Quilt Swap Goodness

boutique close up, originally uploaded by sonjaartisania.

So here goes my first post in my new blog!

This is the second quilt block I made for a swap I’m participating in. (first to come in a minute) As usual I giggled my way through the layout of the piece. I found the dress form pattern here, and I guess I owe her some fabric as I’m doubly pleased with how it turned out!

I actually ran out of her measuring tape fabric, but I found some in my stash and used it in the last row leaving the uncoordinating strip as the seam allowance.

Here’s the full shot:

And now the first block I made for this swap:

Honestly, how fun is this? The boot sorely needed something to omph it up. So I added this mini harlequin border. Holy Shmoley was that a doozy! The trickiest part was lining up the itty bitty 1/2″ squares at the corners.

Here’s the full shot:

Seriously. I doubt I’ll attempt this border again until someone enlightens me as to how the heck I can do a perfect corner without sacrificing the inner mitered border. You see, my math skills are less than optimal and I had to actually sew the harlequin to the inner border first to make sure it all lined up at the corners before I sewed it to the boot. All in all I think it turned out pretty well! *doing my best to pretend that everything lines up*

Funky alignment aside, I do love love love quilting. Well, sewing anything really. As long as it’s a good challenge on the ole’ noggin and gets my creative juices flowing. I have some paper pieced quilt blocks I’ve designed recently that I’m hoping to get up on Etsy soon. And I think in the next post I’ll show you what I’m planning for the next big quilt project. The hubby’s boss’ wife is pregnant and I have less than 3 weeks to pump out one helluva charming quilt for someone I know virtually nothing about. How’s that for a challenge?