winner.  Number 1.  Gina I am sending you an email.  Please send me your address so I can send you your charm pack.

City Sampler Blocks 1-4

Well I got two more blocks done for the Tula Pink City Sampler QAL.  Maybe using solid black for some of my pieces was not too great an idea.  You can really tell on those 1" rectangles that finish at 1/2".  I will keep plugging on and try to perfect my quarter inch seams.  And perfect quarter inch seams are a must in order to get the block pieces to fit together correctly.