Good Starter

Yesterday I shared the mini quilt I made for the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. I had so much fun making it that most of the time I forgot I also had an unknown partner who was also making a mini quilt just for me. I was delighted when I did receive my surprise mini as it was this gorgeous envelope quilt. I'm in Australia and my partner, Kristin of gooba designs , is in America so it seemed very fitting to have a text print that has 'beyond the seas' featured. I had mentioned my favourite fabric line is Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics in the sign up form for the swap. I didn't dare hope I would be lucky enough to be matched with a partner who would use it so well. The quilting is so lovely I had to get close. And in black and white you can really see how it finishes off this mini perfectly. One of the extras I received was this little purse. I am saving it to use for best so it has only been out with me a few times so far. Each time ...

I recently took part in the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. Now that I have both sent and received I can share them here. Today I'll show my mini and tomorrow the wonderful mini that arrived to me. I made a Modern Hexies mini wall quilt using the Modern Handcraft tutorial. I will definitely be making another one of these for myself. My partner requested her favourite colours teal, orange and purple. I shared a photo of these colours in hexie form while they were sat on my grey couch and I had that many positive comments on the grey background that I switched from the white I had planned to a fat quarter of cotton couture in dark grey. Quilting this mini was so much fun, though I did get a bit creative with the straight lines towards the end to ensure I was still creating triangles.   I went with a scrappy binding (partly due to not having enough dark grey and my local quilt store being out of stock) and I'm really happy I did in the end, I think it added something to the ...

I took part in round 4 of the Modern She Made swap over on Flickr and my partner had very different taste to me. Have you ever experienced this? I found it difficult to make something in someone's else's style and to keep to the rules of the swap. In the end I found a fabric I was pretty sure my partner would adore but then I couldn't make it work with my idea for placemats. After much procrastination and thought I finally went with my own design and made the placemats double sided. Side one is a hexagon (this rounds swap theme) on linen. I had never used linen before but I didn't find any real problems once I had accounted for the loose weave. Side one The second side consisted of the bird panels I picked up for my partner (a Darn Cheap Fabric in Heidelberg find). On this side I only featured the hexagons on the matching coasters. Watch the birdie I did make four coasters but one seems to have flown away when the photos were taken. I promise it was included when ...