Christmas Swap - (A Story in Percolation)

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So, a year ago September I did something I swore I would never do again.

A swap.

To be fair to this one, this one seemed pretty straight forward. You take a single piece of fabric, cut 50 6 inch squares, send them to the organizer with a self addressed stamped envelope, and you get back 50 6 inch squares of varying prints.

Even though I had jumped in feet first, I was a little worried about coming up with my initial fabric. I didn't want to feel as though I had sent in a sub-par fabric, and I was trying to tighten up the budget. (I had just started using YNAB and using that software had shown me just how broke I was.) After about twenty minutes passed before I remembered I had 4 yards of a lovely red plaid buried in stash closet that was just not selling on eBay. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to get rid of it pass on the love.



My initial plan was to use the blocks in a disappearing 9 patch- one of my favorite charm pack blocks. I had spent over an hour (before coffee!) playing with the numbers and doing the math to get a quilt approximately 50 inch square.

But then I realized that the numbers didn't work. In order for the numbers to work the way I had wanted, I would need to have an extra 31 squares. Didn't see how I could easily fudge that one.

(Okay, I could, but I didn't want that particular look.)

Time passed. About ten months, to be precise.

By the time this year's fabric swap rolled around, I had realized that I just didn't want to make a Christmas quilt. Thankfully, however, I remembered that I had a pattern sitting in my pile of unsorted patterns that would be perfect- it was a simple patchwork Christmas Tree Skirt- all I needed was another round of swap.

(I can't seem find the online link to the pattern- both Pinterest and Google are failing me. The name on the top of the pattern is Carla's Round Tree Skirt. Does anyone else feel cheated when that happens?)

So I signed up, selected my fabric (penguins in an apparent snow squall, ridiculously cute) and sent it out.


It's funny though, how sometimes yarn and fabric need time to sit and mature and wait to tell you what they want to grow up to be. I've got the layout of the Tree Skirt all set up- but to hear the rest of the story? You'll need to stay tuned.

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