Swapping, Winning, and More Flag Waving

Look at the wonderful quilt that came to live at my house today!

Gayle (of The Middle Sister blog) and I finally met up in April, after talking about it for some time. We only live an hour apart, but things just never seemed to line up until then. Somewhere along the way we decided to do a small quilt swap and this was the day we met up to exchange. I love what she created. I love the colors, fabrics, the snowball blocks, the diamonds, the touches of applique (which she knows I don't do), and the yoyos. I have never made one of those in my life--and I especially love that the four in the middle are purple. I think I came out ahead on this deal! Thanks, Gayle--we will have to do this again!

This is what I gave to Gayle. I named it (what else?) Patriotic Pineapples. I wanted those little woolly sheep in the center of the blocks because Gayle works a lot with wool in her rug hooking.

I used all Primitive Gatherings fabric, mostly from the "Old Glory" line, which I got from my friend, Kris (Lavender Quilts blog). She has a good deal on some of this line in FQ bundles in her etsy store here.

I have to share this cute photo of Gayle with the quilts before we parted ways today. What a sweetheart!

I also have a block swap going this Summer with Maureen (Pursuit of Quilts blog). We have exchanged our first batch and I am thrilled with the results. I am going to wait until all three swaps are completed before sharing the blocks.

You may recall that recently I shared a link to Doniene's blog (Now It's Just Quilts) when she had a bunch of fun patriotic quilts to show. Well, she gave away three of them in a drawing recently and I won one of them!! It arrived today and already feels right at home. Thanks, Doniene!

I got my patriotic runner quilted and bound and on the hutch, as planned! After I took the picture I put my soup tureen on it and now you can't see much of it. Oh, well, I feel better just knowing it is there. : )



I told some of you that I made Bars & Stars  for our family reunion auction. Then it looked like the reunion wouldn't happen, so I hung the little quilt in my sewing room and got kind of attached to it. When I discovered the reunion was happening after all, I hurried up and made this little piece, very similar to the one I took last year. I used too light a thread on the quilting--I really need to quit quilting late at night--but no one else seemed to care.

I think that pretty well finishes up my patriotic projects for this year. I'm going to move on to a new color scheme now. : )

Until next time,
Janet O.