Each year the Modern Quilt Guild organizes the MQG swap in which 2 participants are matched up to make a mini quilt for each other. Some people meet up at Quiltcon to exchange their quilts and others swap via regular mail. Since I didn’t go to Quiltcon, I opted for swapping by mail.

I was matched up with Kim in the US and received an e-mail with her preferences. I picked fabrics based on her preferred colours teal, green, blue and coral. The entire quilt, including back and binding is made from hand-dyed fabrics from Cherrywood Fabrics. From afar they read as solids, but close-up there are some subtle variations in the colours which I love. The fabric also has a bit more texture than regular quilting cotton. Cherrywood calls it a suede look.

I foundation paper pieced nine 6” blocks. This is a block design I created a while ago but hadn’t used yet. I like how the shapes in the blocks create additional shapes depending on how the blocks are oriented. Some of the shapes reminded me of fish and I decided to name this quilt “Fishing Trip”. This also seemed fitting for Kim as she sometimes goes fishing. The back is improvisationally pieced with remnants from the front. 

I combined walking foot and hand quilting. The walking foot lines elongate the longer shapes in the block, but it still felt a bit empty when I was done. I think the hand stitching adds a nice detail. For the binding I used the dark blue fabric because I thought that would provide a nice frame around the quilt. 

This was the first year I participated in the MQG swap and I thought it was fun. If my schedule is not too busy next year I’ll probably join again.