EEE Swap: Emily, Emily, & Elaine

Silly EEE's posing for a picture at QuiltCon

I am pretty lucky that in my quilting and blogging journey I've met several awesome quilters in real life. Many friendships are built online first, then continued after meeting. Two such friends are Emily and Elaine.

The three of us met through blogs/flickr/our guild's bigtent page, and then met in real life at a Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting. I've got a funny story about how Emily gave me a ride to my first CMQG meeting - without ever meeting me first. The whole way there we were both trying to make sure the other wasn't a cereal killer. LOL.

Either way, the three of us became friends, and at some point last summer/fall we decided to do a swap between the three of us. Each of us making an item for both of the others.

Well... we're really good at deadlines. Our first swap date was to be "after Thanksgiving"... which was pushed back to "around Christmas"... lol. Well we've decided that swapping in person is going to be better - so we'll swap at QuiltCon (did I mention Elaine moved across country?).

I decided to make a Pretty Pleats Tote for each of them.

I didn't worry so much about making something that Elaine would love. Hers was fairly easy once I decided on the pattern. I used Anna Maria Horner's Feather Bed block pattern (altered to fit). When it comes to fabric I used some Denyse Schmidt and Shot Cotton paired with a scrappy mess of Anna Maria Horner fabrics. I wasn't too worried, since I know Elaine and I have very similar taste when it comes to fabrics. 

For Emily's I worried. Yes, she's my best friend but man she has opinions about fabric! lol. Having a background in art means that Emily has very specific likes and dislikes when it comes to color. So, wanting to make something she'll really love, I made her list her favorite Konas (off the top of her head) so that I could match my fabric choices to the color card to see if I was on track. (I previously did not notice the warmness or coolness of a purple....). I think I captured Emily's colors pretty well. For hers I did a bit of free piecing with a couple cute flying geese blocks. It was really fun and challenging to work outside of my normal color scheme! (Sorry to my regular readers, I'm repeating myself... that's what happens when you write blog posts way ahead of time).

Before starting either of these bags I sketched and listed all the things I wanted to include, so I didn't forget to add my three prairie points to the lining of their bags. I also remembered to add a loop of super awesome AMH ribbon for them to clip their keys.

I just couldn't leave well enough alone, and added a tiny coordinating mini dumpling pouch to each of the bags. The dumpling pouches as well as the totes all have some little simple hand sewn details. For that added touch of love to the project. :) 

Picture taken by Alyssa / Pile of fabric

EEE Swap (Left to right), Pillow covers made by Emily B. Totes made by me. Composition notebook carriers by Elaine.