swaps – Page 3 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

April Goals! A Lovely Year of Finishes

7 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Hexies, swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

April Showers bring May Flowers…right? Gosh I hope so since I will be starting to work on my garden this month! I will also be working on the Modern She Made Swap on Flickr that I am in. This time the project has to include hexies, and thanks to the wonderful Shanna, I found out and was accepted into the swap.

These are my EPP templates and my layout – the background is going to be a surprise for now…

My partner likes scrappy and rainbows so these are my fabric pulls.

Shanna already gave me an amazing idea for how to quilt it and I am excited to get started!!! A little bit of handwork ahead but I’m looking forward to see this all done!

What about you? What’s your April goal?

What one item will you choose?

You have two requirements to be entered into the prizes this month.

1. Link-up {on this post} the first 7-days of the monthand2. Link-up in the last 7-days of the month.

Add your blog post or flickr photo (with appropriate descriptions) to the linky party below.

Please grab a button or link back to Shanna and I so other people can join in the fun!

**Please note, the linky party is the same here and over at Shanna, so there is no need to enter twice **

Here’s what we have for April prizes:

1. Thread Prize from Aurifil

2. Quilting Patterns designed by Quilting Lodge

3. $15.00 Gift Certificate to Fat Quarter Shop

4, 5. TWO winners each getting to choose one pdf pattern

from Sew BitterSweet Designs ($10 value)

6. PDF Pattern from Persimon Dreams

7. Sew Sweetness – 1 pdf Pattern

8. Thimblepie’s Quilt Supplies – Custom fabric package, 4 yards (worth $20) plus free shipping

9. Green Fairy Quilts – 3 pdf patterns

10. 1 Charm pack or $10.00 gift certificate to

Stitches n’ Giggles (winners choice)

11. One PDF Pattern from Meadow Mist Designs

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As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask Shanna or myself!

Sweet Pouch Swap

6 Comments / swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

I am participating in the Sweet Pouch Swap hosted by Sew Delicious. I learned about it on Instagram, which I am just loving being on (@SewBitterSweetDesigns), it is so inspiring. I finished my pouch 2 weeks ago, but I only finished filling it up yesterday. I am hoping to mail either today or Friday. I need to get it out soon because it has a long way to travel…all the way to Australia.

I followed the Triple Zipper Pouch Tutorial by A Quilter’s Table.

I love how it turned out. Having never been to Australia I had no idea what kind of candy they may or may not have there, but I knew I shouldn’t send chocolate since it is summer there right now. I decided to include some new Skittles that are new here. I guess I am hoping they aren’t there yet.

Are you doing any swaps right now? I have one more pouch to make for another swap, but I have until the middle of March to finish that one.

10 Sewing Days Left…

15 Comments / Christmas, swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

Let me start out with an apology. This week I haven’t been able to get on email at all. Anne has been having some pretty complicated health stuff going on, in fact today we are running up to the army hospital because in the last week she has broken out in hives 3 separate times and we don’t know why and tomorrow morning we head up for an emergency kidney ultrasound. Email has taken a bit of a backseat, but I want everyone to know I am reading every comment and I truly appreciate every single one of them. That being said, I distracted myself from all of this crummy health stuff yesterday.

I have 10 sewing achine days left before I leave for the holidays. This naturally means that I should start a new quilt project that will need to be finished before I leave…right?

Pictured above are 154 Christmas charms and 14 solid white charms. I participated in A LOT of charm swaps 2 years ago. In fact I probably have enough left that I could make a second quilt this same size! I’ve decided to name this quilt the “Charming Christmas Quilt.”

This quilt will be for 2 very special people in our lives and I am excited because I have never made one for them before. I know this will go together quickly. Hoping to have the top 100% done tomorrow during preschool and nap time. Then I just need to figure out a backing and quilt it. Easy…right?!?

Are you quilting anything special in the last few days running up to Christmas?

PS. For a sneak peek at my next pattern, head over to Orchid Quilts today!

Swap Fun With My Guild

11 Comments / Purse/Pouch, SSMQG, swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

Last night was our monthly meeting for the South Sound Modern Quilt Guild and it was a fun one! In September everyone who wanted to brought in baggies full of their scraps and traded with someone else. The goal was to make a swap gift for someone using that persons scraps (kind of guaranteed they will, at the very least, love the fabrics). There was no limit on what you could make.

When I got my bag all I could see was white fabric. I was initially a bit scared, what was I going to do with just WHITE! My partner though was stealthy, she hid all of her colors inside a nice wide strip of white, lovely oranges and grays. Here is what I made:

I have a ton of orange and gray scraps too, so I added some from my stash. My partner made it so easy on me, she said she didn’t have a zippered pouch and her pin cushion was in need of updating. Voila!

I made the pouch using a QAYG technique, with no pattern or tutorial, just made it up as I went. The pin cushion I just sewed together all of the scraps. I had so much fun making this. If you want a tutorial for the pouch let me know, I will happily whip another one up, it won’t be exactly the same, but you will get the general idea of how to make it.

The awesome part though was when we got to give our gifts, the ladies in this group are just so crazy talented! It was amazing to see what they made with scraps! Heather from Creative Blessings had me and she clearly did her homework! She got me down to a tee.

I felt so incredibly spoiled! She got me my favorite fabric line (Simply Style) and a gorgeous mug rug and cup cozy with a little coffee set! She even gave me some extra flying geese and hexie templates!

This card (which I didn’t read until this morning) truly touched my heart. Heather is incredibly talented with making cards and it made me feel so special to receive one of hers!

And this notebook cover! She designed it herself and could she have gotten my style any better?!? Hexies and flying geese! My two favorite things!

I think Heather needs to do a tutorial for this! It is truly an awesome design. It even has a pouch for sticky notes and a pencil! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

As Heather said in her card, this guild has filled a need in her life that she didn’t know she had, and she is so right for me too. I had no idea who much starting this guild would mean to me, but it truly has been the most amazing experience! Thank you so much Heather!

Pretty Pouch Swap

9 Comments / swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

Last month I participated in the Pretty Pouch Swap hosted by Kim of Lily Patch Quilts.

I had a lot of fun and got to know my partner a little bit too, it is always fun to learn about new people and try and make something that they will hopefully love. As this was a pouch swap the pattern I picked was the Gathered Clutch by Noodlehead. It is a pattern I have made once before and I really loved it.

My partner Roxie described her style as Rustic Tuscan which I had never heard of, so I of course headed over to Pinterest and did a search. I saw lots of blues and browns together, which is awesome because I happen to have lots of both of those colors! Here is the pouch I came up with:

I just love these 2 prints together! Here is an inside shot – I opted for the pockets and for the divider. I love being able to separate things in my wallet so I wanted to make sure Roxie had that option too!

All I did was reverse the prints on the inside. I used about a fat eighth or so of both my fabrics and I’m tickled with how it turned out. I tucked a mini charm pack inside for my partner. We were supposed to throw in local treats but I don’t keep much in the house because of Anne’s allergies. I hope my partner didn’t mind that too much.

Tomorrow I will be sharing a special quilt I am working on for Anne so make sure you stop by to check it out!