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.