Doll Quilt Beginnings.... Mug Rug Ending ............. and something to keep!

 Murphy helped me pick out fabrics!  He voted against both of those blues, in the end.  I think he didn't like them being brighter than his blue eyes.  :)

 I'm going to make a village with a snow-capped purple mountain backdrop.  It's going to be a rainbow village, with the blue sky on top, going down to purples, then red, orange and yellow houses on a green grass yard with a small pond with a fountain.  There will be some things in the sky, probably a sun and a cloud or two and maybe a curving line of flying geese, in a rainbow of colors, that will get smaller as it gets farther away.  (For those of you who don't quilt, flying geese are triangles of fabric.)  I'm making the houses right now, that's my today project, getting them done. 

 It feels good to have gotten started on this and I hope my partner will like it.

 This is what I'm sending to my mug rug partner- 2 mug rugs, a scrap of hedgehog fabric, a chocolate bar, 2 cocoa mixes and 2 postcards of our area.  I think she'll be pleased. 

And here is something I made to keep.  3 birds on a wire, with butterflies.  I hung it on the wall in my craft room, inside the ironing board cabinet.  I'll see it a lot there.  :) I found the bird image on clipart so I don't have a pattern to sell or provide.

Fantastical Flight for Max.....

 This is the mini quilt I made for my partner for the Mini QT swap- it's called "Fantastical Flight" and it's totally taken from the artwork of  Cecelia Rebora.  I changed a few minor things and added a couple of things in hopes of not offending the artist too much, but when I saw this, I knew I had to do it in fabric for Max.  It just seemed like him!  We had been chatting about dragons and he likes space flight and Star Wars and red and black and this was too perfect.  I added a moon and changed the wing and the houses just a bit, but there's no way I can take credit for more than the actual putting it together.  :)

 The back- it's aMAZ(e)ing!  LOL

 I used glow-in-the-dark filament on the front between the moon and the dragon's tail to spell out his name in french knots.  They don't shine as nicely as I had hoped they would, in the dark, but they are there if he looks fast when he turns out his light at night!

I had fun making this for my new friend, Max.  And I certainly love what he made me, see the earlier post of yesterday for that.  :)

Bitty Block Busyness! And a quilt swap completed....

The theme for February in the Bitty Block Committee was text/word or trees on a white background.  I had this cute cat/dog background fabric so I made cat and dog blocks.  

 The fabric was too perfect to not use!

 I tried two on this fabric but it was too finicky to make a dozen of- I was covering up the best parts of the kitties!  So I kept the one for me and I only had one to swap.  :)

 I knew I wanted to do spring trees and when they were done, they were too plain.  So I cleverly (I thought at the time) added a swing to each one.  Little did I know, so did a couple of the other swappers!  I'm not nearly as clever as I think.  My husband told me to add a tire swing, but I thought that was too boyish.  lol  I should have listened to him!  DON'T tell him I said that! 

 They came out pretty cute, though, I think.

 We're doing a side-swap too, of the "Out of Our Gourds" fruit and veggies- spoofing on famous people who have names similar to fruits and veggies!  Ones like "Ludwig von Beet-hoven"  and "Beety Boop", not to mention "The Grapeful Dead", "Lima Minelli", Pablo Pea-casso, etc.  :) 

I made Alexander the Grape. 

 We all had to make 14 of our guys/girls. 

I've got 2 more sets to finish- another set of trees and one of words.  They'll be done soon, just a little handwork left.   That'll make 62+ bitty blocks I've made this month.  Phew!  (I usually make a few extras for side-swaps or to keep for projects like you're about to see below.)

 I used one of my left over red bird bitty blocks and made this mug rug, but I suspect it'll end up on a wall instead of under a cuppa.  I love how it turned out.  I'm doing another one right now with one of my little kite-flying hedgies.  If this one is winter, the hedgie is spring.

 And I was in another swap, the theme was "Take Flight" and my 8 year old partner, Max, made me this wonderful "The Flight of the Rainbow Balloons" mini quilt.  I absolutely love it and I hung it up on the wall just the left of where I sew upstairs.  Every time I turn my head, I am delighted by it!  8 years old, can you believe it?  He's going places, that Max!  Such talent.  His mom is amazing, so I am sure he gets it from her.  You might know her- she goes by lolablueocean at Flickr.

 The back is wonderful, too, look at that great label!

I sent him a quilt of a dragon carrying a little boy over a castle town, in the night.  I think we were both pleased with our swap!  He's a great kid and I hope to swap with him again, but I know he's going to be in high demand!

So that's what I've been doing, along with making things for my shop.  I need to get those listed!  Off to the salt-mine!