Swap Happiness

Make Mine Modern swap, received:As soon as I saw the name on the return address of the box my mailman dropped on my porch, I knew exactly what was inside and I did a little happy dance! I got all of these incredible items from Kaelin of The Plaid Scottie:She made this pretty little mini in colors that were inspired by my sun pillow for Fat Quarterly. There's lots of Central Park in there, which is one of my fave lines! I love it!I put it up in my sewing room right away, and as you can see, it's already getting along famously with my DQS quilt from Jess. : ) BTW, thanks to those of you who suggested hanging mini-quilts with good old straight pins. That's exactly what I did. I have a feeling I'll be adding to my wall collection over time, and that will require frequently moving around the existing quilts. So I needed something easy and simple that wouldn't damage the wall.Kaelin also sent along a coffee sleeve and this incredible bag. She mentioned that she didn't know if I like linen—are you kidding me? How could I not love these? It's funny, I've never used linen in any of my projects, but I'm always in love with it when I see it used by other people. I guess I just haven't had the right project for it (yet), and I'm not quite sure what exactly to buy or where to buy it. But this bag makes me want to get my hands on some linen ASAP! Anybody have any linen recommendations?Anyway, check out the adorable farmer's-market fabric she used in the hexies, and the hand-stitching, and that apple! It's all too sweet! Kaelin shared that when she lived in Chicago, they used to drive up to Wisconsin to go apple-picking, so that was her inspiration for this bag. Just lovely. : ) And I'm so happy to get a bag, because I'm just not much of a bag-maker. There's no way I could have pulled off anything nearly this cute and well-made!The coffee cuff says, "Fuel," which is so spot-on for me it's not even funny, and she also threw in a Starbucks gift card. Thank you, thank you, thank you Kaelin! Everything is just perfect, and I guarantee the bag and coffee cuff will get loads of use.And Make Mine Modern swap, sent:Now that my partner's got her goodies, I can reveal that my rainbow placemats were for Kelly of Kelby Sews. Kelly's got a thing for rainbows, so I wanted rainbow colors to figure in there somewhere. And placemats were one of the things she mentioned wanting. When I saw that we had both Flickr-favorited Angela's Pink Lemonade quilt, I knew I had my plan!I wanted to do two colors per placemat, so that meant I needed to make five of them. But these went quickly and they were so much fun to make! Anyway, when it comes to placemats, a larger set is just so much more useful. Plus, I liked the idea that if Kelly was using fewer of them, she could color-coordinate to her dishes, the season, her mood that day ... whatever.Most of the fabric I used came from my scrap bins—I only had to supplement the red and the purple (I guess those must be the colors I use the least). The backs all came from my stash. I echo-quilted each one with the two colors used in the placemats, and that turned out to make a very cool pattern on the back.Instead of traditional binding, I just wrapped the back around to the front and sewed it down. The corners were a little fiddly, but other than that, I think this method turned out okay—each one I did looked better than the last. And what a huge time-saver! I don't think I would use this method for quilts, but you might see it again from me for things like wall-hangings, placemats, etc.Along with the placemats, I sent two little fabric baskets (more about those here), some fat-quarters of Circa 50 and Heather Ross's Spoonflower prints, a rainbow of thread, and some chocolate and local coffee (roasted just up the road from me).And last but not least, I also got this today:My first ever fabric postcard! This is from Becky of Becky's Blabber, as a thank you for the Supernova quilt-along! So sweet, thank you, Becky! It's beautiful! I believe that's going to find a place on my inspiration wall as well. : )