Japanese minis

A couple months ago I made a Japanese mini for a swap with the Swap 'till you Drop group on Flickr. This was the first time I had made anything Asian-inspired, so I googled Japanese quilts and came up with so many ideas that I ended up making 3 minis! Circles are used a lot in Japanese quilting so it was a great opportunity to use my circle ruler and Bernina circle stitching tool. I completely forgot to take a picture of what I sent my partner, but I actually liked it so much that I made a slightly larger version of it for myself:

My inspiration for it was a kimono that my husband bought me on one of his business trips to Japan:

Sea turtles are also pervasive in Japanese quilting. I had a batik scrap with a sea turtle on it, so put that with a few other batik scraps and, voila!, another mini was born.

In swapping news, I received a package from Nikki for the Seams to Me swap over on Itching 2 B Stitching. This girl spoiled me! She made me the Taxi Tote from Anna Maria Horner's new book, but she didn't stop there. The bag was filled with TONS of homemade goodies.
She included headbands and bracelets for my daughter, a funky fiber eyeglass case (my favorite!), an embellished wrist band and a bag full of crazy quilting goodies. Now, I'm all for sending your swap partner a few little extras, but this was completely above and beyond what I could have hoped for. I can't imagine how much time and effort she put into all these goodies. I looked through it multiple times last night like a kid looking through their Christmas presents. Each item has so many interesting details and embellishments. Too much fun! Thanks, Nikki :)

Another big stack for Q4K

Here are 5 more quilts that will be donated to Quilts 4 Kids. These quilts are so satisfying to make. When I get to work on them, the colors and fabrics always brighten my day! And I love looking at a big stack waiting to be donated.

Here they are individually:

Nutty for nine patches

What did I do yesterday?

Oh, not much. I just whipped up 75 mini nine patch blocks for a swap:

A few months ago I made 100 green nine patches, and this time around the colors were red, orange and yellow. Guess what the bonus is. All of the red, orange and yellow fabric in these blocks is from my scrap bin! Not a single yard of fabric was cut into for these little babies (each one finishes at 3.5"). In keeping with the thrifty theme, I didn't even let the leftover bits go to waste so I made myself some scrappy blocks too:

I was thinking of making some kind of gift for the swap hostess with them, but I'm not sure yet.

Finally done!

On New Year's Eve I started Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt called Double Delight. It's been 3 months, but it's finally done! For some reason I did not want to post it until it was completely finished....

The finished dimensions are smaller than the original pattern. The first step involved making 180 units and then there was a step that required making 360 units or something obscene like that! I decided to start out by making half the units called for and then seeing how the mystery turned out. I'm glad I did because once we had the final block constructed, I realized that I was happy with the smaller size and only had to make 4 more blocks to complete the quilt. Here is some of the quilting detail:

I used the embroidery module for the setting triangle motifs and I did the stippling myself. That's a lot of stippling. On the back I decided to use some of the extra units to avoid piecing 2 widths of fabric together:

The colors are also different than Bonnie's recommendations mostly because I was trying to work from stash. Next month Bonnie is speaking to our quilt guild and I am bringing this quilt for show and tell. Guess I better fix all my little mistakes before then!

A new endeavor

Today my youngest son was at his friend's house for the morning, so I took advantage of having the house to myself and decided to learn how to use the embroidery module that I got for my anniversary 2 months ago. What a great morning. I can't say that the Bernina manual is very user friendly, but I figured out the basics and was able to get some quilting done on a new quilt for my niece. I am calling it "Ava's-spring-out-and-about-quilt". OK, so I'm not the best at naming my quilts. Here is the quilting that I got done before I ran out of thread:
A little closer.....
The goal is to finish the quilt by Saturday, which is the next time I am visiting my sister's house.

I've been getting a lot of things done lately. Mostly I am trying to wrap up swaps before gardening/swimming season starts and I don't have as much time inside. I'll be continuing with my mini quilt swaps, but reducing the number of block and fabric swaps I take on. In other projects, I am furiously quilting my Double Delight quilt so that I can share it at guild next month when Bonnie Hunter will be our guest speaker. How exciting will that be??!?

Happy sewing :)

Wrapping up some swaps

From the look of my blog you would think that I haven't been too busy with projects. In reality, I've been very busy, but haven't been able to post my finished projects because I was waiting for my swap partners to get the first look at them. Here is what I've been up to....

This mini was made for missmikol from my HGTV mini swap. Check out the beauty I received from her:

She really outdid herself on the machine quilting. Each section has its own motif.

The following mini was made for quiltinkimmie from the flickr group STUD (swap till you drop!). This was my first month swapping with this group so I felt a little pressure, but I really enjoyed making this one, which was for the Anything Goes category.

I also signed up for the Japanese category and finished tacking down the binding on that last night, so I can get that mailed off to my partner tomorrow. Then comes time to work on the April STUD minis. In addition to Anything Goes, the April theme is Spring Flowers.

There was another surprise on my doorstep last night. It was my Amy Butler weekender bag from Shari for the We The People Swap 4. I can't tell you what a phenomenal job she did on this bag. There is not a stitch out of place. Beautiful work!!

So that takes care of a lot of 'old business'. Today I'm making my monthly trip to the quilt shop that's 45 minutes from me. I have tons of projects just waiting for that perfect fabric to complete them. I'm so excited to have the afternoon to myself surrounded by fabric! Happy sewing everyone :)

Sewing Sunday

Today was a great day to ignore the housework and enjoy some sewing projects. First thing this morning, I decided to finally assemble some crazy quilting blocks for lesson 1 of an online CQ class I'm taking through joggles.com. Here is what I came up with:

I'm not going to go crazy perfecting the fabric choices and placement at this stage because the whole point of taking this class (for me) is to learn the techniques. If these blocks end up looking like a big mish mosh of CQ techniques by the end of the class, then I will have accomplished my goal. So, for now, this is what I'm working with. Lessons 2 and 3 are ready and waiting for me. I'm looking forward to embellishing these blocks.

Today I also attended another Quilts 4 Kids workshop where I learned this pattern:

It wasn't my favorite top to piece together, but I love learning new patterns and the people that attend the workshops are a lot of fun to be with. I do like how the final product turned out though.

In swapping business, I received my Teeny Tiny Squares Mini Quilt from Maria in Denmark! Maria said that this was her first mini and I think she did a great job. Each square finished at 3/4" and they were pieced together perfectly! Many thanks to Maria for the great goodies too. I am hiding the chocolate from my husband because he almost completely devoured one of the bags!