First up, the dotees:
What's a Dotee? Swap.
I love this one so much. I love that's it's a twist on the classic dotee. The body is very classic, just a stuffed rectangle. But the face is that fabulous daisy with button features (the mouth is done in dark beads, so it's not super visible in the pic). It's just such a cute and original idea yet also so simple (and I don't mean that in a negative way). The creator (forgive me, I don't write down who sends me what for these posts) added a note that they call this gal Sunny, which I love, too. I love that the creator named it and shared the name and that it's a super cute name. (I'm very dorky like that).
Hat Dotee Swap
The minute I saw this fabulous lady I thought "Cyndi Lauper!". She has three layers of lace for her skirt and so much embelishments and wild hair and. . .yeah, she's giving me a great Cyndi vibe. I'm really liking that I'm starting to recognize other creators' styles. Cyndi here will be in great company with the Birthday Dotee from the same creator (eventually I will name drop folks, I was just too lazy this time around). This creator makes the most fabulous dolls wtih tons of embellishments and clay faces. I really like the clay faces and it makes me want to try out working with clay and molds just to see if it's a fun craft.
Bathtime Dotee Swap.
This doll is just so peaceful I smile every time I look at her. I love the terry cloth elements but the face is what steals the show. It's a simple design but it so clearly shows this doll is super relaxed after her bath. I'm almost jealous of her zen state!
She also has this super cute charm on her tail. It reminds me of Sea Wees! Remember those? The mermaid dolls that had a pet (and a sponge that you could put them in and float them in the bathtub with you!). Man, I loved my Sea Wees (and bawled like a baby when the dog ate their sponge--I was always very dramatic when it came to my toys--still am a bit!).
I've received some super fabulous dotees but I've also been swapping fabric. Mostly it's 2.5 inch charms, fat quarters, and 10 inchers.
That's just a bit of what was on the table when I was taking pics.
The top pic is four "obnoxious" 10 inchers and a bit of 2.5 inchers. I needed to trim up those 2.5 inchers so they'd be ready for my postage stamp quilt. I'll probably cut up the 10 inchers, too, taking them down into 5 inchers and 2.5 inchers (since those are the sizes I'm working with most right now).
The bottom pic is also another set of "obnoxious" 10 inchers. I enjoyed seeing other peoples' take on the term "obnoxious". It ranged from the truly obnoxious (the top pic has a piece of "Cars" fabric that is truly loud and obnoxious, I laughed that the raw edge had a note "not for use in children's sleepwear"--probably because the fabric is so loud the kids wouldn't be able to sleep, not that it's flamable) to more "ugly". I can't say those granny flower prints do much for me but they're very welcome in my postage stamp quilt. I rarely turn away any fabric for that project. And a few of these I really like. That kitty fabric is SO my bag. In fact, I'm making a side collection of cat print fabrics to make into quilt blocks for the back of my postage stamp quilt. I think I want to take 3 inchers and make them into 5 inchers and then put 5 inchers back into 10 ish inchers (they won't quite be 10 inches once you sew them together). Then take all the reassembled quasi 10 inchers and put them together to make the back of the postage stamp quilt. We'll see.
I only have ONE complaint about swaps so far. With the 2.5 inchers some folks are kind of sloppy with their cutting. Usually they make up for it by including a few extras, but it is a little annoying to have to trim up some squares or just toss them to the scrap bin because they're just cut too wonky to be fixed. OH, I do have one BIG gripe. Selvages on 2.5 inchers. NO NO NO!!! That offends me. I know we're making scrap quilts here but that's just too scrappy for me. I just don't trust the selvage edge to hold up, seeing as it's already kind of holey. And it just seems RUDE to give someone the selvage on a piece so small. If we were talking larger squares then you could just trim off the selvage and make a smaller square and still use it. But selvage on a 2.5 inch just reduces that piece of fabric to "small scrap" which limits its usefulness. (selvage on actual scraps you share with folks is perfectly fine with me since a scrap swap is about scrap and selvages are scrap).
Swapping for the most part has been a great experience. But I think I'm going to skip the 2.5 inch U.S. swaps for a bit. I keep getting the same partners and that's making for a bit of fabric repeat. That and I need to take inventory on my postage stamp quilt project. I have 300 ready to be incorporated into the bigger patches I've already sewn and I need to get the bigger patches assembled to start making the actual top. (I can't decide if I want to quilt as I go or if I want to make one huge top and then make a tie quilt versus quilting).
Ok, I have another few posts for today so I need to move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment