welcome!

Welcome to the Twelve Squared Quilt Swap. It is so named because it will end in each participant getting twelve twelve-inch finished quilt squares to piece and finish as they desire.

In order to begin, I need 12 quilters committed to the Rules and the How To’s by January 1, 2012 and for the entirety of 2012. It sounds like a big commitment but it is really just one square per month for a year.

Results? An almost complete quilt top made for you by your quilt-y friends. You are guaranteed a sense of crafty accomplishment -  you will have given a part to 12 different quilts and one of them you keep!

Post here by Dec. 31, 2011 if you want to join. (I need 9 more folks to sign on.)

** Special thanks to Sara Reilly for this idea!

Swap Time #2

OK ladies! Its time to swap your blocks! Each person should have four blocks at this point – two that you made and two that your first swapper made.

Send me an email at amanda.dymacek@gmail.com or private message me on facebook with your mailing addresses so I can tell each person who to send to next! Thanks!

Swap Time!

OK friends – our first two months are up and therefore, your first two 12 inch blocks should be complete. Its time to SWAP! To make it easy, let’s just swap with the friend closest to us. I will swap with Kristen, Rebecca swaps with Dennie’s Cousin, and Elizabeth swaps with her friend in Lexington. Wonderful! Let me know when your swaps are complete! Also, send me pictures as they become available so we can all be inspired!

need inspiration?

Here is my Pinterest board that I keep for quilting ideas. You can see I’m really into the scrappy quilts but haven’t been quilting long enough to have a big stash! I’m sure this quilt swap will help me get plenty of scraps. Can’t wait to see what ya’ll have planned. Also, here is a site that will give you lots of 12.5 inch blocks from which to choose.

for example…

I think I’ve finally made up my mind what my own project will entail. I will share it with you as an example. For simplicity, I’m following Rachel Griffith’s string quilt tutorial, found here. The key to this look is a central solid strip (mine will be ivory) which gives the quilt form when all 12 blocks are fit together. There are lots of string quilt tutorials online but Rachel’s will make sure our blocks are the correct size.

Also, because it will be pretty, easy for all, and works well with the fabric I already have, I am using a floral pastel print/color scheme. It pretty loosely defined, allowing you to do what you want with what you’ve got when you get my pieces in the rotation. I was REALLY tempted to do this project in batiks but the desired effect of the string quilt is hard to achieve without a completely random assortment of scraps, and the size is not conducive to using charm packs. So I didn’t want to have to go buy 11 different batik fat quarters to get a really random look… though I would LOVE it if someone in the group DID do a quilt in batiks because they are beautiful. Thoughts?

on a roll – better late than never…

So I hope everyone is off to a good new year – this one sort of snuck up on me, in case you couldn’t tell. Here we are, supposed to start a major undertaking by January 1 and it is January 24th before I get the information out. We’ve had a smaller group sign on than planned for so we are just going to go with 6 participants and do two squares over two months. So, you have until the end of February to finish your TWO inspiration squares.

As a refresher:
We’re each doing TWO squares for each participant, one per month.
At the end of each second month we will mail to the next person in the round robin.
When you mail your squares, be sure to include a small journal with details of your pattern, color scheme, inspiration.
At the end of February, I will let you know where to send your stuff.
POST here to confirm your participation.

The time has come!

OK, so at the beginning of the new year ( read only two weeks away) we are going to begin our quilt swap! Make sure you sign up to follow this blog to get all the updates. Make yourself familiar with the links at the top of the page. In case we can only get six people, we will still make 12 blocks, but each will make two blocks and will have two months to get them done. Now that’s not too hard to handle at all, is it!?

be inspired – color

Design Seeds is a great color palette website that takes lovely photos and pulls out the main color components. You can search by category, season, or by color. I encourage each participant to choose a color palette to send along with their inspiration block. Remember that it can be as simple or complex as you want, but having more colors gives your quilt-y friends more opportunity to follow your color scheme without too much trouble.

Since we aren’t starting until January 2012, we have plenty of time to think about it but it doesn’t hurt to browse. Here are a few of my favorites, though the distinction changes daily. My link on the right side of this post will take you to browse for your own.