For the Love of Solids Swap - sent, received and delivered!

Woo hoo! I had mail yesterday.  I had very very good mail. My swap days...for now...were finally concluded.

You will recall I sent this to my partner in the For the Love of Solids swap.

It went to Pam in Florida and was received a week or so ago. Pam likes improv.log cabins and her favourite Kona colours are olive and peridot.  She sent a lovely email saying she was thrilled with it.

Then, as everyone who has ever participated in a swap will understand, I then remembered that part of the deal was that I would receive something too.  I waited..the mailman came and went...and then yesterday he handed over a large parcel of loveliness.  All the way from Australia.  All the way from Jeanette in New South Wales who can be found here at aussigonequilting.

Back in the depths of winter, I made this inspiration mosaic and made notes on the photos saying why I had picked each one.  I particularly loved the free form design on the tea towel top right hand corner and wrote rather bossily, 'I love love love the colours of this tea towel and this is what I`m thinking when it comes to colours'. Do click over and take a look.  It was the colours of the sea, improv.pieced and made using shot cottons.

Just take a look at what Jeanette sent me.

The most beautiful mini, in sea greens and blues, improv.pieced and made with the most amazing Oakshott cottons. I`ve seen Oakshott cottons across blogland but seeing them in person is another thing.  They are simply beautiful.  Look - the mini has no border.  Jeanette said she wanted to make a mini that looked like water moving and a traditional border didn`t work.  I love that so much.

If that wasn`t enough, Jeanette also sent me a cute pouch and the hugest pile of charm packs from her etsy shop because she imagined that living in Morocco, it may be tough to lay my hands on fabric!

This is going to be my last swap for a while but what a way to finish.  I love my mini package so much.  I love the sea and I am always taking photographs of it when I get the chance, and living in a hot and often uncomfortable city, I now have my own little piece of the sea to gaze at.  Thank you so much Jeanette for the most amazing mini - I love it!  Thank you also to swap mama Elizabeth for hosting such an amazing swap!

Confucius Say...

..."she who drops her phone in the toilet in the morning will have bad day quilting."

And that`s exactly how it was on Monday hence my funk yesterday for which I`m sorry.

I would just like to say that the swaps I`m in are organised fabulously and the swap mamas are supportive, encouraging and super helpful.  My downer on swaps is all to do with the mysteries of the world postal `system` and my quilting inadequacies!

So on Monday, after an inauspicious start to the day, I spent the afternoon quilting my For the Love of Solids mini using a square spiral design within each wonky log cabin and some pale green thread.  I wasn`t loving it but I carried on.  That was my mistake.

As I came to the last wonky log cabin I ran.out.of.pale.green.thread.  Hence my funk yesterday as with no LQS to run to, I had to rip out all the quilting.  It took hours! I changed tack, got the painter`s tape out and quilted it using a taupe thread in an abstract straight line design.

...personally I like the back best.

I`ve tried my best and just hope my partner likes it...

...she`s a serial swapper and knows what she likes.  I have to make a small something to go with it and then it`s ready to be posted.

My big worry now is my Mouthy Stitches` pouch.  There is linen coming to me and it should have arrived by now and it`s this kind of thing that causes swap stress.  If it doesn`t arrive today then it`s Plan B...
 

It`s Beginning to Feel a Bit Like...

...Christmas!!

More fun post has arrived chez nous.  You`ll remember the terrible saga that was my Christmas tablerunner from the swap going missing. Well it hasn`t turned up sadly but I did find out who made it for me and that was the lovely Susan all the way away in Oz.  Susan made this amazing tablerunner for me.  Isn`t it stunning? Thank you so much Susan and being the eternal optimist I have a feeling it may one day turn up!

Well a few weeks ago, I was contacted via flikr by swap buddy, sweet Maggie in Salt Lake City enquiring as to whether my `runner had ever appeared.  When I said no, she said she was popping something in the post to me and it arrived!

A very cute tree mug rug, which Zaki has already claimed as his own.  Thank you Maggie - it means so much that someone who I have never met could think to do that. This won`t be put away for Christmas but will join my growing pile of mug rugs!

I`m still waiting on my linen so that I can get on with my pouch for the Mouthy Stitches` swap.  I`m not panicking yet as I know I can make it fairly quickly once it arrives. It is giving me time to get on with the mini quilt for the For the Love of Solids swap.  The top is finished. It will be 20 inches finished.

For the back, there will be one biggish wonky block against a white background. It should be completed over the weekend.

I shall leave you with a funny story.  I have to pick Zaki up from pre-school at 11.30 and the two and a half hours while he`s away are a whirlwind.  I`m not late to pick him up but I cut it fine.  This morning I collected him from the gate and I thought the gardian was looking at me strangely.  Zaki was his usual smiley self and it was only in the car that he asked why I had material hanging in my hair. I pulled from the top of my head a long strand of half inch thick Kona teal. Oh where have my groomed days disappeared to?

Don`t forget to check in tomorrow.  It`s my turn in Jennifer`s Modern Mini Challenge and I need your loving support!

Wiggle It Just a Little Bit...

This is a substance light post.  This is the diet crispbread of blog posts.  You should be able to tell that straight away from the title. 

Despite a lot of sewing in the last few days, I really have nothing I can show you.

There`s been a lot of wiggling going on here recently.

First up, I did some curvy wiggling with the orange strings that sweet Jennifer sent me.

 Then, having thankfully got a thumbs up from my For the Love of Solids swap partner, I wiggled up the mini quilt top.  Now I have a little breathing space to work out how I`m going to quilt it.

Only sneek peeks are allowed.

I also wiggled up a Union Jack mini quilt using Echo fabrics but it`s pretty lame. Sadly, Echo fabrics were harmed in the making of this improv.pieced mini quilt top.  Sorry.

...and I`ve also been wiggling for Jennifer`s Modern Mini Quilt Challenge but you`ll just have to wait until Friday to see what I`ve come up with.  I hope you`ve been following along with the blog hop as there`s loads of inspiration and if you come up with your own mini quilt or mug rug, you can join in the challenge and perhaps win some seriously amazing prizes.  Of course it`s the taking part that counts.  But there are some amazing prizes.  Just saying.  You can read all about it here.

Anyway, I hope I haven`t let that song settle in your brain so that you`re humming it all night! Hope you have all had a great weekend!

Work in Progress Wednesday - The Quilting Equivalent of Burning Your Bra

I feel liberated.  I feel free.  I`ve thrown my ruler away and am free of all shackles.

For the Love of Solids Mini Quilt Work in Progress

I`m in the zone.  I`m going with the flow. 5 blocks down and another 4 to go. 

Linking up for the first time in ages with Lee at Freshly Pieced .  Thanks as ever to Lee for hosting this link up. Head on over there to see what other people are making.

Getting My Head Straight

...or should that be wonky?

I have struggled today. I had a newsletter I had to write this morning for an American Women`s Association I`m a member of here and it took forever.  But job done.

I then pieced the blocks for the back of my pouch for the Mouthy Stitches swap.  I`m waiting for my linen to arrive before I can go any further but I`ll be ready to go once it arrives.

My partner`s mosaic showed pouches fairly simple in design.  There will be a star on the front and I`m going to do a little hand-stitching in perle but this is not a complicated design.

So I then moved on to playing with my solids for the For the Love of Solids swap.  My partner, while not chatty, is a serial swapper and loves improv. designs.  My improvisational designs so far? Um. Zilch.  While I`m playing, I`m not getting very happy with anything I`m producing and meanwhile my stack of solids is slowly evaporating and I`m left with this.

So I`m going wonky I think and I know my partner loves wonky log cabins...the wonkier and crazier the better. I`m still finding it hard to let go...

Thank you for all your anniversary wishes...we had a very low key day.  We had lunch a deux a trois at a place a few kilometers outside Marrakech.  The setting was beautiful and it was a great way to celebrate.

...and to cure me of my snow envy, we could eat lunch while gazing at these...

Losing Control

A couple of days ago, the Kona solids I ordered for the For the Love of Solids swap arrived.  My partner and I have quite similar tastes.  She likes sludgy type greens and so I ordered some peridot, artichoke, sea foam and olive and threw in a couple of blues (delft and teal) for some contrast. 

 My partner isn`t very chatty on flikr and I`m unsure whether she approves of my colour palette.  I know from her mosaic that she wants something improv.pieced and so I tried my hand at some curved piecing. I loved this, and thanks to Diane for her great video, which I have put at the bottom of this post.

Here`s a peek at another go at improv.piecing.  This was much more difficult for me and I`m not feeling the love with this one. It was difficult to let go. There`s an amazing amount of talent in this swap and I am feeling a little unworthy. I`ll stick it up on flikr and see what the reaction is. I do find some of the comments a little blunt on flikr.  I`m not talking necessarily about anything I`ve put up but I wish people would remember that if something isn`t to their taste, they can either not comment or do so tactfully.

 Okay, I`m off my soap box now.  Yesterday, I spent several hours tidying a spare room full of boxes, which hadn`t been touched since we moved last summer. It took hours of course because I sat amongst the boxes looking at old photos and wading through loads of loose papers and I found the complete set of my high school reports.  I thought I would leave you with this one for Dress Design (a C- means below average).  I was 12 years old.

Annabella`s progress has been rather slow so far but I hope as she gains experience and confidence in using the sewing machine, her progress will improve.

I hope `Warty Wordell`, as we affectionately referred to her, is proud that I did indeed make some progress in using the sewing machine, although I imagine she may indeed be in the great sewing room in the sky.

Here`s Diane`s video.

Fake it `til You Make It

That expression will be written on my tombstone no doubt.  Throughout life I`ve often found myself in situations where I`ve had to convince others that I know far more about something than I actually do!

As I`ve mentioned before, a couple of weeks ago I signed up for the Mouthy Stitches swap hosted by the lovelies, Susan, Hadley and Cindy.  It`s a zippered pouch swap.  Suffering from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), I immediately signed up after receiving an early alarm call from Hadley to do so.  Bleary eyed, I headed over to `hers` and the rest is as they say, history.

The slight fly in the ointment was that I had never actually made a zippered pouch before.  I had put numerous zips in clothes (in my teens) but a pouch of the zippered variety was new territory.

Until today, that is.  I made what will be doubtless one of many practice pouches in the warm colourway of Lotta Jansdotter`s Echo. Not perfect by any means but it`s a pouch (well a wristlet to be exact) and there is a zip in it. Once I decide on a zip colour for my swap partner`s pouch, I need to get some coordinating thread - I don`t like the effect of the white thread on the yellow zip.

As I was making the patchwork panels (the front and back are mirror images of each other), it dawned on me how much brown was in the warm tones of the Echo prints, and I recalled a flikr discussion about how many people hated brown!  I wouldn`t necessarily want a brown quilt but I`ve always quite liked brown accessories.

The wristlet is quite capacious and holds all the essentials and will be handy for running to the shops or gym (ah, yes, I remember the gym...vaguely).

I used Ayumi`s tutorial here.  If I was to say it was plain sailing, then I would be lying.  The seam ripper did come out once or twice but it wasn`t so bad. Nothing to do with the instructions, which are excellent but my incompetence in following them. Now I need to try a pouch with covered end tabs.

There is awesome talent in this swap.  I have been assigned my partner and I know her to be super sweet.  I`m just hoping she is of a forgiving nature.  Just in case.

In the last week, I was overwhelmed to be asked to participate in a couple of really exciting things coming up soon.  They are a little hush hush at the moment but as soon as I receive the nod, you`ll be the first to know.  It`s also my blogaversary in a couple of days, so be sure to come back.  Just saying.

Home Sweet Home

Mouthy Stitches Inspiration Mosaic, a photo by Life`sRichPattern on Flickr.

Zaki and I are home. We arrived last night.  So sad to say goodbye to my mum but so happy to say hello to the hubster who we haven`t seen for 4 weeks. I think he had missed us. That will be mutual then.


Back to a routine.  Pre-school for Zaki and some sewing for me.  I have been MIA on and off the last few weeks and promise to be a more regular sewist, blogger, follower and commenter now that we`re home.


By the end of last year, I had sworn off swaps. Not because I didn`t enjoy them.  They are hugely fun and I have made great friends through them but anything involving deadlines is difficult with no LQS.  Everything has to be ordered online and that involves time uncertainty and money. It`s not really fair on my partner.


I never did receive my tablerunner in the Modern Christmas Tablerunner Swap.  It`s now 2 months since it would have been posted to me and being an optimist I remain hopeful that it will show up.  Perhaps in time for next Christmas!  I feel sorry for my partner as I know what it is like to wait for something you`ve made to arrive - my make and scraps in the Scrappy Swap took 6 weeks to make it to Australia.


So being off swaps, that means I wouldn`t sign up for any more right?  Well I have and the first is the Mouthy Stitches Swap - a pouch and a fat quarter of scraps swap. I don`t have to tell you that Susan, Hadley and Cindy are hosting this as most of you are in the swap.  What made me sign up?  Well I love the swap mamas and it`s already a party over at the flikr group. They want a chatty interactive group and I think they`ve got one.


I also signed up to the For Love of Solids Swap after I saw it on Susan`s blog.  Having seen the amazing makes in Round 1, I headed straight over to the group and saw that there was one spot left.  I wrote the quickest request to join and pressed the post button.  I sneaked in under the wire becoming the 100th member.  You can see my inspiration mosaic here. 


I have so much to tell you and so much to do but that will have to wait for another day. I left my camera`s memory card in England so I`ll have to get a new one before I can post any pictures!