What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Recently, I joined my first swap in ages. I confess I was a little nervous (having been burned in long ago swaps). But I had such fun planning what to swap, making my gifts, then packing, mailing and eagerly anticipating, then receiving my own package.

"Fall into Reading Book Swap 2022" was hosted on InstaGram by @wwarner27 (aka Wendy). She matched participants into one-to-one swap partners. Everyone in the swap filled out a questionnaire including favorite book genres and other interests. My partner and I were able to chat via emails while deciding what to send to each other. 

Here ...

 I can't believe this is the sixth year I've participated in the MQG Miniquilt Swap! It's fun to swap at Quiltcon each year and make a new quilty friend. That was the plan this year but again (still?) Covid got in the way and my partner is choosing not to make the trip. I get that! Did we let that stop us from fun? Heck no! Betty and I decided to FaceTime and swap our quilts live as soon as they both arrived. We were able to do that this week. 

My quilt got to Betty in ...

My Needle Arts Guild met this week and we exchanged Christmas ornaments.

Here is my ornament.

I made ornaments like this a LONG time ago. I found the templates, but I couldn’t find the pattern. The ones I made before had fewer yo yos, but it looks fine either way.

Here is the one I received. It has a place of honor on the tree. Those are some seriously tiny stitches.

This was a random exchange. I did not receive an ornament from the person that got mine. It was more of a draw a number out of a ...

 Last week, I gave you a sneak peak at a gift I made, and, now that the gift has been given, I can show you the finished wall hanging.  I used up some more of my 30's prints for this one, although the barn fabric is just from my red drawer.  I quilted the barn with vertical lines to look like barn boards.  The silo is quilted with horizontal lines.  The little basket block was in my spare parts box--I made many basket blocks years ago with my friend, Christine.  This was a good opportunity to use one for ...

 This is another recent finish and this one was for my younger sister Diane. 

Way back in Spring 2013, I signed up for my very first charm swap.  Little did I know the appeal of swapping charms at the time and I eventually ended up hosting a number of Kate Spain charm swaps in later years.  I had no plans for them at some point I added a Disappearing Nine Patch pattern printout to the baggie they were stored in and put them on my project shelf.

 My guild, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild started a fun tradition a year or so ago. We have a big jar full of scraps. Every meeting, one attendees name is drawn and that person gets to take the jar the next month. They make a fun small item from some of the scraps, refill it to the top and then pass both the jar and the item on to the next person drawn the following month. It's been fun to see the cute little items everyone has made.

Finally, in May, my name was chosen! I won a darling ...

 When Lissa announced she was hosting a pin cushion swap I was all in! I love cute pin cushions and I love swaps! It was the perfect storm for me.....

Here is the pin cushion I mailed off to Colette (@rcwfam). She has received it and seemed to like it! I used lots of my Liberty scraps to make it, some I had bought at the actual Liberty store almost 9 years ago! I made it using this tutorial from retro mama's blog.

And I was so happy to receive this beauty from Tamara (@daisy.creates). I love the ...

Since I spent a lot of time at home this year due to the pandemic, I did a lot of sewing, knitting, cross stitch and embroidery. I looked back over my blog posts to pick out the top 5 I would like to share today.  

1. My blogpost with the most views in 2020 was posted on August ...

Every year the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild has a great ornament swap during our December meeting which is a fun Holiday party. Of course, this year looked much different. Our party was on Zoom, so there was no stealing of ornaments. boo. that part is always fun! Instead, swappers signed up ahead of time. The Saturday before our meeting, swap fairies flew all around the city and swapped out the packages that had been left by the front door of each member's home. Then we waited until our meeting on Tuesday to open up our packages.

I ended up ...

Essex Linen seemed to be the fabric of the week in my sewing room over the last few days.  First, I finished the last two blocks of my Summerhill quilt and then added linen sashings and borders...the colour is called Pepper. I like the texture of the linen surrounding my blocks.  I am in the process of making a pieced border from more tiny pieces of Kona solids. I'm hoping to get the final two borders on this coming week. 

Next, I made a pillow for an online Christmas bazaar.  I had the three trees made already--they had ...

 When my friend Jayne, over at Twiggy and Opal started sharing her Geo Pop pattern in different variations, I decided to see how small I could make one! I pulled out some of my solid scraps and made this citrussy version...

Each block is 1 1/2" finished so the mini finished at 9"x12". pretty small but, of course, Jayne made a smaller one hahaha, which you can check out on her instagram.

Our Improv small group is doing a placemat swap. In August I needed to make a placemat for my friend Anne who had chosen pink and ...

Well, I just realized I never wrapped up my saga of all the house blocks! House blocks were swapped, and I adored every single block I received from my friends (people, there is an advantage to being in charge of a swap! YOU GET FIRST PICK! although I will say, every single block turned in was a masterpiece so it was a win/win situation). The blocks only spent a few days on my design wall board and I was off and running. I added some low volume rectangles to stagger my blocks but there was still something missing. If ...

I'm having great fun making houses! I'm up to seventeen for a swap (only swapping 15, but I can't stop making!)