Bee Creative Swap Blocks - March

I used to do a lot of swaps when I was a part of online scrapbooking communities, but since I have gone digital with my scrapbooking, I haven’t been a part of any swaps. Recently I joined a quilting community, and found swaps again! I have been very into sewing lately (my passion for one craft or another comes and goes), so it has been fun to join a few swaps and see what other people create too.

If you have never done a swap, there are a few kinds. I will outline quickly the two types I am in now.

The first swap has 12 members. Each member has a month. When your month comes up, you send a packet of fabrics to each of the other 11 members. You tell them the type of block you’d like to see (size and style), and they make it for you using the fabrics you sent and their creative ideas. Once completed, the 11 members send their blocks back to you and ideally when done you have a completed top. In the months that you are not the chosen member, you will be on the receiving/creating end. It’s a lot of fun, and you get a whole coordinating top using techniques you yourself may not know how to do!

The second type of swap is more similar to the type of swaps I used to do when I did scrapbooking swaps. These swaps have a centralized hostess. The hostess will choose the theme and style of the swap. Then members sign up, some swaps have limited spots, but most allow for any number of members. Each member makes blocks in the style the hostess has set, usually in sets of 6 or 12, sends them into the hostess, and then they get all different ones back (so if I send 12 blocks, I get 12 different ones back). Each member uses their own fabrics to make the blocks. This type of swap gives more variety than the last one, since it’s not all the same fabrics. These are also fun because they don’t involve a one year commitment like the first.

I am currently involved in a few swaps, but the blocks I want to share today are from the first type of swap. The name of our group of 12 is "Bee Creative." The first girl that had March sent us lovely Kona solids and asked for sharp lines, no wonky. Here are the two blocks I created for her.





I am not usually a straight line kind of gal, so this was out of my comfort zone, but I still had fun making them for her.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel