Swappin'

This sweet little bluebird arrived in the mail last week from my Secret Santa, Mary in Ontario. It was part of an online swap for which I made a Christmas banner for Tricia, who lives in England and is crazy about Christmas. She received her banner today and promised to take a picture which is great because I forgot to take one before I mailed it.

She asked how I made it, and it was quite easy and fun, really. I was inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, so I got out my Dear Jane triangle ruler and bought a zig zag blade for my rotary cutter. I fused two rectangles of Christmas fabric together and simply cut the piece into a triangle. When I had made a number of them, I made a long strip of binding and sewed it across the tops. A little embellishing, and voila!

Last week I also mailed out all the basket blocks for another swap that I was hostessing. There were 16 participants, so I went to the post office when I thought it wouldn't be busy. I love the helpfulness of the staff there, and, although a line formed almost immediately, Nancy just calmly took care of each package in turn. Most had postage already on them, but some people wanted delivery confirmation and it made sense to check to see if there was enough postage. Most of the people in the swap have already received their blocks and are happily moving them around their design walls. I have some fabric I'm going to use to set them with, but I'm putting it all in a bag to take to quilt camp in a couple of weeks. It is really nice to read of everyone's enthusiasm for their blocks which will make some sweet quilts.

On Saturday I received a nice fat squishy package of Friendship Swap blocks. There were 21 "Prairie Flower" blocks from various people in the US, Canada, and England. Each has "solid" green and floral fabric surrounding a center signature square so that when they are laid out, they look like a carpet of flowers. After laying them out, I decided to make a few more so that I can have 6 rows of 5 blocks. I tried a variety of settings, but they look pretty just set block-to-block so that's what I'm working on now. Photos... eventually!