DQS9 Reswap

Remember my DQS9 swap quilt?  I wasn't very happy with the overall experience, and I think my blog post made that clear.  Unfortunately, I made my partner really sad.

Not my intention, please believe me.  But, I understand her feelings.  I was pretty negative about the whole deal, and I can see why she would think I was pretty negative about her, too.

I was always taught to make my wrongs right, and so I begged Michelle to let me reswap with something I love and am proud of.  Essentially, she gave me another chance!

Michelle has a really fun sense of color and uses beautiful fabrics in all her projects.  The items she's made for swaps are extremely cute!  So, I decided to use one of my favorite, fun color combinations-- orange and pink.

The patchwork top is piece entirely of 2.5" hexagons; I used the English paper piecing method, which I think is easy and fast.  The fabric is an excellent cheater cloth that someone sent me in a swap-- perfect for this task!

I quilted this top three times-- yes, three times!  The first two attempts were ugly and sloppy looking, so I picked them out.  Instead of doing something complicated and cutesy, I settled on a diagonal straight line grid.  Personally, I think this quilting is immaculate.  The stitches look beautiful and the overall pattern is simple but visually impressive.  I've never done this pattern before, but I will definitely do it again, and probably on another hexagon project.

The backing is a print from Riley Blake's Summer Song-- once again, another perfect fabric for this project.  Honestly, with this print and the quilting, I think I like the back more than the front!

Lastly, I bound the miniquilt in my favorite pink fabric-- Lakehouse Antique Dots in Berry.  I have a limited supply left from my fabric crisis search, so it was a sacrifice to give this up.  But, it was too perfect a match, so I bit the bullet.  Looks good, right?

I made Michelle quilted hex needlebook with some more of my Timber stash.  I love this calm, botanical line.  Very opposite of my miniquilt, but I'm sure she'll love it all the same.

Of course, now that I've finished all these goodies, I realized I don't have Michelle's mailing address anymore.  Bummer.  I sent her an email; hopefully she'll respond.  I really want to give her these goodies!

Quilted Hex Needlebook

It seems that everyone has taken The Process Pledge.  This pledge basically states that pledgers will share and discuss their process of creation, rather than just their finished products.

Usually I do talk about my process and share photos of what's in progress.  In some cases, however, I just don't feel like doing all that work to share the process-- I'd rather enjoy it!  Agree or disagree?

I finished my quilted needlebook last night.  I used a few different prints from Jessica Levitt's line Timber.  These calm colors and botanic prints have been calling to me for a while, so I decided to answer.

The patchwork cover is made of 3" paper pieced hexagons.  The book, unfolded, is about 8"x10".  In order to get this size, I needed to piece together 11 hexagons.

I quilted 1/4" inside the edge of each hexagon.  I don't like to stitch over or do heavy backstitching on quilting, so instead I pulled my bobbin thread up to the top at each starting point.  Doing this allowed me to bury the thread tails when finished, creating a nice, clean quilting motif.

After quilting I trimmed the hexagon edges to make an 8"x10" rectangle.  Then, I attached binding as I normally would, making sure to get perfectly mitered corners.  For this size quilt I only needed to cut one binding strip-- how easy!

This needlebook is really just a tiny quilt folded in half, with needles stuck into it.  I chose to make it this way, rather than with pages because of a needlebook that Amy has.  Hers doesn't have pages and I love it, so I chose that form for my needlebook.

Now I've got cute on-the-go storage for my needles!  This project was so quick and easy, I can see myself making several more as gifts or for swaps.  My only regret is that I didn't put a Jennifer Can Quilt tag on it.  Ah, well-- next time!

P.S.  This is what I was using to store my needles before; a scrap of batting with fabric stuck to it.  Sad.