I guess in all the hustle of my trip, I forgot to post pictures of the last few blocks I made for this swap.

These seven blocks were the last I made and mailed out before I left on my trip.



The swap is over now and it was lots of fun working with such a variety of fabrics.

It was also fun seeing how each participant interpreted the fabrics and came up with unique blocks.

I primarily stayed with just a few patterns, but still each block came out so unique. That was very interesting to me as well.

Six of these were meant to be Bonnie's boxy star pattern. But the Batik block I made rather late at night and for some reason I put the four parts together wrong. I really liked the look of it though and so it stayed.

The last block was the pineapple blossom, she had several different fabrics to use and I tried to stay within the theme of the rest of her blocks. It should fit in with her quilt top nicely.

I'll try to make a picture mosaic of all the blocks together if I can.

Cheers,
Dionne

Finally.... I'm Back!

Actually, I got home on Monday morning at 6am and I was SLEEPY!

Then we came home to a mountain of mail, a pile of school work, work work, house work and any other kind of work you can think of! Except gardening. We have a very low maintenance yard, thankfully.

Well, one of the things I came home to were several more blocks on my Lap Quilt Swap IV project.

So I whipped up a few sashing strips and put them up on my design wall:

What do you think?

The pictures aren't all that great, but I was using the camera on my phone because I left my camera at a t-shirt shop on our trip! I had the chance to visit a fabric store while I was away and when my camera arrives safe and sound in the post, I'll put the picture on my blog.

Cheers,
Dionne

Progress on my LQS4

Below are all the blocks I have received on this project to date, including the one I made. I'm going to use a sashing between the blocks and use the pink fabric for cornerstones.






I just can't decide if I should do a horizontal layout, or if I should lay it out on-point.

A few More Lap Quilt Swap IV blocks

For this swap I had 24 blocks to make, actually 22 because two of those were for me. Now I'm on the home stretch.

For most of my blocks I've been doing the boxy star from Bonnie Hunter's website Quiltville.com

This first one is for KRB:

The background of the floral print is black and she chose a blue tone-on-tone and a burgundy tone-on-tone for accent fabrics and a white tonal for background.

This next block is also a boxy square for Whoopdedoo5:

Whoopdedoo5 chose several complimentary fabrics in larger scale prints. I like these fabrics, they have a beachy feel to me.

And finally this last block had no pattern. LouraPalmr had so many fun fabrics for me to use, that I came up with this block just to be able to use them all:

Click on this picture to get the full effect of the fabrics she chose, some really fun and unique fabrics!

Some More Blocks and Bricks

Well, as I always do. I've gone and got myself over-committed. I promised to help my ten year old daughter's class make a quilt for their fund-raising auction. I did this last year for my older daughter as well and was so attached to the quilt that I was quite sad to see it leave. I tried to win it at the auction, but that one went for about $800 and it was far too much for me. But I was quite happy the school made money on it.

So this year I'm doing it again. This time the quilt looks very different though. I've only just begun and no real pictures. I'm cutting light 8.5" squares for the kids to paint their 'Animal Totems' on ~ they've been learning about the Native Americans in this area and the teacher wanted to tie the auction project in with that.

So then I'll put a very light outline of the animal on the square and let the kids paint it in. They are in 4th grade, so hopefully it won't be a big mess, and will look good. My daughter's totem is the hummingbird.

My Calendar Quilt project is also coming along nicely. My little guy has taken a bit of a turn on this weeks brick and stuck a horizontal strip in there. It's not exactly the same size as last weeks brick but he says he likes it because that's the way he colors!

Not sure how we will put all these bricks together in the end to make our Calendar Quilt, but by then the 'Quilt Director' will be 6 years old, and ... well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!

Finally, I'm still working on the Lap Quilt Swap IV. This is a picture of a block I made with my fabrics, some time ago to see if they play well together. I just never got around to posting it!

So, it's Saturday and a busy family day!

Mail call!

A few new blocks came my way, and a few more blocks are being sent out!


These first three are all variations of the Boxy Star that I have been doing a lot of:


These last two are for the Lap Quilt Swap IV at Craftster.org:

These fine blocks came in the mail!

This last one came all the way from Australia.

A Medley of Pinks, Greens and a splash of blue!

Here are the blocks I have received so far from my Lap Quilt swappie partners:




These blocks are from Laural and Rita




These blocks are from KRB and Poerava





And these two beauties are from WhoopDeDoo5

Some Lap Quilt Swap Blocks Finished

Here are a few blocks that I've made for Audrey for her Lap Quilts. She is making two quilts and I am contributing two blocks, one for each quilt.



This first one is for a picnic quilt she's making. She actually sent me about 5 or 6 fabrics to choose from.

Her request was that I use the black w/strawberries and at least one of the blues. I thought for a long time about what block to make, and I had hoped to find one that would use all of her fabrics, but finally came up with the following block. I didn't press it before I took the picture, so it's really not wonky. Actually its Bonnie's boxy star from Quiltville.com

This last one is for another quilt she is making. I really liked the way this one turned out:

My Worst Nightmare Come True

.... or at least, my worst nightmare when dealing with someone else's fabrics!

I looked at these fabrics several times before deciding exactly what square would look best. There wasn't a lot of fabric so my first choice ( a pineapple blossom) was scrapped for my second choice. But instead of actually measuring, I eyeballed the fabric and assumed I had enough.

Then, I started cutting, big mistake!!! I was just a scant 1/4" off! NOT ENOUGH FABRIC! Oh, what was I to do, I don't have any more of this fabric, it's not even mine. I had barely gotten into this swap group, and only on the recommendation of my friend Audrey (Who's awesome blog can be found here: AudreyPawdry )

I briefly had visions of a devastated recipient, being black-listed from Craftster, and, well.... let's just say sometimes I get a bit dramatic. But I was a little horror struck at my mistake.

Well, I quickly re-assessed the remains of my cutting mistake and came up with the following block and some bonus HSTs that measure 3.5":

Actually, it really wouldn't be nearly as bad if she wasn't already receiving TWO friendship star blocks in these fabrics. Fortunately all three blocks have a different way of making use of the fabrics and they do look sufficiently different. So all my drama was for nothing, but it did serve to teach me a very valuable lesson when using other peoples fabrics! Also, I'm a little nervous that she will be disappointed.

3D Boxes for QuiltDad

Well, actually, this is from Bonnie's BoxyStars pattern at Quiltville.

But because John (Quilt Dad) doesn't care for stars, and is doing a quilt out of oriental fabric that just calls for nice clean lines, I decided to make him the 3D boxes.

Now, I am a little obsessive about not wasting fabrics so I saved those little corners to make some Half-Square Triangles.

In the picture above and below, I actually made the seams a little TOO close so I had to re-do that one. (I noticed it when I took the picture)


Here is what the block looks like before I trim off my HSTs. I sew across, then turn it around, move my fabric over by 1/4 inch and then sew again.




And finally, three 3D box squares and 6 bonus Half-Square Triangles!

I hope John likes them!