I felt quite intimidated this round. My prather is  a talented prson, whicjh was more than expectad in the swap participants company. However I have alway liked her creations a lot. Anxious to see if it will be liked. HOping it will be!

And anxious to receive the quilt made for me…

Making this one was great pleasure. I machine pieced and quilted this time. Only one totally handmade thing – the labeling.

Hope my partner will like it. It will be in the mail on Monday. When I am back to normal.

More pictures on my Flickr.

But I see a prominent Doll Quilt Swap routine here… every time I sign up, an extremely busy period starts… So far I have always been able to send in time or almost in time. Hopefully I will send precisely on the deadline this time.

As always I started with a long ideas, deciding and un-deciding… period. It is not easy to make something you would like to do and seems your partner will like too. I started with some ideas and had to leave them. The official quilt is in my latest quilting trend – solids, so it felt great and hopefully my partner will feel it too.

It is almost quilted now.

First of all, I missed a “not” in my sign in info – I do prefer fabric and crafting notions much more than chocolate. Plus I can buy chocolate here but fabrics.. it is a different story…

I have written similar post for every round here. I never read the previous before writing a new, so they might be all the same or totally different. Never mind, here are the crucial things:
Enjoy making it.
Use or come up with an idea you like or wanted to try.
Use a technique you like, or what to try.
Use your colours. Just make sure there are colours in there – it is likely I am not in in love with completely black and white quilt. But who knows…

Other detail. I will hang it and enjoy it, wash it from time to time. So make sure it is washable. Hanging aid is an optional as I will find a way to hang it without any too.

By machine, by hand, with or without embellishments – all your choice.
What really matters most is the fact you made it for me, if enjoyed making it and created something you like, than it is a treasure.

Happy Quilting!

What to make, how to make it – by hand, by mashine, both; with or without appliques… my colours, partners, colours.. or both… wondering if I will get the right clue on the photostream or blog… trying to be not too specific here so I could keep the partner’s surprise safe…

PS If you are wondering similar questions and readying my blog secretly to get same clues… /you are making a quilt for me/, I will write something especially for you here this weekend.

The Independence day seems to be a good day for me to be back on my blog. So here I am. Happy Independence Day Bulgaria!

It took me some time to get used to being a mom of a pupil, which includes super early start of the day and driving, being sleep deprived and my sewing machine being neglected… To make things even more interesting I dropped my camera by some really stupid incident… but it is back working now…

I am behind the Doll Quilt Swap schedule, but the quilt is ready finally. I am happy with it.

I had never made such a complex quilt entirely by hand before. My first entirely handmade quilt was simpler. But wanted this one colourful and cheerful, not so stylish as the first one. I am now showing the quilt as it is a surprise package which has not reached its recipient yet. It was great pleasure making it. I did not follow precisely my partner likings. I hope it will be liked. I really love being part of Doll Quilt Swap.

And I received a DQS package too. Will blog it soon. It is gorgeous!

first of all

I like lots of things and I am pretty sure it is impossible that anyone can incorporate all of the things, listed below in one quilt. I hope you can get an idea instead, so you can make something you would like making and feel confident too.

patterns and style

I prefer it modern – clean, serene, crisp and stylish. But also like traditional with a wonky or modern colours/placement twist, free cut patchwork or applique, etc.

colours

I love them all, but I do not consider some to be colours at all too LOL.
I like bright /not neon/, vibrant or serene, matured or clear colours. White is OK, off-white and ecru liked, but black and grey…I like them only like pepper and salt – not too much. All brownish and earthy tones are OK with some cold tones, but I do not like the brownish, washed out grey style. Modern colours and combinations make feel good – orange and fuchsia, red and fuchsia, sky blue and brown, aqua and green, etc…

prints

I like solids, polka dots, stripes, modern prints – designer, zakka, japan, or cute and any combinations of these. No fur prints or hunting, country style /unless it is the warm and serene North European style/ please. Some print will be loved by my kid – orange, dragons, penguins and orange colours.

final notes

… as it really gets big LOL… it will be liked, loved and hung, so please make it washable if possible, please. And have fun making it!

List оf the inspirations above:
1. All done., 2. Doll Quilt Swap 6, 3. Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler fabric, 4. dqs5 completed, 5. Kaffe’s flower garden, 6. Table Topper close up, 7. dqs6 front, 8. DSCN0632, 9. swap quilt sent to helen/mini millie, 10. scraps quilt #1, 11. red and aqua quilt, 12. Squares, 13. “Postcards from Hawaii” Quilt, 14. DQS5front, 15. Wedges!, 16. DQS5 received from Mimi Park!

It is a warm, lovingly made and lovingly-worn-looking one, all colours being a little bit subtle, all the prints with the delicate soft look of an antique quilt. The colour combination is not usual – almost bright solids with delicate floras in romantic beige and pink. It matches the biggest quilt I have made so far, one that I keep at home and is yellow and blue – all squares. A perfect match!

The quilting is delicate feather machine stitch. The texture makes me think of a lady / at least my age or even double my age/ who has used it to make her dolls warm in a cold winter evening.

It is all made with lots of love and it shows. It is made by Rachel.
Thank you!

And the quilt I made for this round was received too. It is this one – now I can tell it was a Doll Quilt Swap quilt. You can read Tina’s comments there to see how it was received – swap magic!

So it was easy to make it different – white to replace the colours, scissors to be the cutting tool, needle to replace the machine /no options really here/. I have being keeping some yo-yos for a year so I really wanted to use some of them.

I like the clean and simple look of it. It appears to have some serene qualities and I do like serene style in quilts.

I call it a successful experiment and have already planed some new ones to match.

It is my first quilt made by hand – no single machine stitch here, nor any rotary cutting or any other “modern” help.

I used Perle cotton for the quilting and did not quilted too much as I was trying to make it all as as simple as possible. I am still not sure if it would look better with some white quilting on the background. I decided not to add it to keep the texture of the ovals.

The quilting is in three different shades of green. Oh, and the label is in orange /of course/.

I knew it traveled a lot to me and back and I made a rough estimation  -  2 weeks to arrive.

It took it 5 days instead!!! All the way from Australia. For a second time. Remember the estimation? It was here on Friday, but I checked today! I am quite busy now, and did not want to check every day for a second week…

I like all the quilts in the swap, I actually love some of them, and kind of expected one particular quilt, which I knew was posted long ago from Europe and was not received yet/that made me think it might travel around Europe/. Was kind of prepared to get it, but it would not be a surprise….

And I had a surprise! With a colourful recycled envelope, a name I did not recognize on it, and a nice, kind note that made me recall the blog and the quilt that go with this name – Dear fii

It is even better than on the pictures. I like it so much!

Fiona, thank you for the colours, scrappy warm patches, dots, hand quilting, label, extras, sending twice…. Thank you!!!

This will always be a very special quilt to me. The first quilt someone made for me!, First swap quilt!… and maybe the first swap quilt that traveled the Oz – Europe distance three times!

It got dark before I had the chance to take some pictures, but pictures to come, be sure!