Today is the final mail date for the Friendship Bag Swap. If you are going to be late sending, please email your partner and myself to let us know when you expect to send it.

Here’s a small sampling of the gorgeous bags that have been created. You can see more in the Flickr group. This has been a fabulous swap and I hope everyone has enjoyed it.

More swapping fun:

Registration is open for the Inchie Ornaments Christmas Swap and the Fall-Inspired Mini Quilt Swap. Christmas swap is due December 1st and the Fall swap is due next January. Come join the fun!

It was my mom’s birthday earlier this week. I sent her this beaded Friendship Bag:

I also made her a tote bag from a Moda Bake Shop Tutorial:

Close up of the stitching:

Free-motion stitching on the back:

Partner information was sent out last week for the Friendship Bag Swap, and already several are flying away to their new homes. See more cuties in the Flickr Group.

Coming soon:

A Christmas Swap…

It’s very cute!
It’s super easy!
It’s so much fun!

Registration starts early September.

Sara made this adorable quilt for the Spring Blooms mini swap.

She then created this fabulous tutorial on how she did it: 3D Pinwheels Tutorial.

I definitely need to give these a try .. wouldn’t they look adorable on a friendship bag?

I have always been intimidated by free motion quilting, until now.

My first attempts were awful: jumpy, inconsistent stitches, tension problems, stitches where I didn’t want them, etc. I was determined to improve this year.

I have been working on six baby quilts for the local guild to donate to NICU babies. Pictures as soon as I finish the binding. I’ve free-motioned them, in a large meander, as they don’t like a lot of stitching on them. I can definitely see improvements in these six quilts.

I have Patsy Thompson’s fabulous DVDs, and replayed Volume 0.5 again the other day too. This time I paid very close attention to the placement of her hands, stitch length and how she was moving the fabric. It helped a lot.

This weekend, despite my “don’t start anything new” rule, I cut up six gorgeous fat quarter batiks to make six Friendship Bags. If you decide to do this too, be warned, I had JUST enough fabric with the FQs. Only one little 2″ x 8.5″ strip and a few scraps left over.

I first cut out the lining pieces (15″x8.5″) and the two handles, 10″ x 2 1/4″. I cut the rest of the fabric into various strips ranging from 1″ to 3″ x 8.5″. In hindsight, I should have made them 9″ to give me more room to trim after, but then I probably wouldn’t have had enough fabric to get the length required. These measurements are coming from Rachel’s Friendship Bag Tutorial.

I stripped the pieces horizontally to make one long piece ~15″x8.5″, then spray-basted on batting. Then it was time to play with the quilting. I’m using a gorgeous variegated thread (Coats, I believe) with Bottom Line in the bobbin.

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During the Spring Blooms swap, Gabi Tietz posted this adorable mini quilt and the little purse.

I emailed her to ask her about it. She told me that her and a group of friends have been making these friendship bags to share with each other. They’ve been having a great time.

Gabi suggested this would make a great swap. I agreed.

Shortly after our exchange, I heard about International Friendship Day and decided this would be perfect day to start the Friendship Bag Swap.

One of my main goals for the Quilting Gallery site has always been to bring together quilters from around the world. I’ve always wanted this site to be very International-based. It’s through the experiences of all quilters everywhere that we can each learn and be inspired by one another.

I’m very pleased to host this Friendship Bag Swap. It’s a small project, with lots of room for creative goodness. Head on over to read the guidelines and then register to participate. Here’s the list of participants.

To get you started, Rachel Griffith put together this fabulous tutorial.

Registration closes August 20, 2009 and I’ll send out partner information by August 25, 2009. The deadline to mail your friendship bag is October 6, 2009.

Please don’t email me to register, instead use the registration form provided.

When I was looking at the Summertime swap Flickr group, I noticed this gorgeous creation by Stacey. It reminded me of friendships throughout the world. It’s a free pattern from Barbara Skjønberg from Norway, entitled All the Children of this World.

If you’d like, here’s the code to use the swap graphic on your blog.

A HUGE thank you to Rachel for creating the tutorial for this swap. You are very talented and very generous!