Back in October my friend Tammi & I decided to do an advent swap.
The idea being that for each day in December we would prepare each other a little gift, then give each other a bigger gift on Christmas Day.
The gifts were to be a selection of edible, hand made, thrifted, purchased etc…
Easy enough I thought.
Pffft.
More like harder than it sounds!
24 small gifts leading up to 1 big one ended up being trickier than I thought. It was hard to stay small.
But boy was it exciting to wake up each morning to a special gift!

Some of the things I gave Tammi were;
Thread, fat quarters, zippers & other notions, chocolates from our homeland, brooches, yarn, a zipper pouch, thrifted treasures, vintage sheets, a candle holder and more…

Some of the things Tammi gave me were;
Homemade jam, homemade granola, chocolate, a mini bottle of one of my favourite wines, a handmade crochet hook roll, handmade crochet facecloths, yarn, a cushion, magazines, Christmas decorations and more.

It was a really fun swap and I’d definitely do an advent swap again in the future!

I totally feel like I had the best end of the stick though…
Each of Tammi’s presents to me were incredibly thoughtful and amazing. So I really felt like making something special for her Christmas present.

After a few days of pondering I decided to make her a quilt, since you know, that tends to be what I do best.
I raided my stash for fabrics in Tammi’s favourite colour (yellow) and anything I could find with a vintage, tea, floral or writing theme and put together a simple 10 inch cut squares quilt…

This colour combination and style was completely away from my norm and really challenged me at first if I’m honest. I don’t tend to work much with brown (ok at all), nor do I usually work so much with vintagey or floral fabric. So it was really hard to get inside Tammi’s head when I was putting it together to make sure it was something she would love.
I could of course have gone for something ‘safer’ and in my comfort zone in aqua blue, since we are both into those colours. But when I think of Tammi I think happy yellow and vintage. So that’s what I wanted to stick to.

I made myself be adventurous and try a slightly new variation of my loopy free motion quilting pattern that I tend stick to. Since I did no practice first and hadn’t quilted in ages I was reasonably happy with the result.
(Although really I should not be so impatient and should do a practice first. Naughty me, tut tut!!)

The back is a yellow fabric with pink roses – the one I used the most squares of on the front.

And here it is all rolled up and ready to give.

Hopefully she loves it as much as I loved making it for her.
I am lucky to have such a dear friend.