Postage Stamp Quilt

Awhile back I fell in love with this little number by my friend from afar, Heather:

That lady has a way with blues, greens, and browns that makes me melt. I can't tell you how many projects of hers I've added to my favorites, but this quilt in particular spoke to me. I thought the color palate would be perfect for our family room and a much needed step away from the girly quilts I tend to make.

I comment on Heather's blog and flickr photos a lot and we've chatted many times about good books we've read. I decided that we were on friendly enough terms for me to contact her to see if she would be willing to swap with me, some pre-cut patchwork squares in above palate for some money. Instead, she suggested I make her a couple of circle of geese blocks. I was oh so happy to make that trade!

This block was a challenge for me since I'd only tried it once before under the expert tutelage of 'Grandma', my quilty friend Sabrina's grandmother. I ended up piecing one of my blocks on the wrong side but I got the fundamentals.

Heather asked for blue geese on a neutral background. I decided to go with aqua and turquoise blues on Kona Medium Gray:

She approved so I went for it! Once I made the first corner, the rest were pretty easy. I did go ahead and make templates, cut, and number my pieces. I wasn't too careful about it and gave myself extra room but it was still very helpful to have the right shapes for each piece and to have everything cut out ahead of time. Since the first corner I made on the first block was a little off, I ended up making her 3 instead:

You can see my numbers on some of the blocks but I washed them before I sent them off. Which was a mistake. Big. So big, in fact, that I decided to send her a bonus item since I didn't have time to make more blocks:

Yep. She got that pretty little quilted book cover. I had to. It matched. Sorry Hollie!

You can see Heather's pictures of what I sent her on her blog. They are better than my pictures. Make sure to check back with her so you can see what she ends up making with the blocks I sent!

In exchange for my blocks and the bonus book cover, Heather sent me a bag full of wonderful little 2.5" squares for me to combine with fabrics from my stash and make my own Postage Stamp quilt. Of course, being me, I immediately sorted all of the squares by print and color:

And then by tone:

Now they live in this bag while I cut fabrics from my stash:

Which I am slowly but surely doing whenever I can steal some time away from all the other things I am catching up on.

Believe it or not, I've almost gotten through that entire stack!

Happy Quilting

ps - I think it's time to lint roll my design wall. See all those strings?