I’ve talked about the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap quite a few times now – probably 4 times for things sent away and this will be the fourth time for things received. But for anyone who doesn’t know and wants to or should know… it’s a swap run on Flickr right here, where we get the name/address and some information about our recipient and then we make something small for that person (out of scraps!), send them some kind of notion or other, a postcard from wherever we’re from, and a fat quarter’s worth of scraps. The whole thing has been a lot of fun and I think I’ve gotten better at figuring out what to make for people (my first two were… meh, my last two I’ve been pretty happy about). Anyway, last week I got my package in the mail, which came over from Balu51 who lives in Switzerland.
She sent me a really fantastic collection of scraps in yellows, oranges, reds, low volume, text prints… all sorts of good things. Up top in the picture is a stack of blue strips that she sent for doing a string quilt, since someday I would like to do a string quilt with my scraps. (I always say that, I never get around to it… One day!) I was talking to Balu51 via FlickrMail and she sent me a link to a really neat idea for doing a string quilt, a Stripey Lonestar Quilt block. (I find that website kind of hit and miss as to whether or not it will work – hopefully it’ll load for you if you’re curious! If you Google the name, the picture of it will come up in any case.) So now I’ve got THAT idea in my head instead of the standard style that looks like boxes on point.
She also sent me two skeins of what I think is perle cotton (the label is in German! but I recall that ‘baumwolle’ means cotton so at a minimum, it’s a cotton thread) in very lovely Griffindor colours (though I don’t suppose that was her intent! I just have Harry Potter on the brain for some reason right now).
Also, Balu51 made me this pretty mug rug, which is now hanging in my sewing room. I can’t remember what I’d said in my sign-up form, but it was probably something wishy-washy about kind of liking everything and being happy with whatever got made for me because I’m always so happy to get mail and especially hand-made mail. Which is always true, but also probably the most ANNOYING thing to read when you’re trying to figure out what to make for someone you don’t really know 😀 Anyway, this mug rug is beautiful. The blues sort of match my bedroom walls and I find it sort of soothing and lovely to look at. I love the hexagons and the fabrics and the satin ribbon binding (which looks amazing!). I had admired this mug rug when the photos appeared in the Flickr group, and I’m lucky to have it come home with me. This is my first bit of art that I’ve hung up in my sewing room (which has my brother-in-law’s hockey related artwork and memorabilia on the walls – it’s actually his office, I just wanted more space, so I pay a little more rent so that I could have it and his desk has been stuffed into their over-crowded bedroom) and it’s great to have something so nice to hang up in there.
I keep thinking I should sit out a round and get to work on some of MY projects instead of always finishing the things that will be sent away, but I LOVE participating in this swap. There’s always something beautiful to look at and long for in the photostream.
wipgirl.wordpress.com 
The mug rug looks so beautiful. The swap sounds like a great idea, especially as you get so much loveliness from it.
It’s a fun swap – I’d mostly done block swaps before, which I also like, but there’s something pretty awesome about getting a finished something in the mail 😀
This is such a good idea, I wish i was good at sewing!
Have you ever done knitting swaps? I’ve never been good at the various yarn arts (granted, I haven’t tried knitting since I was a kid when my grandma would get me started making scarves just to keep my occupied, and then probably frog my attempts when I went back home ;D) so I don’t know too much about that side of the online craft world. I guess I have seen friends run crochet dishcloth swaps.
Thats a really good idea, I’ll have a look around for some existing knitting swaps. Thanks!
Ooh these are lovely! So cute! What amazing items!
Aren’t they? I’ve been lucky in my various swaps!
What a lovely assortment (you hit the jackpot)! I have just done my first month as a member of two bees (three, if you count my guild’s block lottery) and I have a pouch swap and a sewing machine cover swap coming up too. I do love to do my own work but there’s just so much energy and community that can grow out of swaps!
That’s the great thing about swaps – all the excitement and hoping things will be for you and then actually getting/opening the mail and seeing how your partner feels about whatever you’ve sent them. It’s a lot of fun, anyway!
Oh you lucky! I keep seeing all these great scrap swaps being received and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anything left for me!! I’m sure there is and I will love what I get too, so no worries. And scrap swaps are always a great way to swap out some scraps you have more of for something you have none of.
Waiting is the worst, isn’t it? Hopefully yours will arrive very soon! (I see in the sent/received discussion that quite a few people have just sent theirs out, so probably one of them is yours. You’ll have to tell yourself that receiving it will be all the sweeter for the built up anticipation :D)
I’ve gotten lots of really brilliant bits in these swaps of things I’d have never bought but that are super fun, so I definitely love that! There’s so much common ground with designers people love (at least in the circles I run in online), but I guess there’s really just piles of fabric available these days because I still somehow get more new-to-me stuff than things I already own.