In the Atlanta Modern Quilters Guild, we do a swap called the Brown Bag Swap.  Participants put five fat quarters in a brown bag and swap anonymously so you don’t know who you’re sewing for.  For the five FQs you get, you can add up to two fabrics of any amount to create a final project, and you have to use all five FQs in some way in the final project.  You’re free to create anything you want, from a quilt top to a totebag, to potholders or fabric baskets.  Everyone had two months to finish their project and bring it back to our meeting last Sunday.

The five FQs I got were all big prints from different designers that sort of went together from a color perspective.  Lots of pinks, purples, blues, and some green.  Last time we did this swap I made a Sew Together bag, but I wanted to do something different.

I had the leftovers from a Bella Silver Honeycomb pack that had been burning a hole in my stash, so I thought they’d be a perfect complement to the various colors.  As it turned out, the hexies were perfect for the recipient, Melinda, who teaches the Hexie Club at Tiny Stitches.

Mine aren’t paper pieced, though, but rather call back to the Attack of the Hexies technique Jaye and I did together a few years ago.

Now, five FQs seem like a lot, but when you cut them up, you get some random cuts and half hexies and whatnot.  I had enough to make a full hexie flower from each of the 5 FQs with a blue fabric added in for the centers.  I made 3 partial hexies flowers for the edge (some of those hexies on the edge are pieced together from scraps!).

The weird triangle cuts that were leftover got pieced together for a partial border on two sides, making it look like I just chopped off the quilt top.

There are four different quilting techniques - hand-quilting with Perle cotton in the flower centers, swirl flowers in the petals, a meander in the gray background, and straight line on the partial border.  Gray and FQ scraps went in the binding.

For the back, I used more of the blue with a couple of the leftover pieces from the hexie cutting, since a modern quilt needs a modern back!

I named it “Quiltus Interrupted” for the chopped off look on the front, and had my fingers crossed that the recipient got the joke (and wasn’t offended!).  I think she liked it since I’m pretty sure she said, “I got a Pam quilt!” when I gave it to her.  I’m just glad she recognized her fabrics- part of the fun of the swap is the people who question whether the fabric is theirs or not!