This month I signed up for my first swap ever. This is in keeping with some of the
advice I received during my giveaway in order to get more out of blogging. So when I stumbled across the
Rapid and Tiny Zakka Swap group on Flickr during the sign-up period for July, I recognized the opportunity and immediately joined up.
After filling out a little questionnaire about my likes and dislikes (I found this difficult) I received one from my swap partner at the beginning of July. She basically likes a ton of cool things (retro, 80s, pop culture, color, woodland whimsy, adorableness, felt, etc...I mean, too many to mention but awesome ones) but I was stumped anyway. Eventually I came up with this:
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Needlebook #1, cover |
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Needlebook #1, inside |
I used a couple of patterns/tuorials for this one. First, the overall quilt/page/pocket design is from
here (although I deviated in size) and the embroidered sewing machine detail is from
Makoto's Cross-Stitch Super Collection. Finally, the spool and sewing machine blocks are a free pattern from
here. This was my first paper-pieced block ever and it was fun! The thing was, although I learned a ton doing it, I really didn't think it ended up
A) Tiny or
B) Rapid; it's actually kind of bulky and loose. Also it's GIANT. Almost 7 inches square. It's cute, but it wouldn't be very practical for on-the-go projects...
So I started over.
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Needlebook #2 |
If you've wandered around the blog, you might have seen another one of these
hexagon needlebooks. This is the kind I made for my mom on
Mother's Day and the kind I use myself, all of the time. It's compact, portable and gets the job done. This is what I'm sending to my swap partner. I hope she wouldn't rather have the giant one.
In any case, I'm mailing it out tomorrow.
Edit: If you'd like to see the needle book I received, it's on Flickr
here.
And I signed up today for the August RATZ swap:
Name Tags.