ECMQG Scrap Swap Challenge

My guild just finished up our second Scrap Swap Challenge.  Basically, you bring in a bag of scraps, swap those scraps, then make something with the scraps you received to give back to the owner of the scraps.  I like this swap, because in some swaps, you might get an item that is made out of fabric you're not crazy about.  With this kind of swap, it's pretty hard to be disappointed!

I got Melissa's scraps.  Melissa is pregnant with her first baby, and she's not finding out the sex of her baby.  I'm usually not a fan of gender neutral quilts, however, Melissa's take on gender neutral colors is modern and cool - orange, red, and turquoise!  And the scraps she sent were delicious!  She asked for a wall hanging out of her scraps.  And because she sent such generous scraps, I was able to even get the binding out of them, and the only thing I added was Kona Snow for the background on both sides.

I made the wall hanging in a way that she could choose which side she wanted to show, so there's not really a front and a back.  There's a Side A and a Side B.  Here's Side A:  Pinwheels!

And here's Side B:  Improv.

I thought seriously about doing some handwork on the pinwheel side, but couldn't figure out a way to effectively do that.  I emailed a few people and got opinions, but still couldn't visualize anything.  We went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and I packed up an embroidery bag, prepared to work on it during our drive and other down times (yeah right).  When I pulled it out of the bag, I asked my husband what he thought, and he told me he that he liked the simplicity of the design and embroidery would take away from that.  I immediately questioned him to see if he just didn't want me to work on anything sewing related on our trip.  He promised that wasn't his reasoning.  After I thought about it some more, I decided to go with what he said, and I (obviously) didn't add any.

So I was left with how to quilt it.  Yes, the quilt was simple, but I didn't want it to be too simple!

I finally decided to do concentric circles inside the pinwheel.  I felt like it added movement.

I then just free motion quilted over the rest of it.  FMQ and I have a love-hate relationship, but I'm happy to say that this is my best FMQ work so far!  Don't get me wrong, I went pretty S-L-O-W with it.  But it's a small quilt, so even with me working slow, it didn't take long.

I finished it up the night before our meeting, and was so excited to give it to Melissa in person.  I think she approved!

When it came to my scraps, the night I was picking them, I decided to pick all polka dot fabrics.  I love me some polka dots!  The last time we did this swap, I got Kelly B.'s scraps, and hers were all polka dots.  But as I was picking and choosing which polka dots to include, I came across my basket of Echino scraps.  Let's be honest.  I'm not going to do anything with those Echino scraps in this lifetime, but I just can't make myself throw them away!  So that when I decided to fill a bag full of Echino goodness.

Kira got my scraps, and I was confident she would make something wonderful out of them.  And she did!  Even though she didn't think so.  She made this amazing notebook cover!  Here's the front and back...

And the inside (I took the notebook out for this picture)...

And look at the nifty way to close it!  Genius!

I gave some pretty tiny scraps and I think she used them all in a great way.  She had more of those blocks made up, so she gave those to me to use in another project, which was awesome!  Kira said something about things not working out the way she wanted them to.  I don't know what she was expecting, but I am completely thrilled with this!  Can't you tell?

Like I said, it's hard to be disappointed when it's your own scraps!