Sew Vote Swap Complete!!

I received an e-mail a few weeks ago asking if I would be willing to make a mini quilt to enter into a sew vote swap group on Flickr.  I had joined the group who knows how long ago and rarely get on Flickr anymore so I was way out of the loop.  

I figured I could ship up something to submit :) so I got to work.  

I have never pieced curves in a quilt block and my first attempt was okay but not great.  This really frustrated me because I'm typically a pretty quick learner and I can read instructions (even if I'm not always great at following them).  I put a pic of my troubled blocks on Instagram and asked for feedback on what was going wrong.  I got lots of great tips and after reading them over I gave it another shot.  Still not good enough.  Then a fellow OKC guild member reminded me that I piece curves all the time when making bags and clothes!  That got me to thinking...

I had originally resized my template pieces on the copy machine to make them 6" blocks instead of 12" and then I had redone the seam allowances before cutting my pieces.  What if something had gone wonky when I resized them?  So I reprinted the pattern pieces and started over!  Whala!!!  Perfect the first time with no tugging or stretching of the fabric to try and make it work.  

Now that I knew I could make the blocks I started debating how I wanted to make it MINE.  I knew I needed to work from my stash since all of my sewing budget is going into craft show prep at the moment.  So I raided my scrap bins (those things are overflowing!!).  I cut my scraps into 2" squares (I think?) and pieced together one large panel.  From there I cut the necessary pieces.  I cut my background from a low volume swap bundle that I've been slowly using for a couple of years.  The backing is a print I bough several yards of when the LQS had a sale.  I'm still determined to make a Staple Dress from it...

 

For the quilting  --  I decided to leave the colored portions of the quilt alone.  I simply stitched in the ditch around them.  In the low volume curved pieces I did small pebbling and the borders got some slightly wonky straight (can they actually be straight if they're wonky?) lines.  To finish it off I used a fat quarter of the paper clip print from Julia Rothman's Type line.

If you'd like to make your own Flowering Snowball block, you can find the pattern HERE!

I've sent it off to it's new home but haven't heard if it's arrive safely yet.  I on the other hand DID receive my mini and I absolutely love it, but more on that later ;).