Finished Doll Quilt, DQS 11, and some more bitty blocks.... and some thoughts on swapping.

I finished it this morning and I'm as pleased as pleased can be! It measures out to be 17.5" x 14", finished.  It's adorable, if I may say so.  I would love to keep it, but I made it for my partner with her in mind the whole time and I just can't bring myself to "stiff" her like that. 

This is the back of just the top, you can see all the seams here- there are a bunch of 'em!

This is the back of the quilt, with the label and my partner's name blocked out.  I made this using a leftover bitty block from the month we did "text", this was one I made and it is perfect, I think, for this label. 

 

Close-up.

 And a close-up of the quilting.  I can honestly say that I worked harder on this little quilt than I ever thought I would.  And it paid off, I think.  All the cussing and ripping and re-doing was worth it. 

Thanks for looking at all the photos! 

And here are the bitty blocks I made for this month's group- Jars.  I took the liberty of making bottles, actually, but no one in the group seems to mind.  

Ships in Bottles-

 Close-up of ship in bottle-

This is my third attempt at paper-piecing and I'm liking it!

And at the risk of offending some people, I'm going to have a little rant, because this is my blog and I should be able to say whatever I want to here, right?  I don't want to hurt any feelings, but I think someone should be able to say what I think an awful lot of people are thinking. 

Some swaps require you to state a skill level when you sign up, that helps the swap mama to make proper match-ups.  Some swaps don't have that skill level taken into account.  Regardless though, all the skill-matching in the world won't mean a thing if people take the easy way out.  

When I see people making fabulous things for swaps that obviously took hours and hours, even DAYS, I am in awe and so appreciative of them.  Yes, I do it, too, and I know it's voluntary- I spend a lot of time making things for swaps because I am a perfectionist and I only want to send away my best work.  So when I see people showing off what they made and it obviously took them about 10 minutes to make what they are sending out, it pains me.  I have to wonder how in the world they justify that and feel like it's fair?   

As an example, and I'll just make this up- say the swap was "wonky houses".  Most people would piece or applique or embroider several different fabrics to make a wonky house, from scratch, and they would all be different and unique and so clever.  And a couple of people would search out fabrics that had wonky houses on them and cut them out and stitch them down onto another piece of fabric and call it done.  I don't consider that to be very creative.  Using novelty fabrics to consistently do all the work for you instead of creating something from bits of nothing, I disagree with that.  Every now and then, in my opinion, it would be OK, especially if the perfect novelty fabric was framed by pieces of other fabric, but to just use the novelty fabric and maybe add a few beads or something, that seems like taking the easy way out.  It's not very creative and I don't think it's in the spirit of the swap to do that.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE novelty fabrics and buy them all the time.  But I rarely use them except as background fabrics when I'm creating something, or like the ship in the bottle, I used the ship as a feature in the block.  I realize that time constraints play a part, too, but a person should know their limits and only sign up to do what they think they can really devote themselves properly to.

So I wish swappers everywhere would ask themselves this- "Am I putting enough effort into what I'm making to be fair to the others in the swap, considering the efforts they put into it?"  If your answer is yes, then that's wonderful.  If it's no, then I am sad.  

And that's my rant for the day.  Please play fair.