Thursday, May 13, 2010

End of Day One of the 30's Fabric Swap

Here is how my swappy day went ...


Right after setting up, my quilty inspector wandered through to check to make sure I was doing everything right. Fortunately I was, so she soon lost interest. Mina went over to settle on her favorite scrap piece of batting on her favorite box to shed her hair there. Nice kitty.

Butterfly was not even interested in inspecting, as I had just opened the window to let in some fresh spring air and she quickly grabbed that prime location and paid no attention to the swapping. Nice kitty, too.


By mid morning I was ready for a coffee break and this is what it looked like at that time ...

My system for making sure I do not give a swapper back her own fabric is to cover her pile with her "control sheet" when I am working on her package ... in this case, Sherry's. Since Sherry and her daughter Nikki are both in the swap, I try not to give either one of them the other's fabrics as I sure they share fabric at home. That way they get more variety.


It was soon time for lunch ... have to keep up my energy. This was my view when I came back ready to resume swapping ... A few more trips around the table and I discovered a fourth "duplicate." As you can see Cindy and Nikki found the same fabric. In this case I pull the duplicate set and swap them at the same time so that I do not double up on anyone who is swapping fewer sets. Then I swap the other person's fabric next, so I do not get confused later by an empty baggie. Having the photos of the fabric in the album cuts down greatly on duplicates, but a few are inevitable. Swappers who have sent many sets will end up with a few doubles, but usually they are making larger quilts so an extra pieces of the same one can be a good thing.


By later afternoon, all the fabrics tend to start to look the same, but I keep trekking. When it is time for a late afternoon break my feet are really getting tired and I need a nice tall glass of iced tea. The table looked much better after that and I was nearing the end of the packages.


Once the boxes and envelopes are empty, I always swap my own fabrics last ...



... and I like to cut enough of one fabric so everyone gets a square of this special swap fabric. This is the one for this swap. It is a new fabric from the Chloe Closet line from Moda ... I love yellow and the flowers are so cute in this one ...


It was time to think about dinner and I made a salad and cut up some potatoes and marinated some chicken and asked my sweet hubby to grill when he came in.


I did go back for awhile and start to go through each swappers stack to count and start making up the "layer cakes". I have done a preliminarily check for about 1/3rd of the swappers.

Tomorrow is another day of swapping 30's fabrics.


Time for sleep! I know I will be seeing pretty fabrics in my head all night!


Sweet dreams, my quilty pals ... :-) Pat


2 comments:

Rebecca P said...

Pat,
You are so amazing at organizing these fabric swaps. I didn't join this 30's swap, but from other ones I have joined, I appreciate all the hard work you do.
Looks like you have some good company there with you. They are such good kitties not to mess up the nice piles.
Happy Friday.

Northern Deb said...

Pat, I am just OVERWHELMED by all this fabric! You certainly have some wonderful organizational skills to pull this off. Bet you'll be glad to see the last package off and onto the postal road... I sure would!
Thanks so much for doing this for us... WE LOVE YA FOR IT!!!!!! :)