Quilting with Friends

I love a good block swap.  Quilting with friends is the best! Right now I am trading blocks every month with 4 friends.  None of these friends lives nearby.  One is in South Carolina, one is in Michigan, the third is in Illinois (and moving to Washington) and the fourth one lives in England! Every month I get 2 blocks from each of them in the mail. The beginning of every month I start stalking my mailbox.  I love getting quilting mail.  :)

We are making this quilt from the cover of the Fall 2011 Primitive Quilts and Projects magazine.  It's called Summer's Last Bloom and was designed by Lynne Hagmeier of Kansas Troubles Quilters. 

If you've never done a block swap with friends, you don't know what you're missing.  Before we started we decided on our "swap rules" and monthly mailing dates.  We are now into our 7th month and have 5 more to go.  We will finish our last blocks in August and swap them when we all get together in September. We are doing needleturn applique and everyone is doing a great job!

Summer's Last Bloom 

This is the picture of the full quilt from the inside of the magazine.

The first 2 months we swapped blocks with red blooms.  Here is what they looked like  on my design wall when I sewed each of them together.  I am "auditioning" buttons, so these  are just pinned on.  

I will show more of this quilt as it progresses.  In the meantime, I am hanging out at the mailbox these days. :)