FAIRY QUILTSâ„¢ #1

I am so excited about this new swap! FAIRY QUILTSâ„¢! It's turned cold and snowy here, and my house fairies could use and extra quilt to keep them warm at night. How about your house fairies? Even if it's warm where you live, maybe they'd like to redecorate their bedroom?

For this swap, we'll use the standard 12:1 dollhouse scale (12 inches/1 foot in our world equals 1 inch in theirs); (or for those using metric, 30cm in our world equals 2.5cm or 25mm in theirs).

SIZE:

MINIMUM is 4" x 5", or 5" x 5" if you're making a square quilt (10cm x 13cm, or 13cm square for metric)

MAXIMUM is 7" x 8", or 7" x 7" if you're making a square quilt. (18cm x 20cm, or 18cm square, for metric)

FABRIC: please use 100% cotton for the quilt top and backing. you won't need batting. If you want to use one layer of flannel in between the top and backing, that's fine, but we don't want the quilt to be stiff. It needs some drape to it. Nobody, not even fairies, like a stiff quilt!

CONSTRUCTION: Pieced, appliqued, or even whole cloth are all fine. You can quilt it by hand or machine, or tie it. You can bind it or birth it around the edge. and please feel free to embellish it any way you'd like. Fairies love beautiful things. Glittery and sparkly things, too.

COLORS: For this first swap, it is sender's choice for the color/pattern/design. If there is enough interest, as I hope, then in the future I will host themed or specific color FAIRY QUILTSâ„¢.

As always, I allow high quality swappers only. Because of past swap hosting experience, I do not allow newbies in my swaps. I'm sorry. But this won't be the last FAIRY QUILTSâ„¢ swap I host. So if you are new, go, get experience, and watch for a later FAIRY QUILTSâ„¢ swap!

EVEN IF YOU'VE NEVER QUILTED BEFORE (such as myself), YOU CAN DO THIS! I found some free online tutorials and patterns:

START HERE: http://quilting.about.com/od/quiltpatternsprojects/a/dollhouse_quilt.htm

The links below are for much larger doll quilts, so you can't follow the directions exactly or your quilt will be too large, but they have good information and tutorials for small quilt making:

http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/sew/feature/famf0200quilt/

http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jsp?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/1164743568416.xml

http://www.ladyharvatine.com/2007/05/in-true-spirit-of-whiplash.html

http://www.womenfolk.com/baby_quilts/

And finally, this site has no free patterns, but it is a good place for ideas, or to purchase kits for making a 12:1 scale quilt: http://www.dollshousequiltshop.com/

BECAUSE THIS IS SMALL AND LIGHTWEIGHT AND WILL FIT IN A STANDARD ENVELOPE, I WILL ALLOW INTERNATIONAL. If you keep the entire envelope thickness to less than 1/4 inch (5mm or .5cm), I think it can be mailed without a customs form. If someone wants to sign up but the international aspect is a hindrance for whatever reason, message me privately (not through the comments section) and we'll work something out.

AS ALWAYS, BE SURE TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE. And most of all, HAVE FUN! HAPPY SWAPPING!