A mini quilt swap....

I made this for a new friend in Canada, Liz. We are both in the Mini QT swap at Flickr and were partnered up for the month of July in the beach/underwater catagory. It was a great match-up- we have a lot in common and like so many of the very same things. She received it yesterday so I can post photos of it now. And she likes it, yay, that's always nice!

It's a mermaid looking thru the imaginary porthole on a submarine. :) Just imagine the shock the submariners would be in if they saw this for real! Hence the ship name- USS Mirage. My husband, the sailor, needed to remind me that REAL subs don't have portholes. Well, duh! (OK, I didn't really know that, but I pretended I did.) lol I sewed the bottom half of way too many snaps onto the circle to imitate hardware and then I snapped the top part onto them, so the stitching is hidden pretty much.

Close up of her face. I used Kaffe Fassett fabrics for her hair and shell-top, they just seemed so perfect with the coloring and pattern in them. I used some eyelash yarn for her seaweed headband and stitched some seed beads onto it for a bit of glitz. Also, some beaded bracelets for that fun 3D effect. She's wearing a shell top because she's going to a home with a teenage boy in it. :) I didn't want her to get ogled or cause any problems.

I had this fish fabric and just loved it so I used it for the back. I failed to consider how the binding would look with it, though! Ugh. Oh, well. At least the front looks good. I'm pretty sure this is the first round quiltie I've ever done.... it was fun. It's an original design and you'd believe that if you saw my trash basket full of rejected sketches!

Now, I wait for what Liz has made for me, I'm so excited. This week has been so fun between receiving fabulous things and sending things out to be received. I'm loving these swaps and we are keeping the post office solvent, I'm sure of it!

Yesterday was a fun day..... and thank you all....

Let me start first by saying thank you to everyone for all the sweet

condolences on the loss of our dog, Paisley. It's been a week now and
we're getting used to the fact that she's gone but it still feels weird
without her in our lives. It was so kind of you all to respond and offer your sympathies, I tried to thank you all personally but wasn't able
to for some of the anon or "no-reply" peeps.
Please just know that I appreciated every single one of them.

Now, to yesterday- the mail lady brought 2 packages to the house! One was a quilt book I had ordered thru Ebay, saving over $10, which I liked. It's "Greetings from Tucsadelphia" by Lizzie B. Cre8tive. It's got lots of fun applique patterns in it and even a recipe or 2. But the other box- well, let's just say "WOWEE WOW WOW", shall we? It came all the way from Buenos Aires, Argentina from a friend named Sandy. I didn't know it, but she had my name in a scrappy pincushion swap over at Flickr! I made and sent the turtle, remember? I thought that was cute. Sandy taught me all about CUTE with a capital C!

This is what I found when I opened the biggest package in the box- a little white cat in a pink bikini and a rainbow colored pincushion with a velcro dot in the middle. Interesting, yes? Wonder what that velcro is for?

OH! It's to attach it to the next largest piece in the box, turned out to be a tree trunk on a piece of sand!

Now, tell the truth- is this not the cutest thing EVER????? Sandy made me a little miniature Nosey Parker Goes to Florida pincushion set! It's a rainbow palm tree on a bit of beach! Un-freakin'-believable. She even has her own little towel which doubles as a needle case. Sandy made this up all on her own, she had no pattern and she had to work it out so that it was sturdy and would support the tree top and built it an underwire frame and everything. This was no easy feat! I am so totally impressed. And grateful!

She also sent me some fabulous Kaffe Fassett fabric, 3D rainbow stickers and a lovely handmade, custom card with a long hand-written note about how this came to fruition. You wouldn't believe how giddy and happy I was- I needed this morale boost- it showed me what a lovely friend Sandy is to me and what a kind and dear lady she must be, to go to all this trouble for me! AND- I got what has to be the best pincushion in the entire swap.

For size perspective, you can see the real NP checking out her newest competition. The little fabric NP is quite tiny and so dear! I just love this and keep pinching myself because it's so dreamy. I love things with pieces parts, I adore things that are rainbow colored and I love all things tropical. And of course, I love Nosey Parker to bits, so you tie them all together into one package and I damn near fainted!


I tried to stay busy last week, to distract myself and I ended up finishing 2 little quilts.

No bees, no honey..... No work, no money..... that's a saying from somewhere, don't know where, but I like it. :) It's also the name of this little quilt.

It measures about 12" square and is for me and the other one, below, is for the Doll Quilt Swap. It's about 24" x 16". It's called a spiderweb quilt.


The recipient's name is blocked out so she can't accidentally find out that it's for her before it arrives in her mailbox in about another month.


And what's a spiderweb quilt without a spider? :) Don't freak, it's rubber and squishy and fun to squeeze. This spider is my friend, he eats scary snakes!

I also finished up 9 more sewing caddies and they're all in my Etsy shop. And I made 9 cat collars, but that was no big deal. Murphy and Parker both lost one this week, those rotten kids.

So this week has been better than last week. Thank you all again, very much, for the kindness you've shown me.

Paisley.... we won the lottery when we got her...

For the last 14 years, we've been lucky enough to have a sweet collie girl named Paisley Maree. She came to us at the ripe old age of 3 months when her previous owners decided to have her put to sleep because she had a problem with fleas and mange and they didn't want to bother with her. Their loss was our gain. The vet was a friend of ours and was at our house when that call came in, to have her put down. She immediately offered her to us and we jumped at the chance. I mean, who doesn't love a collie, or the thought of having one? Turns out, collies are the NICEST dogs. And Paisley, who had every reason in the world to be miserable (infection raging, pustules flaring, sores weeping, and many flea bites, etc) was the happiest little puppy with the most tremendous spirit. She looked positively gruesome but we didn't care, we fell in love with this pup at our first meeting. All she wanted was to cuddle and play and scamper. So undemanding, she would take a nap where ever she was and that pink chair was a favorite spot, she would stick her head under there and snooze.

The vet convinced us that her face would eventually grow hair (they later admitted that they didn't really know that for sure but were hopeful) and we treated her mange with a daily dose of Interceptor, a once-a-month heartworm pill. It was sort of an expensive experimental treatment, not one recommended by the AVMA, or whatever it's called, but it darn sure worked. About 60 pills later, she was clean of mange mites.

She grew up to be just like she was as a pup, happy, fun and calm, but quirky. She would go for a walk (before we had a fence) and always come home toting something, either she'd find an old bottle in the woods or tree branch, a long deer or cow bone, something, it was a riot.

Paisley and I were really close, she wouldn't leave my side when I was sick in bed for a week, many years ago, and she continued to show that same kind of devotion for her whole life.

She and the other dogs had a game of stealing Daddy's hats. She didn't much like to wear them, though. :) Camo was not her color.

She was a real beauty, in our eyes.

Paisley had a few other problems, but nothing we couldn't deal with. She never lost her appetite, meals were a favorite time of day for her.

Monday, July 19, 2010 she had to be put to sleep. Her sweet heart was failing her and she couldn't get enough oxygen in her blood, she was constantly panting hard and no matter what we tried, it was getting worse. She was exhausted, she had given all she had to stay with us and it about killed us to make that final trip to the vet's office. We had her for just over 14 years and it was not enough. I miss my sweet girl but I'm glad she's not suffering anymore. The house feels so quiet and empty and I just hate this. My husband is so good to me, with the extra hugs and pats and kisses. He misses her too, he was the best daddy that girl could have wished for.

We'll miss you forever, Sweet Pea.

It's been a busy week, lots of sewing projects finished!

I've been sewing a lot this week. I was in a pincushion swap and I decided to sweeten the pot a bit by making a few extra shells for the turtle. I particularly like the Carmen Miranda/fruity one! It's on its way to somewhere, I think my partner will like her.

I finished the mermaids and all the pineapple drinks, too and got them all mailed out for beach/underwater July/Aug 3.5" mini block swap. Sorry about the blurry photo, but you get the drift, right?

I got all the blocks done for the DQS9 doll quilt, I still have to put them together and then quilt it, but the hardest part is done, I think.

And I made 4 little eyeglass purses for a friend, she keeps her reading glasses in them and hangs them around her neck. She needed one black one for dressy occasions and then some fun bright ones to wear to work. I got those done today.

And, for another swap, a "flat pet" that can be taken out and about and photographed in fun places.... I made a flamingo (no!) and have it ready to mail off to parts unknown (to you, I know where she's going). I have one other swap to fulfill and then I'm done for a while, phew!




The feet are made from over-sized, enormous chenille stems, aren't they wild?! She looked pretty cute on our verandah, it's going to be hard to send her away!

That's what I've been up to! What about you?

Fair warning- removing a tutorial....

In about 3 days, I'm going to delete my tutorial for the sewing organizer/travel caddy. I've had shops asking for a pattern and I feel like if I'm going to be selling them, I should take away the free one in order to avoid possible confrontations in the future.

So if you haven't gotten to it yet, you might want to get all the info and measurements now, because by about Wednesday, the 7th, it's going to disappear. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I don't see any real way around this.

Thanks for understanding!