The auction was a HUGE success!!! Our beautiful quilt was purchased by Wendy Marquardt. She is a big fan of Denyse’s work and also a passionate supporter of Heifer International. There couldn’t have been a better match! Wendy is so generous and sweet. I hope you are enjoying your quilt, Wendy.

$1735 is a lot of money. My kids wanted to be involved in picking what animals the proceeds from our auction purchased, so before we sent the quilt off we purused the online catalog and did some math. Brenna made a list to send to Wendy, and both Brenna and Jonah drew pictures of the animals someone, somewhere in the world will get to enjoy because of all of our efforts.

A Milk Menagerie includes a heifer, 2 goats, and a water buffallo.
A Knitting Basket is 4 wool bearing animals, llamas or sheep.
A Flock of Hope (Jonahs personal favorite) is a flock each of chicks, goslings, and ducklings.
Honey Bees consist of a hive of bees and training to take care of them.
Then we added an extra llama because, well, we like llamas

(isn’t Jonah’s duck awesome?!)

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who bid on the quilt. I was optimistically hoping for $400-$600 dollars for this big quilt. Well, we got more than 4 times that!!! Amazing.

The universe truly smiles on all of our good efforts. It is so rewarding to see a little idea become something bigger and better than I could have hoped. Thank you to all who participated.

It ends on Tuesday, March 6th.

Spread the word!!!!

(Check the Blockswap page for all the details.)

Click here for more details.

I’ve tried every suggestion I got about how to get the square that bled cleaned up, to no avail. Can you see it there near the middle? It is really not obvious at all on a bed.

And I’m happy with this image of the whole thing.

Now to do some publicity e-mailing. The auction will start sometime next week!! Every penny that proceeds from the auction will go toward helping families become self sufficient through Heifer International. I just love the idea of providing people that have hardly anything the gift and companionship of a milk or wool bearing animal, and the empowerment to sell goods they can produce with their animal, send their kids to school, and give back to others.

Sorry I’ve been missing in action. Sorry especially to all of you blockswappers looking for ideas. Well, quilt top number one is done. (Has been for a week.)

It will be a full size quilt, 80″x87″ (Denyse Schmidt standard size). It has 25 blocks on it spaced out by 7 1/2 inch sashing. It is so hard to photograph quilts! I’ll definitely have to figure out something MUCH better when it’s time to auction these off, but I hope you kind of get the picture. Gina of Quilter’s Buzz has graciously offered to machine quilt these babies. (It’ll be there soon Gina, I swear. My mom is coming into town this Thursday and is insisting that I wait to send it until she gets to see it.)

Our weekend was blissful, though busy.

We did a lot of yard work.

The nice thing about buying a house with 20 years worth of existing landscaping is that you can rearrange it like furniture! We tore out some bushes, moved some daylillies, divided fountain grass, and Voila! Brand new yard! This iris was a transplant from back yard to front yard last year. They were GOGEOUS this year. No purchase necessary

And we had a friend’s dog for a few days.

They were in dog heaven. The mud, the big yard, the wrestling matches…they were worn out without so much as a growl. I’m glad it’s over, though. My house is too small for two big dogs and 3 kids.

So, now I am working out an arrangement for the last charity quilt. I want it to be totally different. I think I’ll use curry for the background and figure out some way to have all the blocks close together. As fun as this is, I’m ready to be done! I have a whole sketch book full of Gocco ideas, but I’m not letting myself do them until these quilts are off to Gina’s to be quilted!

Spent most of the day yesterday piecing the first charity quilt. I’m on the home stretch and should finish it before today is over!

Are you making things with your blocks yet? I promised I’d post some layout ideas.

Here’s the first: Make three more blocks so that you have 12 and you can make a little quilt this size:

This is a top I pieced while I was making my 10 blocks. I just couldn’t stop! I was liking the messy log cabin thing with warm/dark colors on one side and cool/lights on the other, so I just kept going. This is just 12 10 inch blocks with a 3 inch pieced border. It’ll just hang out in the living room for Brenna to read under.

I’ve been thinking up bed sized ideas too. You could make a simple block stripe, put some solid on either side of it, and you’d have a really modern, simple quilt without making any more blocks.

I’ve got more ideas than I have time right now, but I will post some more next week. In the meantime, post your layout ideas and leave the link in the comments so that we all can see ‘em.

I spent ALL DAY stuffing envelopes. I had quilt blocks strewn all over the floor of my art room so that I could see them all, then tip-toed through and stuck them to my flannel wall. Time flew! When I was ready for a lunch/potty break it was already 4:00 PM and I started about noon!

Every set is different and just awesome! The combinations were endless and tons of fun to sort through.

So, all you swappers, I’m taking my laundry basket to the post office on Monday. That means your blocks will be in your very own mail box late next week!

The blocks from Canada arrived, so all packages will be sorted and sent in the next few days!

Gwen was so sweet and made up for the late arrival by sending these awesome fabric squares. I’m way excited to add them to my scrap buckets!

(And, yes, this picture is taken on my bathroom counter ’cause I opened the package while giving my kids a bath. There is good light in there:))

Oh, and I posted a picture of each of the blocks I kept for the charity quilts in my flickr Blockswap set. I’ll do more photo documentation as I finish sorting, I promise.

I’ve been putting packages together and trying to decide what 9 blocks I get to keep for myself.

The bummer is that there are about 5 sets of blocks I haven’t received. I’m waiting for one in particular from Canada. As soon as it gets here the packages with be all mailed out! I wish I could just send them now, but I’d have to save at least 10 to swap blocks with the Canadian one, so I’m just going to wait until it gets here.

They are all fantastic and look so good together! And, yours will be in your mailbox next week!

Block swap deadline is today. Head to the post office if you haven’t already!!!

I am just totally in love with the colors and all of the different blocks together. There’s diversity and harmony, order and chaos, and wading through them is so fun! Keep your eyes peeled for your return package!