Down Under Doll Quilt Swap ~Done!

First off I have to show you the beauty that I received.

Are you ready....

sure....

okay then

ta dahhhhhhhhh

My new beau and I went on a little tour of the garden.

We got a little carried away, but it was such fun!

This beauty came from Leah aka Smoochee over on flickr.

Thank you Leah, me loves it!

Now for the one I made for my partner.

I had a whole lota fun making this, quite a sideways shift from my normal Doll Quilt. I felt so relaxed during the making process. Sometimes things didn't work so I just deleted them, sometimes there were happy accidents, like making mitred corners of the pink and blue strips. I hope my partner likes what she receives. It was posted today, so hopefully I will know before the end of the week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheerio for now!

x Mandy

Doll Quilt Swap No.10

finished!

I could really get used to this finishing quilts malarky!!

Right at the last minute I decided to do more hand stitching in the palest grey border. I'm really pleased with the outcome, it was so much fun working out the pattern (simple though it is), stitching, then seeing that idea come to life! I'll be doing more of this for sure.



So there we are, another DQS finished, well except for the receiving bit of course!!

Time to get excited about the one I'll be receiving! Time to go back through the Flickr pool and work out which ones have already arrived at their new home and which remaining ones I hope would come to me, and boy are there many of those! I love this swap, 200 odd likeminded people, across the world, making a mini quilt for each other! Amazing!

Next, Lynne's block! Yay for more wavy piecing! Then to start the Down Under Doll Quilt Swap, looking forward to that one.

Cheerio for now,

x Mandy

Doll Quilt Swap #10

I have always loved this fabric from Anna Maria Horner, 'Cathedral' from her Good Folks line. I love the simple duality of the pattern, circles and diamond stars or four pointed flowers. So, when I managed to purchase a yard of this I decided to use it as my inspiration for my DQS10.

I started to pull fabrics pieces from my stash but found I needed to do a bit of shopping! Dear oh dear what a bore that was.....not!!! lol It was tricky finding pinks that I was comfortable using, but I somehow managed!

So, this is where I started, grey HAD to be the background, and I decided that using 3 different greys could look interesting in the border. But it needed a bit of colour too, but not so much that your eye would be drawn away from the main pattern. So a thin scrappy border was the way, but in what colour?

These Anna Maria Horner 'Innocent Crush' blues provided the perfect answer. They blend so beautifully with the greys without detracting from the pinks and purples.

Next comes a little stitching in the ditch quilting, in the borders, then some hand quilting on the solids. I haven't quite decided on the colour, but maybe pink, actually I might have some already from another swap quilt.

I'm really quite enamoured with this one, even though I didn't get my stitches as close to the edge on the ovals as I'd have liked. I thought about washing the quilt when it's finished, to soften the edges of the ovals, but my DQS Flickr pals mostly say no! I'll make a final decision about that when the binding is on. Which is going to be my original fabric inspiration, of course!!!

After I finish this quilt, I've got another Doll Swap Quilt to think about! This time for the 'Down Under Doll Quilt Swap'! It will be fun to swap with 'locals'!!! One being my blogging pal Rachael of the Blue Mountain Daisy blog. You should check it out her blog, this lovely lass is not afraid of colour, and has made some stunning quilts.

Cheerio for now, and thanks for stopping by!

x Mandy