Quiltcon mini swap design

At QuiltCon, I joined a mini quilt swap with Julie D’Initto, designing a quilt based on her love for fussy-cutting and animal motifs. In return, I received a beautiful fox quilt that I treasure. As I blog about designing, I love sharing these creative experiences. It was such a fun experience.

Last month I went to quiltcon for the first time, and I wanted to get the most out of this experience, so ofcourse I signed up for the mini quilt swap. I love participating in swaps and trying to surprise a fellow quilter.

After signing up, I got my swap partner in the fall, I got to make a miniature quilt for Julie D’Initto from the USA. In her sign up form she mentioned she liked fussycutting, animals and Ruby Star Society fabrics. We had a chat on social media to get to know each other a bit better and ask the other questions regarding fabrics, fabric lines and colours.

The first step for me was deciding on a pattern/plan for the mini quilt. I love working tiny, so ofcourse that was something I wanted to add. I wanted to try and stay close to the colours Julie loved and work in as many fussycutting as possible. One of my favourite blocks to use for fussycutting is an economy block, or I-spy block. I went for as small as possible, with the limiting factor being to keep enough room to put in a fussycut animal. I raided my stash and got some help from guild members to find the perfect animals for fussycutting.

I used my quilt planning notebook to draw out the design and play around with fabric and colour placement. I got this notebook from The Last Homely House last Christmas as a gift for myself.

Together with the small designboard I have it was easy to keep track of everything and to make sure I didn’t mix up the position of the blocks.

For the backing I ended up ordering some Ruby Star Society fabrics and auditioned different Kona cottons for the binding. Next it was time to handstitch the label and wait untill we could do the actual swapping.

We both shared a sneakpeek on social media, but I found it hard to decide on a little peek without giving away to much. So I ended up sharing a pixelated version of a piece of the quilt.

On February 21st it was finally the time to swap our quilts. The room was absolutely buzzing with excitement and I quickly found my swapfairy Kathleen and Julie. We already met earlier during Quiltcon, so that was one less thing to be worried about. I’m so in love with the little fox Julie made for me, it’s my favourite animal, and she used the letterpattern from Giucy Giuce, my favourite designer and some of his fabric.

Julie, thank you so much again for swapping with me, I love, love, love the quilt you made me. I also loved making your quilt and I hope you still like it. The fox has gotten a special place in my sewing room on the wall above the window. And the Mood bag comes to sewing lessons quite often. Maybe one day I will go there….