Swaps and More Swaps

I’ve been lucky enough to receive some wonderful quilts in swaps that I haven’t posted photos of yet.  Time to get those puppies up!  So, here’s the quilt I received from the wonderful mamacjt.  Isn’t this gorgeous?  I love, love, love this quilt!

And then there was the S.T.U.D. swap where the challenge was to make a quilt without any squares or rectangles.  How incredible is this?

I can’t believe quiltedoma came up with such a creative interpretation of the idea!  Amazing.  I love how each puzzle piece also has it’s own quilting motif, as you can see here:

And using beads to join the sections?  Well, it knocked me out. 

And, not finished yet, there was also the MiniQT Chinese Coins quilt.  This one from bahamadawn.  Another really creative interpretation of the swap challenge, she called this one “Scattered Paint Chips.”  It goes beautifully in my office!  I just love those bright pure colors.  And, well, cutting up the paint chip card and taping wee pieces to my wall is exactly what I do.  This just made me smile.

Aren’t the swaps wonderful?  I just love how they push me to make quilts I wouldn’t have made otherwise, and in return I receive quilts that I definitely wouldn’t have made.  I love that I get this diversity of mini quilts! 

And, of course, I’m still making some blocks for swaps as well.  So here are my contribution for May’s Bee Obsessed blocks:

 

And the May Bee Pieceful blocks.  The twelve inch block

and the nine and six inch blocks.  Hmmm, the actual color is somewhere in-between the too dark one above and the too bright ones below. 

And, one last photo for the road, the tesselating pinwheel table runner.  I do love those pinwheels!

Next week I am off to lecture and give a workshop at the Common Threads Quilt Guild in Lafayette, Indiana.  I am so looking forward to it.  As someone who spends a goodly amount of time teaching introductory literature classes (and composition classes – even worse) to not-always-highly-motivated college students, I must say, teaching quilters is pure joy!