Made It: Swappers Anonymous

A year and a half ago (early 2013) two friends and I decided to do a little private swap! I was so excited! It is always fun making things for people you know and love!  Well, we started last spring, and decided to set the deadline for May or June... Tommy was born the end of April, so it was kind of busy, but definitely doable. Well, then there were some delays for other people and we decided to push it back, and back some more. Then I was teaching at the Sewing Summit last year, and that was REALLY busy, and right after that we moved to Florida... so anyway, our deadline became a bit fleeting on my end and it became a slow project amidst everything else going on. I think it was last December or maybe January of this year (?) that I finally finished up one project. Then we moved from Florida to Idaho and there goes more delays... I finally finished the other package this summer... but I don't think I really shared much of it. Anyway... I shared one picture on Instagram yesterday, and decided I should share everything because I received some amazing gifts that I just LOVE! :)


I'll start with the goodies I received. :)

Marika made me some amazing placemats and napkins (she did make me 6 of each - some must be in the wash). As well as a cute clutch. I love these placemats! They really are the most perfect colors!! We use them all the time, and I've probably washed them a bajillion times. Which means maybe I should have ironed them before photographing them, oh well. I think they are awesome in all their crinkly goodness! ;)

Tiffany made me the best pillow ever! Again, my favorite colors! I LOVE it! It lives on our couch and is one of my favorites! I ended up making my own insert from it from some other pillows that exploded in our dryer when I washed them. oops. :) But it works perfectly!

 

She also made me some cute fabric baskets that are perfect in my cubbies by my sewing area. love!

Here is what I made.

First I made this super cute fox hoop for Tiffany! I used the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery pattern from the Woodland Sampler, and simply enlarged it and added a few more dandelions.

I can't remember how large the hoop is, maybe 6 inches? So this is way bigger than the pattern.

A also made her this sewing machine cover. I love how it turned out. The color scheme is not one I have made much in, but I really love it! It is paper pieced, and some of those strips are super thin. It took for.ever. But I think it was definitely worth it! I love the design! I'd love to scale it up and do a quilt with this! Or it would be cute for a mini or mug rug or something. Anyway, it was really fun!

 I didn't get any really good pictures of the entire thing, but here's the best one.

 modeling over my smaller sewing machine. ;)

 Here's a shot of the back, showing off the quilting. I did really close wavy lines, but went around the x's.

I also sent some Lizzy House charms that she had mentioned earlier that she loved.

For Marika I made a Celestial Star Pillow. I really love the bold colors and the how the border pattern wraps around the pillow. This is definitely a favorite! and all of my family was SO sad when I sent it away (my son and my hubby were heart broken that it wasn't for them. lol.) :)

and how it looks on a pillow form. I like how the border wraps around.

I hand stitched the top, and I really like how subtle it is.

Here's a good shot of the border pattern.

I lucked out with the back - the pattern matches up so close on each side of the zipper!

I also made a tissue cover from some Anna Maria Horner Good Folks prints (the inside print is from the Pretty Potent collection), and included some more goodies, as well as some Erin McMorris charms and scraps.

I know I was super delayed with so much going on in life, but it was fun! I hope my gifts are loved and used as much as the gifts I received! It really is special to have some home made goodies around the house. :) Thanks Tiffany and Marika!!!


Ps. Don't forget to link up your finished Celestial Star projects on THIS POST! Winners will be picked and announced Monday morning!

Calling for Mini Quilt Swap Particpants!

Have you heard of the Little Quilt Swap - Sew, Vote, Swap! group on Flickr?? I participated for a few rounds a few years ago when it just started and it was so much fun!!


Here's how it works:

• You make ANY mini you want!! You don't start with a partner, you don't have an inspiration mosaic to go off of, you simply make whatever you want. You can make 1 OR 2 minis.
• The mini needs to be between 12 inch square and 20 inches square. It does not have to be square, just not smaller than 12" and not larger than 20". It can be rectangle, diamond, circle, square, hexagon, etc. (must be finished, so quilted and bound).
• more details on the requirements can be found HERE.

Once your mini is made, you send a picture to the group mama. They upload all the quilt photos to the flickr pool anonymously! Sounds awesome, huh?! No one has any idea who made what. So that means no sneak peek photos!

Once the deadline for entries closes, everyone gets a form (or however they do it now) and you vote on every quilt, your favorite is number 1, next favorite is 2, etc. maybe that's not right, maybe your most favorite is the largest number? Anyway, they work it out. Whoever's quilt gets the most votes, or is the most favorited, gets their number 1 pick. The next person to get the most votes get their favorite quilt, unless it's already taken and they get their next top pick. So on and so forth. It is a really fun way of organizing it!

The better mini quilt you submit (hint, take really good photos too!) then the more likely you are at getting your top pick!! (If you submit 2 mini quilts then you will receive 2 mini quilts!)


And just had a walk down memory lane! lol. Here is my first entry quilt (embarrassed - it's so crooked. But my now good friend received it and said she loved it! So happy to swap with friends!) :)

Kate Spain's fandango line. 

I am actually destashing the rest of this jelly roll if anyone is interested! The only pieces missing are what you see here, about 10" off each print. ($40+shipping). Send me an email with your paypal if you are interested. oops, didn't make this into a selling post...)

Here was my entry for the Christmas swap, I really liked it! and miss it just a little bit now. ;)

Here's the Christmas mini I received. I still love taking this out every Christmas season and hanging it up! :) (I really don't like the way flickr photos are embedded anymore, and that you can browse right from the webpage, but it's kind of cool for now because you can get an idea of some of the minis that were exchanged a few years ago anyway. Visit the group page to see them all!) :)

For the Christmas swap my mini wasn't the highest voted mini, but I still got my number one pick because it wasn't the top pick of the people above me. So if your quilt isn't the most popular, that does not at all mean that you still won't walk away with your favorite mini!! That's the beauty of it since everyone has different tastes. It's great! The other mini I won is perfect in Mabel's room and we use it as a little kitchen rug and keep it with her kitchen set. And the little doggy sleeps on it. :) Perfect. :)



Anyway...

Their current round's deadline for entries just got pushed back to October 30th. They don't have enough participants this round and if they don't get at least 4 more, I think, then it will close and the round will be canceled. I really don't have the time right now to enter, but it's such a fun group so I'd hate for it to close. If you are at all interested, head on over!!! 

You could even do double time, make a celestial star mini, finish by the deadline of Oct 5th for my Celestial Star QAL and then swap it in this group!! :) (that might be crazy though... lol.)

I hope you are all having a great weekend!!

W.i.P. Wednesday {2/6/12}

Hello! :) Today is the last day to enter the giveaway for a free copy of My First Alphabet, a paper piecing pattern. You can enter HERE. I am loving everyone's ideas for what they would do with it! Thanks for making my to-do list longer. ;)

I feel like I've been having Crafters ADD times a million lately. I am working on so many things, or at least feel like it. I keep going around in circles from one project to the next, but honestly, I think the variety helps keep me motivated and I feel like I'm accomplishing a lot. 

In the sewing area I have been working on my DQS13 mini. Here's where I'm at right now... 

I started with just a corner of it, and actually have one more row to test. I was SO nervous about how these colors were going to come together, but I am really loving it! I hope my partner does too! The single squares are 2.5" finished, and I have 39 more to go AFTER I finish this next row. They are small and the pattern is simple enough, so it goes fairly fast. :) It's my Starburst pattern (you can find it on Craftsy or Etsy).

I am also almost finished with a new cover for our mini trampoline. The original one got shredded!

New! and my little drummers.
I am hoping this one will hold up a lot better. ;)
I used some Home Dec fabric by Jessica Jones. Nice to finally use this from my stash.

All I have left to do is make wholes for the legs to go through. We will be jumping in style now! :)

I've also been slowly adding onto this project:

1" finished HST's. It makes me just a little bit mad (as in crazy) but I am loving it. I will be turning it into a knitting roll, similar to the one I made for the Sew Sew Modern swap. So excited to have something nice for myself for once. ;)

(ps. I'm still waiting for my items to arrive and I am DYING!!! It is so hard to watch everything awesome get snatched up and wonder what is going to be left for me... even though it's all awesome so I am in no way disappointed. The suspense is just killing me!)

While I was waiting for my Woodland Sampler to arrive, yep, I'm jumping on board with that one. I decided to do a little cross stitch of my own and came up with a little surprise. I want to have this up in the next few days... I want to make a million of these! (this is actually my second one!)

I don't think I've done any crossstitch since I was in elementary school, maybe jr. high. I LOVE it! It's so relaxing and fun. I'm really excited for my new, easy to travel with, project!

Though I want to turn it into a calendar instead of just a single panel. I'm using this cute button calendar from I heart Patchwork as my inspiration.

I am also slowly working on my honey cowl. Mostly just in the car while my hubby drives. I think I am officially the slowest knitter in the world! But I'm determined to finish it.

As for a finish, I made up this cute little zippy pouch for a good friend. It was her birthday on Sunday, and since we still had sickies, we all stayed home and it's still sitting on my desk. She'll get it this weekend at least. :)

I used some remix dots (I think) for Robert Kaufman. I picked them up at Sew Mama Sew while they were having a good sale. Love it! And the dots are awesome for spacing out my stitching. Wahoo!

The inside with a little pocket.

and I added a zipper pull. :)

It looks more like a St. Patrick's Day present with all the green. lol. :)


OH! and on the computer front (I told you I've been multitasking!) ;) I finished up the UPPERCASE letters of the new My ABC's pattern. Except we ran out of printer ink so I can't test it. It may be another few weeks before this one gets released. I'm excited about it though. and then the lowercase will be next.

Linking up at Freshly Pieced!

On the schedule for tomorrow... potty training. 

Wish me luck!

Sew Sew Modern Swap Goodies - Complete!

It's all finished and will be going out in the mail today! Yesterday was technically the last day to ship for me, but it was Sunday. I wonder if I'm still considered a late sender?? I don't know. Oh well. I had a hard time with this swap... my partners mosaic was amazing, but way outside any style that I've ever made. With not a lot of feedback I kept changing my mind, not knowing what she'd be most happy with. I know a LOT of people in this swap, so it was a lot of fun. I love seeing the amazing projects that everyone makes, but can I be honest? If I don't know my partner, and they are so, ok 90-99% silent, it is not fun. And it's not as fun to throw in a bunch of extra goodies to make their day - because by the end of the swap they still feel like a complete stranger! The fun of swaps is getting to know new people. I've been in a lot of good swaps, and I've decided that your partner can really make or break the experience. The more chatty they are, the more feedback they give, the more active they are in the swap and on Flickr (even if they don't comment on my particular photos, it's helpful if they comment on someone's photos... it still can tell me a lot as to which direction I should go) the better the swap is. The more fun it is to keep it a secret, and the more excited I get about throwing in lots of goodies. I don't want to make my partner feel bad, and I don't mean to be rude. I wasn't the most chatty, but I did try and comment on all the discussion posts, and hit as many photos as I could! I know I missed some, but hopefully my partner was able to gain some insights from the comments I did leave. It's also fun to see everyone's progress shots! Anyway, if I can give any suggestion when participating in a swap it would be: Participate! Even semi-quiet partners are better than non-existent partners. I think I'm going to hold off on swaps for a while again... kind of bummed, but I'm still glad I participated. I just hope my partner is pleased! (But she can't really complain if it wasn't worth the effort to her to comment, so whatever.)


Ok, anyway, now onto the fun stuff. Pictures!!

I spent the most time on this fab knitting roll. I've been storing my knitting needles in it while I finished my second project, you know, just to test it out. :)

I used this tutorial found here:

http://nestingsticks.blogspot.com/2012/02/knitting-needle-crochet-hook-roll-up.html#

The only difference I made was do patchwork on the front. It was a great and easy to follow tutorial. I recommend it if you've been wanting to make one of these. My patchwork strip is about 9" wide with three inch linen strip on the bottom, and whatever that leaves for the top. I figure about 15" will show when the top is folded over.

It's hard to tell, but there are reds and oranges, they kind of just blend here.

The inside with my needles:

The is the first time I really did a lot with linen. I like it, but it's kind of hard... it feels more flimsy and I'm not used to that. I'll have to find more projects to use it in so I can get used to it. ;) I do love how it looks!

I was going to use linen for the tote, but found these two kona colors that I think went better together. It's simple, reversible, has two pockets, and I really like how it turned out. Nothing fancy, but sometimes less is more. At least I hope so! I lined it with a heavy weight interfacing, so it's stiff, which I like. It won't just bow to a point if there's not a lot in it. :)

One side front. 

a close up, kind of.

I continued the stitches around to the back, which I really like. A quick way to spruce up a plain piece of fabric.

Reverse option front. It's a blueish-grey fabric.

I continued the stitches around to the back on this one too. They are a little bit higher than on the black.

There you go partner!! I hope you love it!! And I hope I did job making something that you'll use and love! :)

p.s. Go check out Freshly Pieced today! 

Lee has a great line up of patterns she's found recently.
I feel so honored! ;)

Hope you are having a great day!

We are all lucky to have everyone home today!

Do to the ice storm, the schools and university are closed.

I love having my family home with me!

What are you up to today??