swap – button button

November 5, 2015

Hand-Pieced Mini Swap FO

It just occurred to me, right now, that I never showed you the finished mini-quilt I made for the Hand-Pieced Mini Swap. That was, like, a millionty years ago, but I still really wanted to show you how it turned out!

I’m so, so, so happy with this mini – it’s the first time I really played with layout and EPP, seeing what shapes matched well with others. What I ended up with wasn’t the most adventurous EPP design or anything, but it suited my partner (it was the first one she responded excitedly to when I was sharing doodles on Instagram), and I got to play with fabric placement to really pull out repeating shapes. Getting going was a struggle, but I loved this project once I got down to sewing.

It really inspired me to play with EPP a little more, and I bought a big stack of shapes at the Festival of Quilts this summer. Now all I need is the time to sit down with them and plan myself a new project!

June 22, 2015

Hand-Pieced Mini Swap Update

I’m closing in on a finished mini-quilt top for the Hand-Pieced Mini Swap over on IG. The design for this one came to me quickly enough – a week of sketching and doodling that seemed endless at the time, but once I had the right plan, it started to come together very quickly.

But man, this project has been a pain in the bum ever since! I had two pairs of paper pieces for this one, in different sizes, but worried that the smaller sizes would take me forever to sew and I wouldn’t be able to finish in time – under the theory that you need many more smaller pieces to cover a space. So I went with the larger pieces, which (of course) I now think were too big — this mini is going to end up at about 23″ square, so within the size bounds in the swap rules, but not by much. My fingers are tightly crossed that my partner is dazzled by the pretty fabrics and doesn’t notice that I’ve sent her a tent!

I do really love how it’s coming out and I’m almost there – just a little to add to each side before I can quilt it and square it up. Photo of the full top soon enough!

May 28, 2015

A Collection of Swap Minis

As a much-needed distraction this past fall / winter, I joined a couple of Instagram-based mini-quilt swaps but I never showed you what I made! Here’s a little parade of long-finished FOs, just for funsies – but please pardon the poor photography – most of these photos were quickly snapped in the last moments before packages were sealed!

This one was made for Amie from Sew Much Havoc. Amie said she loved half square triangles, so I tried to find a slightly unexpected way to play with them.

I love these floating HSTs, they way they gently dance around the background. I think they will definitely have to be explored more.

This mini-quilt was made for Juliet from The Tartan Kiwi – Juliet designs ridonkulous foundation piecing patterns, so designing something she would like was a little intimidating! She said she especially likes blenders, which made me happy, because so do I – definitely my favorite fabrics. Snooping around her various sites and accounts, I thought she’d like a teal / aqua (the colors she mentioned as her favorites) version of the star-hexies I made for Sew Mama Sew.

This one was especially relaxing to make, some lovely low-stress sewing while away on a quiet holiday.

In fact, I loved it so much, I was inspired to finally turn the block I made for the Sew Mama Sew tutorial into a mini-quilt for myself!

Of course I didn’t have quite enough of that binding fabric and had to piece in a scrap –

– but let’s pretend I meant to do it, all modern-stylee.

I’m still stitching away at my hand-pieced mini for my current swap – progress update soon!

May 13, 2015

Hand-Pieced Mini Swap

As if I don’t have enough to do, I recently joined the Hand-Pieced Mini-Quilt Swap on IG, organized by Jo from A Life in Lists. I haven’t taken part in a lot of swaps in my crafty time, and I think this has to be my last for a while so I can catch up on other stuff, but with a hand-stitching void in my life since my peels were finished, I just couldn’t resist!

This is a little bit out of my comfort zone – everything else I’m working on behind the scenes is heading in a much more minimalist, quiet sort of direction, but I didn’t think that was my partner’s style. After a TON of doodling, I finally landed on this EPP design, with a fabric arrangement that I hope combines my urge to pare down with her love of brighter designs.

Of course I can’t quite show you more yet, but you’ll see soon enough! And if you’re on IG, follow my sneaky progress peeks over there.