Some Surprises....

As you can see a few chocolates have already been devoured, don't want to waste time just looking at them...teehee. When I got home from our island holiday these are the goodies awaiting my arrival, it was worth the wait. These yummy sweet chocolates Annie sent me all the way from Australia. Thanks so much Annie for a wonderful box of handmade chocolates. And Thanks Sharon for organizing a fun and yummy swap.
This little pink quilt is for a swap with Karen, we talked about doing a swap some months ago but with Karen's house tour which involved redecorating an entire room "you go girl", we decided to put it off until now. I'll show you what she has made me when I receive it, I don't even know what she will send, we promised to surprise each other. If you haven't seen her beautiful house it's well worth a look. Karen has excellent eye for colour and decorating. I wish she could visit me and redo my house...LOL
Here is a close up of the quilting.
More about swaps. Darlene and I have been swapping 9patch blocks for a few months and I've been having a blast exchanging with her, thanks Darlene, I might be late this month...sigh. See my sneak peek post here. Sometimes we send each other little surprises, oh my is it ever fun...teehee. When I told Darlene that I was making the PDG's she offered me some seaside rose fabric. What a great surprise in store for me. Here is my first block done sitting with a gorgeous collection.. I wasn't sure about how the embroidery colours were going to work together but after seeing this picture I think it will be a wonderful combination with the fabrics.
Even more surprises when I got home, does it ever end....oh gosh... don't get me wrong I'm not complaining a bit...lol. Caroline was so sweet to send me this heart pincushion, little strawberry and red trimmed crocheted doily. I love them all, I think the buttons are vintage and the purple lace is hand dyed. Thanks so much Caroline, this certainly is a wonderful package of treasures. Big Smiles from ME!

I feel so lucky to have met these wonderful ladies and I cherish their friendship.

Happy Stitching to Everyone.

Basket of Pincushions

Just a few pincushions I decided I needed to make for gifts. These are made using 2-5" circles. Stuffed with polyester filling and embroidery floss used to divide the sections. I thought they needed something a little extra so I made yo-yo's to go under the buttons. If you are interested in making some of your own, visit Whipup for instructions.

Update on Chocolate Swap; I'm still waiting for my chocolates to arrive in the mail...boohoo My partner Annie received the goodies I sent to her. I hope mine from her will arrive soon...yum...yum.

Here's another pincushion using different fabrics.

My DH has given me a new computer this week. He carefully copied over all my files and got everything set up for me. What a sweetie he is to me. When I tried to connect the camera this morning....nothing. I've tried to play around and figure it out on my own but it seems I'll have to wait until he gets home to have it fixed. I'm sure it's not something he did, I'm just not doing something right. So no quilting progress pictures to show.

I sent off my Chocolate Swap to my partner in Australia yesterday. I hope Anne will like the chocolate and goodies I sent along.

Have you seen the pincushions Abyquilt has made? She made 8 of these so far. I've made only one so far and I hope to have time to make a bunch more. Here where you'll find the instructions for the pincushion.

Have you checked your Quilter's Horoscope. Darlene posted this and it's really is a hoot.

Aquarius - January 21 to February 18
Aquarius is very gifted and produce exceptionally original quilts. I don't know about this "monkey see monkey do" that's me. But, I do make changes to a project if I don't like what the pattern designer has done.

They are known to invent new techniques that enhance the art form. I don't think so.

They are friendly but their independent nature leads them to prefer to spend time quilting by themselves. Although you can find them in a quilting class, they are the most likely of all signs to choose to learn from books or a video. I've learned everything about quilting from doing. Making mistakes and learning from each one. I take classes only to be around fellow quilters.

However if you ever have a patchwork or quilting dilemma they are the kind of person that you can turn to for help and advice. They are nice and will be thoughtful when making a quilt for friends or family. They will create the quilt with careful consideration of what the individual would like. I like to teach what I know about quilting and it's really exciting to me when a student goes away with learning something new. I will always try and answer a question. Every project I make I think about the person that will receive it and try and personalize the gift.

Swap Block

Where did the week go, I've been busy doing stuff but not sure what stuff I've been doing....LOL

I took a class on Sat for making a Buggy Barn quilt called "Star Bright". Silly me I didn't need to start a new project but the class was free and I had a big stack of FQ's waiting for this quilt. Something new I learned in the class is that you can really cute through 13 layers of fabric as long as the blade is new and you have the larger cutter. My 26 blocks were all cut in about 1 hour. I'll post some progress pictures in a future post.

The other more pressing item that I was working on was this block. A swap I've signed up for. My Tues stitching group is having a swap with another stitching group that meets on Thurs. The deadline to finish the block is today and at our meeting this morning I will be exchanging with someone from the Thurs group. The organizers will be matching people based on each others colour choices. When I get my swap partners block I'm to add a border all the way around. I don't remember the size I'm to make it but I'm sure someone will offer that info today. After I'm done adding the border than it's returned to it's owner. This will be a small table topper when done. My block is from Kim Diehl's book and the block is called Country Whig Rose. You can see Darlene has done all 4 blocks.

Next on my list is to work on the Chocolate Swap from Sharon's blog. We are to make something to put our chocolates in (decorate the box) and send off to our swap partner. My swap partner is Annie from Australia, I'm very excited to get to know her likes and dislikes for chocolate, dark or light, chewing or crunchie? So many questions. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, waiting for those creative juices to start flowing.