Doll Quilt Swap 13 Sent!

I'm so excited to share my quilt for DQS13! 

First up is the quilt that I made. I was super excited and nervous when I received my partner assignment. I've known and respected Elizabeth for years. We were in a bee together for two years (I still don't know how I got into that gig!), and we've generally known each other around the blog / flickr world forever. I really love Elizabeth's style and her quilts are fabulous. We have a lot of things in common, our fabric choices are similar, and she loves paper pieced stars too. (she's pretty much the modern paper piecing guru with her BOM!).

I was first inspired by this quilt that I found in Elizabeth's flickr faves / pinterest. I've adored this quilt too so I decided to try my hand at doing a sampler of sorts - but with the twist of the low volume background that it seemed Elizabeth likes (texty fabrics too). 

It proved to be a lot harder to really do it justice given the size constraints. In the end I used some improvisational piecing to put it all together. And major sad face here, I managed to lose my hand sewing kit on a trip back home - inside the kit was a finished (not photographed) attempt at the "Camelot" blocks. If you know me you know I don't particularly enjoy hand piecing.... I didn't have it in me to sew another 30+ 1" pieces together. :(

Fake piped binding and prairie point signature.

I bound it using the fake piped binding look... which was a bit annoying. The last time I did this sort of binding was years ago and I remembered loving it... I think I've grown a lot in precision since then. This wasn't as precise as I would have liked it to turn out. I do love that jolt of pink though. And I'm proud of myself for remembering to include my little signature, the three prairie points. They always make me smile. 

Some little extras, a boxy pouch and some AMH ribbon.

In the end I hope that Elizabeth likes it. I decided I don't really care for the scrappy low volume look for backgrounds, it feels so busy to me. I can't get over it. It was too late to change it though. I do love the look of the text prints if they were used individually as a background. 

Doll Quilt Swap 13 Received!

Fractured Quilt Doll Quilt Swap 13 Received from Silort

I'm so excited about the quilt I received this time around for the Doll Quilt Swap! This is by far my favorite swap, and I'm one of the head swap mamas for it... which meant I split up the bebe's for the other mama's to pair up.... I tried not to remember or even to think about what group I was in... (since partners are paired up within that group. Sneaky Jen, worked with another mama to pair me up so I wouldn't have a clue! It's a good thing too, because I had my eye on this beauty throughout the whole swap!

Doll Quilt Swap 13 Label, Received from Silort

I recieved this fabulous quilt made by Silvana / Silort. Silvana was inspired to try one right off my inspiration mosaic! The pattern for this little one is based off of Charlotte's Pervalong / Fractured quiltalong. Silvana did a great job executing this - the colors are perfect and bold and fun! I love the quilting, which really carries your eye across the piece. 

I'm so excited to get this hung up on my wall! It is perfection!! I'm so lucky to have received such a beauty!! Thanks Silvana!!

Doll Quilt Swap 13 - Sketching and Planning!

Just after Thanksgiving we received our partner info for the thirteenth round of the Doll Quilt Swap. I'm really excited about this, and I'm feeling really inspired by my partner's style. 

So here's my plan (so far), I'm going to start piecing some foundation paper pieced stars, English paper pieced stars (like those Camelot stars), free pieced stars, and some half square triangle chevrons to mix things up. The scale of these stars will vary from about 4" - 8". 

I'm not quite settled into a color scheme yet, but since my goal for swaps is to challenge myself, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try to accomplish a balanced low volume, scrappy, grey background. I have a few fabrics in mind... but it's going to be strange for me.

PS: Linking up for WIP Weds @ Freshly Pieced!

Doll Quilt Swap 13 - Inspiration and other things I love.

With every new round of the Doll Quilt Swap, we make our mosaics, and wait for the swap mama's to send us our partner's info. These mosaics are more than just a fun way to kill the time while waiting, I find that they're a good lesson in personal style. 

I always find it hard to pinpoint just what it is that I like about quilt. Is it the precision or the freedom? Maybe it's the colors or just the prints on the fabric. Making an inspiration mosaic captures the essence of me. These are the things that I love. 

When I go to make an inspiration mosaic I start with my flickr favorites - I have been compiling these throughout my years on flickr, and there are a lot of them! I start sifting through my fav's and opening new windows for the ones that particularly strike me. Once I have a dozen or so window open I start adding them to the mosaic (I use www.bighugelabs.com). The last few pictures are always hard to choose - which will be left out? 

Then it all comes together. Without fail I'm always surprised at how well it captures my likes. I hope this helps my swap partner to get to know me a bit better. I love these things. 

I love words and text. I like rich saturated colors, feathers, and dense quilting.  Paper piecing and free piecing are both awesome. I love the freedom to play with fabrics. 

What is it that this mosaic doesn't tell you? I love Harry Potter, Ingrid Michaelson and The Civil Wars. Those things don't usually relate to quilting though.