Under the Sea Swap

The Under the sea swap this summer was swap one of my favorites this year.

It was perfect timing with my pattern testing for The Tartan Kiwi.

 The pattern has lots of pieces, but comes together nicely.

Tartan Kiwi has wonderful patterns.

Here he is before quilting. A night photo.  Most of my quilting is done at night now or early morning before the sun comes up. So lots of night time photos.

I used my sulky top stitching thread for the quilting and tried to mimic seaweed.

Finally got an outside photo.

I made my partner a little sewing book to go with her mini quilt and filled it with some sewing goodies.

This one went all the way to Canada.  I actually took it there myself... sort of.  

I was on vacation and on my way to Toronto and mailed it while in Canada!

The person sending to me did a fantastic job!  I love the lobster!

Stay Tuned for more minis!

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Amy Butler Low Volume Mini Quilt Swap

Instagram has introduced me to some fabulous new fabric artists.  Amy Butler is one of them.  I was never really aware of her quilting fabrics till I started following other quilters on Instagram.  They were making some fabulous this with her fabrics and when the Amy Butler Low Volume swamp came up I added my name to the list.  I ordered myself a jelly roll of her Dream Weaver line and it came with the Ribbon Star pattern, which I shrunk down to a mini version for this swap.

The ribbon star pattern is meant to be a large quilt, The jelly roll had enough fabric to make the big quilt and a mini version as well.  The mini version got made first.  The large has been adding to my UFO pile.

I define low volume as not plain white, but not too colorful either. Mostly white, or off white with some pattern: that constitutes low volume for me.  I used my low volume scraps for the background and sashing.

The binding is a piece of fabric from another Amy Butler line, not sure which, it was given to me a long time ago and I didn't even realize it was Amy Butler till I joined this swap.

This one measured 22 x 22.  One of the bigger minis I have made.

This mini flew all the way to Washington State.

I received this mini in return.  

Stay tuned for more minis... 

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Black and White Mini Swap

The next swap I participated in this year was the Black and White Swap.

We had the option to add one color if our partner wished, but my partner wanted only black and white so I stuck with that.  After stalking her Instagram I saw she liked several black and white mushroom drawings, so I printed one off the internet and grabbed a black and white charm pack and got to work.

I cut out the mushrooms into sections to make my pattern pieces.

Satin stitching the mushrooms down.

After appliqueing the mushrooms I had a small 8 inch block.
To make it bigger so I added some black and white triangles and a two inch boarder.

For the quilting, I used my black thread to try to recreate some of the pen drawings in the original, then finished it up with white thread.  

This one was packaged up and set all the way around the world to Australia!

It took a while, but it made it in one piece!

The person sending to me picked a pattern straight from my mosaic.  It is perfect!

Stay tuned for more minis...

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May the Fourth Mini Quilt Swap

Around May of this year I joined the May the 4th Swap.  I couldn't resist that one!

My partner loves BB-8 and I found this very coo and free paper piecing patter at the  Fandom In Stitches blog and started on it right away.

I added my favorite paper pieced star pattern to the mix and thought I had it finished with only four stars.  When I was in the process of basting it, I realized I didn't like the look of just four.  So I took the borders off and added four more stars.

BB-8 surrounded in stars!  This pattern was super fun and super cute!  This one flew all the way to Crystal Lake, IL.  

Check out the mini I received.  It is fantastic! All the way from Australia from Kristi of Quiet Play. Love her patterns!

Stay tuned for more mini's!

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