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Down Under Doll Quilt Swap 2

I absolutely LOVED taking part in the Down Under Doll Quilt Swap 2. It’s the first bee or swap I have been a part of and now I have to be careful I don’t start signing up to loads of them! The swap was organised by Kate; I have been a follower and admirer of her work for a while now.

I’m not the fastest quilter (this is one of the reasons my husband thinks my blog name is suited to me as the making of my quilts can be slow like a tortoise!) so I saw the doll quilt as the perfect opportunity to indulge in some hand applique and hand quilting. I also wanted to challenge myself to use lots of bright patterned fabrics and see if they worked together and didn’t end up looking like a mess. I used a Piece O’ Cake design from this book so that I had lots of different applique shapes. As I was working out which parts of the design I wanted to include I read that my partner likes birds so I quickly (and quite smugly) added a bird. I hope she likes that bit!!

Another thing I loved above this project was that I would have said I didn’t have a stash – I know – poor me! I went through my bits and bobs of fabric left over from other projects and grouped them into colours that I thought would work well together and decided on the aqua and orange theme. Every single fabric including the backing came from fabrics I already owned so I was really impressed. Does stash have a definition? Does it have to include fabrics you have bought simply to own and covet rather than leftovers from other projects?

fabrics for DUDQS2

I guess I cheated a bit by setting it on a white background, but I do love the crispness of white with all those bright colours. I quilted with white perle thread – again I wasn’t sure whether to use a colour and settled for the safety of white. Let me know your thoughts on whether you think I should have been braver and tried a patterned background or coloured perle thread.

I also LOVED being part of the flickr group and commenting on each others ideas, WIPs and finished quilts. I haven’t had comments about my quilts before from people I don’t know and it was such a buzz to get praise from people I admire and respect – people whose blogs I visit often – people who know how to quilt.

So a big thank you to Kate and the other DUDQS2 participants – I would love to play again with you guys in the future. Fingers and toes crossed that my partner likes it!!! I ABSOLUTELY cannot wait to receive my doll quilt from my partner.

Thanks so much for reading my first ever real blog post, come back and visit me again and I would love for you to leave a comment! Or if you prefer to email you can do that on my sidebar.

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