February I Spy Swap is OPEN (until Feb. 15)
 

Hello Swappers,

Please read this entire post carefully before you sign up for the swap!

February I Spy Swap:
Signups are open until Feb 15
Swaps need to be in my hands by Feb 30

Who's up for swapping I Spy squares again? It's time!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take your time cutting and be sure you have correct 5" squares. I will not be taking any squares out of their bags, to check the cuts. In one of our swaps I unfortunately had to return bundles of squares that were cut too small or not fussy cut, and I spent hours trimming ones that were cut too big. This time, your name will be on every one of your bags and if your squares are found to be cut wrong, you will be expected to send replacements to whoever received the bad ones, in order to stay in good standing as an I Spy swapper. Nobody wants to deal with that hassle and extra expense, so please take the time to cut well and check your squares before you put them in those bags. Lets have all good squares this time.

Please pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the new cutting and packaging method.

CUTTING/PACKAGING METHOD:
We will be sending 10 DIFFERENT fabrics in each bag we swap. All your bags can have the same mixture in them, or different, but you cannot repeat fabrics in any one bag. We will be swapping bag for bag, so there must be 10 different fabrics in each bag. Please put your board name and state on every bag you are swapping. For instance, "Sewbizgirl, Mississippi" for mine...

You may swap either 8 bags or 16 bags. You will get 8- 5" squares in one width of fabric, PROVIDING your print does not require fussy cutting. If it does, you will get less cuts out your yardage. PLEASE FUSSY CUT if your print requires it. Send the kind of nice squares you hope to receive. Choose to make and swap either 8 or 16 bags. Anything less than 8 is not cost-effective for you (shipping) and is not time-effective for me. So either 8 or 16, please.

THE USUAL 'STUFF':
1. Send what you would like to receive, quality-wise. Send only 100% cotton quilting fabric. Please do not send thin or loosely woven fabrics. If it has to be starched to be acceptable, it's probably not a good fabric for this swap.

2. Try and find new prints you have not sent before or seen in the swap, if at all possible. We all like new stuff! Please select prints that would be acceptable in a child's quilt. No flowers, lines, stars, geometrics. We need recognizable objects.

3. THEN, pm me (Sewbizgirl) and tell me you want to join and how many bags you intend to swap. I need your real name and address. I will respond to you with my mailing address for you to mail your swaps to me.

4. Put all your swap baggies in one big ziplock with your name and mailing address, as well as your board name. That will keep them together in your package and if it happens to get torn open in shipment, your address will be there for the P.O. to return to you. Speaking of "torn open"... those paper flat rate envelopes are the pits. They tear so easily, especially with lumpy contents in them. Do yourself a favor and use something better-- like the Tyvek envelopes or padded flat rate envelopes. You have to order the latter from the post office online, in packages of 10, but they are free. If you do it NOW, you will have your envelopes in time to mail.

5. Postage: I will print and mail your postage online and ship in the padded flat rate envelope. There is no need to send a return address label. The price of shipping has just taken a big jump. It now costs $6.80 for the padded flat rate envelope. If anyone is nervous about sending cash in the mail, mention that in your pm to me and I will give you my Paypal addy to pay me with, instead.

Remember to send in what you would like to receive back.
Let’s have tons of fun, and of course you have to follow all the basic QB swap rules, found here:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-20154-1.htm

TO SIGN UP, send me a pm with your name, address, and how many sets you want to swap (8 or 16). Then get cutting!

Am I the first to sign up? Count me in for 8 sets.

Yes ma'am... but don't forget to send me a pm with your address.

Sign me up for 16, please. Sending PM now.
dj

Question: If I do 16 baggies can I use the same 10 fabrics in each bag or are we to use different fabrics in the second set of 8 baggies?

Sewbiz...I'm in but there is not a February 30th :)

Also do you need to decide right now on 8 or 16 or can we wait until it gets closer to the due date???

Sent in my PM- I am so excited-I have missed this swap!

You can have the same ten fabrics in all 16 bags. I'm gambling that we will have at least 16 players...

Ha ha... you are right! Feb 28th, please!

You can sign up for 8 and change it to 16 later if you want. I'd go for the max, since it's the same cost for postage, either way.

Oh, and Owlvamp will be back in charge by the next swap! Yay... we have missed her.

Just sent a PM. I'm so excited to be doing this again.

Yes it's going to be fun!

:) found a bag that a friend gave me with eye spy friendly fabric a few months ago...so it looks I will be signing up for 16! Gonna get cutting.

Would love ideas of quilts to use these squares!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are some to inspire you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=i+sp...w=1366&bih=633

For mine all I usually do is sew them directly together and let the fabrics have 'center stage'... easy, peasey.

Just to clarify, are the blocks cut 5" or 5.5" to finish at 5" when sewn?

They are to be cut at 5".

Mona, I certainly hope we are to cut them at precisely 5" because I am finished cutting!
I sent 14-15 to each swapper to assuage any dups in their stash/likeability/etc., 85% are fussy cuts so the stacks don't lie down nice & neat like my usual swap stacks. Hope y'all like the charms. Need to package & get to PO next week. Had so much fun busting up my stash! Haven't swapped 5" charms in quite a while.
hugs,
dj

Here's a quick quilt using 5" charms I did for a friend's son.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]540807[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]540808[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]540809[/ATTACH]
mandolin, cowboy, humpback whales
[ATTACH=CONFIG]540810[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]540811[/ATTACH]
sorry so many pics, they were in the same folder - don't know how to undo & get one pic, ugh.
dj

FIVE INCH SQUARES please, everyone! Don't read any more into it than that.

Cute quilt, DJ! I'm sure he loved that.

I'm not participating in this swap but I have done MANY in the past.....Can't do enough to stress the 5 inch rule...I've had to stop and remeasure many of my squares to weed out those too small (even by several threads) or too large and resize...this is very time consuming (and irritating). Also be sure to consider the 1/4 inch seam allowance...after this is sewn, will enough of the picture remain for identification? Also, My personal preference is to starch the fabric to get a better cut........These are fun to make and the children love them.... most of mine have gone to charity.

As I use all of my squares you may find me back here in the future...

I must agree with marybrace, it is sad to chop off an elephant foot, tiger tail, etc. when piecing charms together. I always make two clear templates with the 1/4" seam allowance before cutting fussies in any swap to avoid that issue because you can actually see where to cut the fabric & the future seam placement (1/4"). However, I can fudge a strand or two as I mark from the center using another template (4.5" in this instance) before piecing relieving me of charms that are a little too short or a little too wide. This method is especially strategic when working with smaller charms that have less room for error. Started using triangular shaped tailor chalk recently & getting better results. I always send extras in swaps because I am human!
hugs,
dj

Sewbizgirl...my squares are ready to go. I have 16 sets of 10 carefully cut squares. some are fussy cut others have an all over pattern. Hopefully everyone will like what they receive.

Can I send them now sewbizgirl????

These are mostly 1/4 piece of fabric. The person who gave them to me cut 1 -3" fussy cut hexagon from each fabric then gave the rest to me. Probably 50-60 different fabrics. She will be happy that I am sharing them with friends. :)

Good tips, marybrace! Hope to swap with you again in the future.

Sure you can! As soon as they are ready, you can send. Don't forget to put your board name and state on each bag.

I'm in for 16 bags!!

We have 11 people confirmed and committed in this swap so far, and it's still early... It's looking good for swapping 16 bags of squares!

If anyone who has signed up for 8 bags starts cutting and decides it's just as easy to cut 16 while you are at it, you are free and welcome to increase your bags to 16. It costs the same in postage and remember you can use the same 10 fabrics in all 16 bags.

I was surfing Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Blog last night and saw that she has two different I Spy patterns herself. One is called "Storybook Stars" and uses an I spy block in the center of a star. The other is called "I Spy a 4 Patch", and uses more I Spy squares with little 4 patches in between. Both are cute and worthy of checking out:
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html scroll down to find them... they are in alphabetical order.

I am sifting through my stash in preparation of perhaps signing up. Are licensed characters allowed?

sewbizgirl those are wonderful patterns, thanks for the links!

Sure, those would be great. Just be sure to fussy cut them unless they are very tiny. Hope you decide to play!

I agree... Bonnie Hunter has some wonderful free patterns. Today I made her Strip Twist pattern. I "inherited" a whole box of 2" strips and that's what I used. Feels so good to use something already cut and in the stash! I love Strip Twist for it's optical illusion.

Oh good! Having a three year old yields a lot of these kinds of fabrics. I will officially sign up once I'm sure that I have enough for 8.

Sounds great... Your daughter is at a precious age.

I will send a PM, but I'm in for 16. It's been a while since I participated in a swap. But with four baby quilts to be made already this year - I'm going to need this swap!

I'm in sewbizgirl. Just have to make up my mind if I can do 8 or 16. Will PM you later. I want to buy some new fabric too.

Yay for Fiestypixy and Sunrise450 joining in! We are up to 14 now.

Have just got home and I have new fabric! What fun! DH was with me and he helped pick out the fabric. I'm sending a PM now.

Yay... yes it's fun! I just got notice the new fabrics I ordered for the swap have been shipped. I got some real cuties.

Yippee, sunrise is in the swap!!!!
dj

Hi all,

It is so good to see a lot wanting to play again. I was afraid this swap was going to die off. So it's good to see it going again. I was going to play but a lot has happened here and I checked fabric and I really don't have much to fill even 3 bags. So which means sometime before next swap I need to get some. Just won't be for this one. So I will watch from the side lines. Have fun everyone and hope to see some quilts made.