I participated in the Dumpling Pouch Swap hosted by Teri. True to form, I'll be mailing my package today, on the shipping deadline. (I really admire those of you who get things done early!) I made two of the "The Easier One" pouches, which I found easy to make. ;-) The directions were clear and they went together on the first attempt. (Always a good thing for us procrastinators.) One of these pouches is headed for Teri along with some other goodies, the other will go to a local friend.
Teri made this amazing swap package for me. The colors are very "me" and I'm loving using these beautiful handmade pieces.
I just love Alison Glass fabric and when I saw the signups for the Alison Glass Mini Swap on Instagram (#alisonglassminiquiltswap) it was a total no-brainer to sign up. It was also a good excuse to add more of her fabric to my stash. I already had a few pieces of yardage from her 2015 Sun Print line, but I bought a fat eighth set of the Sun Print 2015 Mercury. I first used them in this zipper pouch.
I decided I wanted to do something geometric and colorful and chose the Alternative pattern by Alison Glass. I sized it down to 50% which made 5 1/4” square finished blocks. This was perfect for a 3 x 3 grid of blocks (the finished quilt measures a bit larger than 16" square). The plus blocks are pieced and the X blocks are paper pieced. It went together really quickly once I made all my final color placement decisions. ;-)
As I've mentioned before, I like swaps for pushing me to try something new. This was the first time I've done dense straight light quilting. I used my walking foot, and my lines are slightly farther than 1/4" apart. I started from the middle and worked my way out. There was one section I didn't do this way (trying to keep the lines equally spaced) and I ended up with a little pucker in my fabric. :-/ Lesson learned. Have you done quilting like this (or even more dense straight lines)? Any tips?
And here's the slightly askew label. ;-)
Alison Glass Mini Quilt Swap #AGTeamTessellation June 2015 TO: Claudia FROM: Sarah Goer @sarahmgoer
I also made a little zipper pouch to send along with the mini. I realized after the fact that I ended up with a bit of a + and x theme in this bundle. The pouch uses this tutorial from Make It Perfect. I fussy cut the text fabric to feature “love” and “happy” on the edges of the zipper top.
Here's the full pile of goodies that I sent to Claudia in North Carolina.
The funny thing is, before I finished and mailed the package to Claudia, I received my swap package in the mail... and it was from Claudia. What a surprise that we were making for each other. Here is the beautiful Preppy the Whale mini in Alison Glass Handcrafted that Claudia made for me! She also made the beautiful bowl that I drooled over when I saw her making it on IG. How delightful that it was for me! She spoiled me with a variety of other goodies as well!