Gettin' my Swoon on

I have had the Swoon quilt pattern by Camille Roskelley for a long time. I have been rather intimidated by it, but I finally gave into the Swoon.

A Flickr group was started awhile back for a Swoon-a-long by the lovely Miss Katy. Seeing all of the finished blocks and beautiful quilts gave me the push I needed to get started. I have a big empty wall over my stairs and I thought a smaller version of the Swoon in bright, happy colors would look great there. This pattern is great because it gives you the number of pieces you need for just one block. Most quilt patterns just say to "cut _ pieces of color #1" etc... to make the whole quilt.

I got out a couple of fat quarters and decided to make a practice block first just to see if I could do it without too much frustration. After a few hours (yes, it took me that long) I had this beautiful block: 

It was time consuming, and I did get confused quite often with the color 1 and color 2. But that was my fault for not paying close enough attention. This block is huge. Each one measures 24" square. I'm going to use this practice block as a mini quilt.

I gathered together my bright, cheerful fabrics and I'm all ready to go!

Bee a {modern} Swapper

Against my better judgment, I signed up for a year long swap/bee. It looked like a ton of fun so I decided that even though I didn't really have time for it, I'd make time. The sign-ups are closed for this round, but you can always check out the photos and see when the next sign-ups will be HERE.

February is the first month and we are doing a pincushion swap. I have only ever made one pincushion and I hate it. I was so excited about this because I really, really need a new one. I wondered about what to do for my partner. That's the tricky part about swaps; you don't know your partners likes and dislikes very well. They try to tell you a few key things in an e-mail, but mostly you have to do a lot of stalking, ie: sift through their flickr favorites, their blog, their twitter account...

I was looking for online pincushion tutorials and I found this one on the My Go-Go Life blog. I have never made a cathedral window. Never even wanted to. I have always been intimidated by them, but really, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

I poked around through my scraps and found some Parisville by TulaPink in there (of course). My partners first favorite color listed was purple so this seemed perfect.

This is where I started. I was pretty pleased with myself at this point because I could see that I was actually doing it!

Here it is finished, before adding the stuffing. I wasn't really happy with it here. It just didn't look right. In the center where the points come together, only one point was correct. I didn't fold the white fabric correctly, I think. I was going to start a new one, but I figured I may as well finish it. So I stuffed it and added a button to the center.

The button completely covered the center and I love the way it looks now! I think this will be a good pinnie to swap, but I'll post it on Flickr to see what my partner thinks before I send it out.

Misfit Quilters DQS

Have you noticed that there are so many swap groups out there that seem clique-ish? It's more like a popularity contest. They have a million rules and the same people swap all the time, while so many others who have been waiting for a long time to participate, are passed up yet again. I believe that swaps should be for fun. And apparently, other people do too. A couple of my twitter friends decided to start a group for misfit quilters. You know, like the misfit toys? The ones that no one loves and sends them off to their own little island to be pathetic while not bothering others with their pathetic-ness? Well, we don't have our own island (damn it), but we do have our own swap now.

Our first swap is for a doll quilt (since that was the swap most of us were discussing not being allowed to participate in). A doll quilt is about 13" x 19" and I just love how adorable they look hanging on the wall. I got started on my doll quilt a couple nights ago. It took a little time to figure out what I wanted to make for my partner since I don't know anything about her. I have been reading her blog, and looking at her favorite photos on Flickr. After I got an idea of what she might like, I started cutting and sewing.

I decided to make a Dresden Plate (gasp). I know. I thought it was a little ridiculous since I've never made one - and quite frankly, I never planned to make one either. But I found a tutorial HERE that made it seem really easy. And you know what? It was!

Sewing the top of the wedges together and turning them right side out is ingenious! I used a pencil to poke the points out. The tutorial says you need 20 wedges. That's if you use the special ruler, which I did not. I made my own template by guessing on a size. So I ended up needing 31 wedges based on the size I made them.

I made a giant yo-yo for the center. That was the hardest part. I still have a bit more to do before I can start quilting it. I'm unsure of the quilting design I want to use and I'm also undecided as to whether I want to machine or hand quilt.

When all is said and done, I hope that my partner loves it and I hope that all the other swaps that didn't want us, regret passing us up. Just because we don't have thousands of photos on Flickr or haven't participated in hundreds of swaps, doesn't mean we are bad quilters. As a matter of fact, I have seen the work of my fellow Misfits, and I have to say, we are damn good.

Selina