The Animal In You Swap

If you've been around Instagram at all this past year, you'll probably have noticed that sewing swaps have been all the rage.  It's hard not to get sucked into them when there have been so many great ideas and sewers involved in these swaps.  I did do a few swaps, and the last one that I was a part of was called #theanimalinyouswap.  The idea was to make 3 handmade items for another swap participant of that person's favorite animals.  I was assigned to make for a lady who LOVES Halloween which is rather comical since Halloween is by far my absolutely least favorite holiday.  Yes, I know, I'm weird and I'm definitely in the minority, but I just cannot stand Halloween.  I only tolerate it for the kids and even then, cute costumes are a must and a sugar high seems to help. But anyways...I digress. 

Running with the love for Halloween and specifically her love of black cats and bats, I managed to put aside my dislike of Halloween and came up with some fun and kind of cute things for my partner.
I decided to paper piece two back cats to get started.  The patterns are called Silhouette Cat #1 and Silhouette Cat #12 by Quilt Art Designs on Craftsy.  

I then pulled out some bright fabrics in her favorite colors, downloaded Anna Graham's Road Trip Case pattern, and got to work.  I turned the paper pieced black cats into panels for the outside of the Road Trip Case.  

All together, the Road Trip Case turned out pretty cute.  I thought it was fun to have a kind of simple outside to the case.

 But the inside of the case is ablaze in colors.  This bag pattern is definitely one I might have to revisit again someday.

 Well, one item down, two more to go.  On my partner's mosaic that she posted of animals she liked, she posted a few bat softies and a bat quilt.   I ran with those ideas too and made this cute little bat.  The wings and ears are made from a run sewing notions themed fabric making this the perfect companion for my partner in her sewing room.  I think this pattern is called the Barnabas Bat pattern by Bit of Whimsy Dolls.

 And the last item I sewed together for this swap is a twist on a herringbone quilt.  The rows columns are cut and switched around in such a way as to make what looks like little bats.  The center bat on the quilt was done in gray and got a little embroidered face to make it stick out.  For a bat quilt - its pretty quilt.  ;)

 This was also the first time that I used variegated thread while quilting and the green/orange/red mix worked really great for this quilt.

So, while I was pulling fabric together to make this bat quilt, I might have been inspired to use this pull (tweaked a bit) to make a maple leaf throw quilt for our living room.  But more on that later since its still half finished in my stack of wips at the moment.
All told, it was a fun swap and my partner loved the package I sent to her.  I think I definitely nailed her personality by what I made for her. :)  However, I think this will be my last swap for a good long while - too much selfish sewing I want to do, plus holiday sewing, plus craft show sewing - yup, the next few months are going to be busy for my sewing machine.  

Farm House Lane Quilt

I love my mom and I can honestly say she's one of my closest friends which is kind of funny because growing up and especially during my teen years we just didn't get along. At all.  Also, our tastes on almost everything are completely opposite!  But still, I'm pretty close to my mom and she is probably also one of my biggest cheerleaders of my life in general and also of my sewing and quilting.  I've made my mom quite a few different things over the past couple of years for her birthday or Christmas or just because which is always.  This spring though, my mom asked if she could hire me to make her a wall hanging quilt for her living room.  Ummm..Yeah!! =D

Since my mom's living room is decorated in a lot of blues and mauvey reds, I pulled together this pile of fabric to make a quilt that would compliment what she all ready had.  Definitely not my normal colors, but that's what is fun about making for other people - it forces me to sometimes play with colors and ideas that I wouldn't normally think about when I'm just sewing for myself.

She told me she liked the idea of house blocks for the quilt and I instantly knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet just published a new book this spring called "Farm Girl Vintage".  In the book, there is a quilt pattern for a throw sized quilt called "Farm House Lane" which I thought we be perfect for what my mom wanted.  I did adjust the number of houses and filler blocks I used so it would be more wall sized than throw sized.
Confession time - this was the first quilt I ever used an actual design wall for.  Usually it gets laid out quickly on the floor and picked back up before the kids can get into it.  It was like to have it up on the wall out of their reach so I could get the layout and colors just right.

These little star blocks took FOREVER! I think I spent more time on these 5 little 6 inch blocks that I did on piecing the rest of the quilt!

Wanting to do something different than straight line quilting on this quilt, I finally cracked open the "Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting" by Natalia Bonner and made myself figure out this whole free motion quilting thing.  It only took a couple of evenings of fiddling with my sewing machine's tension settings and quilting up a couple of practice quilts (which my 3 yr old claimed for blankets for his lovies) before I had it figured out enough to tackle my mom's quilt.  And it turned out great!  You can't see the quilting too much in this picture below and I forgot to get any more detailed pics before I mailed it to my mom.

But anyways, I love how it turned out (even if it's completely opposite my normal color tastes), and most importantly my mom loves how it turned out. =D