Kitten Mini Quilt Swap

Last year I participated in the Kitten Mini Quilt Swap which was hosted by Marni Franks @FrankiesFabrics.  At the time of completing the swap I was without access to my laptop and by the time I was able to sit down and blog about it, my darling Gemma had just passed away.  Hence I kept putting it off. Since Marni has just opened up registrations for this year's round, I thought I'd better type this up.

We were assigned our partners back in December 2014 and we had until 31 March 2015 (3 months) to create a mini quilt to send to our secret partner. The theme was Cats and Kittens.  Much to my delight, my assigned swap partner was a good friend of mine - fellow crazy cat lady Jeanette in Queensland @jeanettelgraham.  As Jeanette is a friend of mine, I included quite a bit more than normal in this swap parcel.

At the time of this swap Jeanette had 5 cats living with her.  Her favourite colours were purple, red and blue.  This is what I made and sent to her:  

The parcel we sent

Some extras - a note pad and some stickers

The card we sent was handmade by Willow Fox Design in Bendigo

Some more extras - a Cat Purse (design by LYPatterns), a key fob and some washi tape

Some more extras - a set of three Cat Lady Embroidery Hoops - pattern by Becky Helms

"Fish 'n' Chips" cat softie - pattern by Ric Rac

The mini quilt that I made - designed by me - made from "Here Kitty Kitty" fabric by Alyssa Thomas for Clothworks.

Gemma helped me to wrap all of the items

There were extra yummies specially packed for Evie, Bella, Lucy, Garfield & Mr Hyde  - Jeanette's pussy cats

Whimsical Woodland Mug Rug Swap

 

I recently participated in the "Whimsical Woodland Mug Rug Swap" which was hosted by So Charming.

 

We were asked to create a mug rug for our swap partner and to include a few extra little goodies.  Unlike other swaps this one had a spending cap of USD10 (approximately AUD12 - AUD15) retail on the extras and all extras had to follow the theme of the swap.  I loved this idea.  I loved that we had a limit to stick to which meant that we had to be creative! 

 

All photos on Instagram were posted with the hashtags #whimsicalwoodlandmugrug  & #jensstitches  There are some amazing photos in this feed so please check them out when you have time to do so. 

 

Our partners are secret so we do not know who is making for us - at least we won't know until our parcel arrives.  And who we make for may not be the same person who is making for us.  Our dispatch deadline was 25 January for international posting, or 2 February for domestic parcels.

 

My swap partner was Louisa Watts @loubeelou76 who lives in Western Australia.  I was told that Louisa likes pink, green, and autumn colours.  Her favourite woodland creatures are: fox, squirrel, hedgehog & owl. 

 

This is Louisa's inspiration mosaic

Louisa's parcel of awesomeness:

  

This is what I sent to Louisa.

 

Louisa's mug rug was 3 owls sitting on a branch, and there is a 4th owl who is about to land on the right hand side.  I also made her a zippered pouch and a key fob.  All of the fabrics used were from my stash.  I only had to purchase the ribbon, a zip and I buy the key fob hardware in bulk.

The back of the mug rug

This year I am printing labels for all my swaps.

I included some stickers

A lovely hedgehog card made by my friend Libby at Willow Fox Designs.

 

I didn't know if Louisa was a tea or coffee drinker so I included both.

I also included some washi tape and a rogue charm square that I found lurking in my fabric stash.

I used the left over ribbon from the key fob & the zipper bag to wrap part of her present.

 

Louisa's gifts were wrapped in woodland themed wrapping paper.

This has been one of my favourite swaps so far this year.  I really liked the idea of having a spending cap because it forced us to be creative.  Instead of just buying "stuff" to fluff up the parcel, how could we best invest our money and make something wonderful for our partner.  It's amazing what you can make with ribbon, zips and fabric!

I love stalking my partners - purely to find out enough about them to personalise their gifts, and of course to check if and when the parcels arrive.  It gave me so much pleasure to read Louisa's comments when she received her parcel:

At the time of writing this post I am yet to receive my own Whimsical Woodlands Mug Rug parcel but when I do I will write a separate post about it.  I have no idea who my partner is but there are so many gorgeous creations posted on Instagram under this swap's hashtags!

Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap

 

 

I've joined the Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt Swap on Instagram.  If you are my gorgeous & wonderful stalker - here is a link to the inspiration folder that I have created for you on Pinterest.

Follow Fiona's board Schnitzel & Boo Inspiration Board for my stalker on Pinterest.

Very Cherry Swap

Back in July a friend alerted me that there was a swap starting up on Instagram called the #VeryCherrySwap  Naturally I was in.  I sent off my enquiry, filled in the questionnaire, and waited anxiously to see if I would be accepted.  After a few nervous days of waiting I received my acceptance notice and not long afterwards I was introduced to my Cherry Swap Partner - the lovely Kath. 

 

As it turned out Kath and I were already following each other on Instagram but we really didn't know all that much about each other.  Thus began a good friendship as we started stalking & researching each other and planned and plotted our cherry projects with assistance from the Secret Squirrel. Many sneaky peek photos were shared on Instagram as we taunted & teased each other along the way revealing hardly anything but the odd snippet of fabric or of squirrels eating cherries.  Many laughs were shared, many stitches have been sewn, and the secret squirrel has been well fattened by eating way too many cherries. 

 

I knew that Kath loves blue. I knew NOT to use any purple or batiks.  I knew that among her favourite designers is Bonnie & Camille (the others I either didn't have any of their fabrics or I didn't know of them).  And I knew that the types of items that she would be happy to receive are: "mini quilt, mug rug, cushion cover, sewing pouch or bag, pincushion, needle book". 

 

Over the next 2-months I browsed gift shops, supermarkets and of course eBay, searching for cherry related items to go in her parcel.  Now that our shipping deadline has passed and I know that Kath has safely received her parcel, I can finally show you items that I made for her.  I will do a separate post showing what I received from Kath.

 

Mini Quilt

 

I experimented with a few designs for a mini quilt.  I was quite fond of a free pattern by Podunk Pretties that I found online which used many HSTs to form the cherries; however the blocks measured 12.5" each and I wanted to use 5 cherry blocks.  When I reduced the size of the blocks they looked too warped.  I then tried to paper piece cherries but they looked too wrong for perfectionist me.  Eventually I decided to hand stitch the cherry panels with embroidery thread.  I used some "April Showers" and "Miss Kate" fabric by Bonnie & Camille for the spacer blocks.  Although I felt much happier with this approach the mini didn't quite have enough oomph (it's important that my quilts have the oomph factor!) so I decided to applique the centre cherry block. From memory the mini quilt measured about 18" square.

 

Sewing on the quilt label

 

Sewing Pouch or Bag

 

I'm still pretty inexperienced to sewing with zips, but I was determined to make something "zippy" for Kath which fitted this brief.  I contemplated making a "Sew Together Bag" for her but thought it might be a bit advanced for me with all of those zips, so instead I made a small & a large Open Wide Zippered Pouch (pattern by Noodlehead). 

 

The smaller bag is made & lined with "Avant Garden by MoMo by Moda" and the larger bag is lined with "Rose & Hubble English Collection by David Textiles Inc.".

 

 

Mug Rug

I still had an embroidered cherry panel left over from the mini quilt so I decided to turn it into a mug rug. 

 

Lately I have been sewing hexis at night (for another project), so I set about designing something combining these elements. 

Close up of the quilting.

 

I was determined to  use more blue so I pulled out my "Miss Kate" by Bonnie & Camille and found some yummy coordinates amongst my scrap container.  Both the red solid and the blue solid (used for the binding) are from "Miss Kate".

 

The good thing about making 1" hexis is that you only need scraps measuring 2.5" square.  Yes I keep almost all of my scraps, you never know what you can do with them!

 

I finished it off by hand quilting in blue thread (I  used white thread on the cherry panel), sewing about 1/4" inside and outside of all of the seams.  I used more of the "Rose and Hubble" cherry fabric on the back.

 

 

 

Extra Cherry Goodness

 

Here are photos of some of the extra cherry goodies which I included in Kath's parcel:

 

Air Freshener, Lip Gloss & Crafty Cherries

 

a limited edition Dark Chocolate Ganache Cherry Ripe, a Cherry Bounty, a Cherry Ripe & a tin of Cambridge & Thames Cherry Drops

Not cherry related but some variegated blue sock wool from the Bendigo Woollen Mills as Kath likes to knit

The Cherry Fabrics

 

Here is a close up of the two cherry fabrics that I used.

 

On the left is "Rose & Hubble English Collection by David Textiles Inc." & on the right is "Avant Garden by MoMo by Moda"

 

 

The Results: Kath received her parcel today.  Here is her feedback: