Sunday, June 27, 2010

Angel Quilt #2.

Another lovely creation from Carol. A bit more traditional than her normal faire. Hand and machine quilted. I'm in awe of how quickly she can produce such masterpieces!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Freidasew's Finished Quilt.

Freidasew has finished! With a design interpretation from Amish Inspired Quilts. Made with batiks and solids. Very pretty!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Angel Quilt #1.

Look at this stunning quilt. Sewn by Carol who our Swap Mama Angel Quilt Maker. It is a new role for this round. Unfortunately there are always some bad swappers no matter how much we try and pick good swappers.... Carol's role is to make quilts for those bebe's who don't receive a quilt or are late in receiving. She is sewing a little stash to have on hand for such emergencies. Hopefully there won't be too many this round! This is the first one she has finished.

It is 18 1/2 inches sorta roundish, has 12 wedges, 95 different fabrics, and contains 121 colonial knots. Carol says "I use them all the time since they look almost identical to french knots, but are a ton easier to do."

We think it may be the first ever roundish quilt in the flickr's dolls quilt swap history. *sigh*

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Kimmie's Top 5!

Today we have one of the Mama's, Kimmie with some of her favorite quilts from past rounds "I didn't include rounds 1 or 2 because there weren't many with tags for those, and I didn't want to go through 4,000 photos".

From Round 3 by Lemon Tree Tales. "I love the vibrant colors in one of my favorite patterns."

From Round 4 by Needles-n-notions. "I love how this one makes you feel like you are right at the beach!!

From Round 5 by Don't Look Now. The colors and fabrics are beautiful, but what really stands out to me is that it has the most amazing quilting in it.

From Round 6 by Emma_Louise. I like that this one makes me think about my Grandmother's house. She had cherry trees, and this is like looking out her windows into her yard.

From Round 7 by Mini_Millyo4. Flying geese, rainbows, amazing quilting, what else does a quilt need? Its perfect!

From the last round, Round 8 by caitty1. This one is just too cute. Is it Little Red Riding Hood, or Jacob and Bella?

Monday, June 21, 2010

Lilys Quilts Top 5.

We have a guest poster today. Lynne from Lilysquilts.

Hi, I'm Lynne from Lilysquilts and am new to the DQS this round.

If you have tried it before, join the Flickr group and sign up next time. It is the most fun, sociable, hilarious and supportive Flickr swap group out there (imho!). I had this idea that it would be fun for people to choose their all time DSQ faves for blog posts because every time I randomly trawl through the history of the swap, I find more and more incredible quilts and it would be fun for me (and others no doubt) to be pointed in the direction of other people's favourites.

I started off with a plan to choose my five fave Doll Swap Quilts EVER but only got as far as DSQ8 before struggling to choose between at least 20 different quilts so decided to choose my five faves from DSQ8 and here they are:


Maripenquiltmom's bird raw edge quilt. I love the combination of the beautiful windmill quilt in the background and the striking applique on top. The choice of fabric for the border echoes branch and I love that the branch extends into the border. Although an enormous amount of work has clearly gone into this quilt, the effect is very simple.

Scrapnchick's trees quilt. The simplicity of this quilt is genius - I love everything about it: the colour scheme, the different trees, the stitched trunks and the beautiful simplicity.

CampFollowerBagLady's red cross quilt. Lots of clever little details in this quilt make it so interesting: different quilting stitches on the crosses and the binding, different buttons, a few red on blue crosses, a few white on red crosses and a mix of hand and machine quilting. Again, the work in this quilt is huge but the effect is very simple and striking.

I had to include at least one of mamcjt's angel quilts and this is my stand out favourite - again it's so simple but the work in it is so neat and perfect that the effect is striking. To me this is what a doll quilt should be - striking, bold, innovative and beautiful too.

Sparklygreenknicker's house and tree quilt is my final choice because it is so pretty with the orange border, orange leaves on the tree and the ivy climbing up the side of the house. But with the black door and blank windows, it also has, to me, a slightly eerie feel which is very difficult to achieve in a doll quilt with such bright pretty colours. I don't know this if this was intentional or not but I like it!

Because I missed out so many fabulous quilts, from this round, it would be great to have a list of comments with other people's faves on DSQ8 - if you put all your faves from that round in a gallery, your gallery will soon be overflowing and you will struggle to limit your faves to five, let alone one.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The world's smallest quilt?

Ruthiesquilts has made possibly the worlds smallest quilt!

She is leaving the top unfinished as it's going to be sewn into the quilt background!

And its hanging amungst the trees! Looking great Ruthie!

Friday, June 18, 2010

More sketches!

The sketches keep on flowing.....

Windowshopmom is thinking "Floral border....not sure what fabric yet....the circles are composed of strips of various prints and will be appliqued on either grey or brown (like the block party quilt along blocks). The bottom right circle will be an embroidery piece. I'm thinking something with birds....maybe a piece by Revi Devi...."

Ktelschow was inspired by the Riley Blake Raindrop Stripe fabric because she thought it could easily be used as a backdrop. But what kind of scene would have that backdrop? A little girl walking home from school in the rain, who suddenly decides she doesn't care about getting wet any more, and enjoys the rain instead of avoiding it!

Smeegol has come up with her first draft of what she might be making for the DSQ. She wanted to do a bit of hand work so that she can work on it a bit on her vacation. The bottom center is embroidery and the bottom right is a hexagon block.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Sketches off and running!

Sewgirly says "here is what I've been playing with. I want a long, narrow quilt with a long clothesline. I am picturing the items hanging on the line being made from vintage linens. The sun, clouds and grass would just be thread outlines. The background is light grey. It's all really rough and will probably change a million times!!"

Lilys Quilt says here is a world without quilt. Little quilts are being made to hang from washing lines suspended by birds between the trees. My original inspiration for these trees came from Sleighd's beautiful tree quilt here.

Craftychops is thinking applique raindrops with an umbrella made out of paper pieced selvage strips!

Flamingstitches just couldn't stop sketching! She admits she needs to make a decision and actually pick something to work on!

Bearpawandbearpaw is working on some initial ideas. I want to do a mixture of piecing and applique. I really like 'drunkard's path' so want to try making trees with this and applique stuff over the top.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Getting Ready

Behind the scenes Mama's have been busy ~ streamlining, compiling, planning, listing, double checking and setting things up for the swappers of Doll Quilt number 9. A new blog button has been chosen by popular demand and the mosaic group is filling up with all sorts of ideas. I've made my mosaic and hope that my partner to be will be looking at it to find what I'm loving as of right now. Pastels, sweetness, birds, houses, and embroidery. And I'm looking forward to scoping out the likes of whoever I'll be sending to also.

First the other Mama's and I will be given our Bebe lists and we'll worry and work hard to pair everyone up with suitable partners. It takes hours of checking everyone's blogs and flickr streams hoping that the pairings will go smoothly and that everyone will have a fun time. I love doing that part!
We also have some surprises in store ala "giveaways" ~ those details are being decided soon.

It should be fun for all.


Saturday, June 5, 2010

DQS9 Blog Button!

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