I have the nicest friends, they send me amazing things they've made....

 For the pincushion swap, my friend Jo , who lives in Scotland, made me the most amazing treasure chest!  I didn't know that she was making this for me, but I was very hopeful when I saw her sketch and the plan and then in really short order, the pincushion in progress!  This lady doesn't mess around, she gets an idea and just goes with it!  I was getting more and more excited about it when she threw out some info that had me convinced that this was NOT for me, after all, and I was so disappointed.  So imagine my thrill when I opened a box and found this pincushion inside! As you can see, I like pirate things, another friend made me this quilt last year.

The pincushion even came with it's own map!  It's stitched and burned and is just adorable.  Jo also included some great pieces of fabric, parrot pins and mini teacup pincushion, too.  WHAT a fabulous package, I am over the moon with it all!

 Look at all the booty in the treasure chest!  And there's a felt needle holder, too.  It's got it all.  The workmanship is amazing, all the handstitching, just so time-consuming and I am so flattered that she did all this for ME!  Wow.  What a nice, talented lady Jo is!  Thank you so much, Jo!

 I also received a wonderful mug rug in our swap, from my friend Sudi-Laura.  She and I have made things for each other before, placemats, so we are a good match, too.  I love this mug rug, all the colors of the rainbow, which everyone knows I love and my nickname and a great black and white binding along with perfect sewing- another big hit!  Thank you, Sudi-Laura, aka isaacsmama!

 And, I am so spoiled- 2 of my swappy friends sent me mug rugs just because I had admired them so loudly!  Spiced Coffee sent me one that commemorates the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit.  Isn't it great?  I have in on my desk, it looks wonderful in the office.  See how it goes with the rug (that needs to be vacuumed)?  Perfect!  I love it, and she sent me more of the cool fabric and some hula girl fabric, too!  I feel so rich!  Look at the embroidered bun-bun!

 And, I received this from my buddy, Kimmie- because I threatened to cry if it didn't come to me!  lol  (That worked great, I'll use that line again!)  Seriously, Kimmie and I goof around a lot together on Flickr, pretending that we don't like each other, but I think it's obvious now- she can't help it, she loves me.  :)    She also sent me a great snap bag and a cool, bright tin full of stick-on shapes, very fun package to open! 

I just have to say that I appreciate everything that people send to me, I'm just not very good at blogging about it in a timely fashion!  I have more to show, too, something I can drink copious amounts of wine out of!  :)  I'll save that for another day, though.  Thanks to all my swappy buddies, you're all so good to me and I know it!

Rainbow Village, the doll quilt....

I don't know what I would do without all my helpers.  Godzilla, aka Nosey Parker, wants to rid those houses of their antenna.  Monster!  I have been locking this quilt up for weeks to keep it safe at night!

I managed to finish it, though, finally, with a little time to spare.  I can't show you what is under the sun in case my partner is peeking in.  *wavies, hi there!* It spells something out, though, I'll show you after it's been received because it's a really cool effect and I copied it from my friend, Pam/Uberstitch, with her blessing.

Anyhoo, Rainbow Village.  It's not dull or boring, it's just as vibrant, I'm afraid, as it appears.  In retrospect, maybe it's too vibrant, but it's done and it is what it is.  I hope my partner doesn't get sick of it too soon.  I matched the binding to all the fabrics on the sides of the quilt, as nothing I had in my stash was auditioning quite right. 

The houses all have little metal plates sewn to the back and on the back of the quilt are little pockets with very strong magnets in them.  That makes the houses removable and interchangeable, so she can rearrange her houses any way she wants them.

In the pond- a small, subtle fountain. A vintage button plays the part of the sprayer.  Tulle netting tones down the white of the fishie fabric.

A rather ordinary label, name blocked out to protect the surprise.  I love the tiny house fabric for the backing.  I was lucky enough to stumble across that online a while back and knew it would come in handy!

I think she's going to like this, at least I hope she does.  I did have fun making it.  It turned out almost exactly like I had pictured it in my head and in the sketch, with a few changes. 

Castle Teacup Pincushion, for swap....

I was lucky enough to get a really fun partner in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap at Flickr.  I decided to make her a castle in a teacup.  :)   I had a teacup pattern that I got from Jodie at Vintage Ric Rac and used that as a starting point.  I drew this sketch for inspiration and everyone seemed to think I should go for it, so I did. 

After a couple of blunders which I won't subject you to here, but can be seen in my Flickr photostream (think pornographic!  eek)  this is what I ended up with.  Wisteria Castle.

The roof comes off and so does the tower, so you could actually put it back together like this short, stubby version.  :)

Under the false floor are small polished stones to give it weight and stability. Please note the manacles on the dungeon wall!  See the tiny lock on the door? 

Find the tiny key under the tiny mat!  The door flips down over the moat, but that's purely decorative.

Details of the wisteria on the castle tower.

The flag needed a Coat of Arms.  :)

And EVERY castle needs a faerie princess, right?  She is a pin-topper.

I hope you like it, I had so much fun making it.  The castle tower is a heavy cardboard tube and I wrapped the fabric around it and sewed it down, then glued the excess at the top and bottom into the tube.  I made a puffy bit for the actual pincushion part and glued that into the tube from underneath.  I got some great advice from a fellow Flickrer when I botched my first roof attempt and with her help, I am 100% happy with the new roof and the whole thing, actually.  I wanted to keep this, very badly, but the horrible kittens had their eyes on it and I knew it would be safer in some other household. 

Hellooooo, Gravey!

Doll Quilt Beginnings.... Mug Rug Ending ............. and something to keep!

 Murphy helped me pick out fabrics!  He voted against both of those blues, in the end.  I think he didn't like them being brighter than his blue eyes.  :)

 I'm going to make a village with a snow-capped purple mountain backdrop.  It's going to be a rainbow village, with the blue sky on top, going down to purples, then red, orange and yellow houses on a green grass yard with a small pond with a fountain.  There will be some things in the sky, probably a sun and a cloud or two and maybe a curving line of flying geese, in a rainbow of colors, that will get smaller as it gets farther away.  (For those of you who don't quilt, flying geese are triangles of fabric.)  I'm making the houses right now, that's my today project, getting them done. 

 It feels good to have gotten started on this and I hope my partner will like it.

 This is what I'm sending to my mug rug partner- 2 mug rugs, a scrap of hedgehog fabric, a chocolate bar, 2 cocoa mixes and 2 postcards of our area.  I think she'll be pleased. 

And here is something I made to keep.  3 birds on a wire, with butterflies.  I hung it on the wall in my craft room, inside the ironing board cabinet.  I'll see it a lot there.  :) I found the bird image on clipart so I don't have a pattern to sell or provide.

Fantastical Flight for Max.....

 This is the mini quilt I made for my partner for the Mini QT swap- it's called "Fantastical Flight" and it's totally taken from the artwork of  Cecelia Rebora.  I changed a few minor things and added a couple of things in hopes of not offending the artist too much, but when I saw this, I knew I had to do it in fabric for Max.  It just seemed like him!  We had been chatting about dragons and he likes space flight and Star Wars and red and black and this was too perfect.  I added a moon and changed the wing and the houses just a bit, but there's no way I can take credit for more than the actual putting it together.  :)

 The back- it's aMAZ(e)ing!  LOL

 I used glow-in-the-dark filament on the front between the moon and the dragon's tail to spell out his name in french knots.  They don't shine as nicely as I had hoped they would, in the dark, but they are there if he looks fast when he turns out his light at night!

I had fun making this for my new friend, Max.  And I certainly love what he made me, see the earlier post of yesterday for that.  :)

Bitty Block Busyness! And a quilt swap completed....

The theme for February in the Bitty Block Committee was text/word or trees on a white background.  I had this cute cat/dog background fabric so I made cat and dog blocks.  

 The fabric was too perfect to not use!

 I tried two on this fabric but it was too finicky to make a dozen of- I was covering up the best parts of the kitties!  So I kept the one for me and I only had one to swap.  :)

 I knew I wanted to do spring trees and when they were done, they were too plain.  So I cleverly (I thought at the time) added a swing to each one.  Little did I know, so did a couple of the other swappers!  I'm not nearly as clever as I think.  My husband told me to add a tire swing, but I thought that was too boyish.  lol  I should have listened to him!  DON'T tell him I said that! 

 They came out pretty cute, though, I think.

 We're doing a side-swap too, of the "Out of Our Gourds" fruit and veggies- spoofing on famous people who have names similar to fruits and veggies!  Ones like "Ludwig von Beet-hoven"  and "Beety Boop", not to mention "The Grapeful Dead", "Lima Minelli", Pablo Pea-casso, etc.  :) 

I made Alexander the Grape. 

 We all had to make 14 of our guys/girls. 

I've got 2 more sets to finish- another set of trees and one of words.  They'll be done soon, just a little handwork left.   That'll make 62+ bitty blocks I've made this month.  Phew!  (I usually make a few extras for side-swaps or to keep for projects like you're about to see below.)

 I used one of my left over red bird bitty blocks and made this mug rug, but I suspect it'll end up on a wall instead of under a cuppa.  I love how it turned out.  I'm doing another one right now with one of my little kite-flying hedgies.  If this one is winter, the hedgie is spring.

 And I was in another swap, the theme was "Take Flight" and my 8 year old partner, Max, made me this wonderful "The Flight of the Rainbow Balloons" mini quilt.  I absolutely love it and I hung it up on the wall just the left of where I sew upstairs.  Every time I turn my head, I am delighted by it!  8 years old, can you believe it?  He's going places, that Max!  Such talent.  His mom is amazing, so I am sure he gets it from her.  You might know her- she goes by lolablueocean at Flickr.

 The back is wonderful, too, look at that great label!

I sent him a quilt of a dragon carrying a little boy over a castle town, in the night.  I think we were both pleased with our swap!  He's a great kid and I hope to swap with him again, but I know he's going to be in high demand!

So that's what I've been doing, along with making things for my shop.  I need to get those listed!  Off to the salt-mine!

Nag, nag, nag...... and a rant.

So you're tired of looking at ornaments, eh?  Fine, look at this instead while I listen to my husband shovel snow and call his idiot dog who has learned how to climb over our fence and took herself off for another romp in the woods, chasing deer and turkeys.  I swear, she's worthless and I'm not getting any fonder of her the longer she's here.  If someone has to tell me 20 times a day that she's a good dog, it makes me wonder who the heck he's trying to convince, me or himself?  Yeah, she's good.  Good at grabbing at you with her teeth, snapping at you when you reprimand her, good at climbing fences and standing up on her back legs with her front ones on the kitchen counter.  She's good at climbing OVER the other dogs to be the first one out and she's good at shrieking for an hour if you let her.   She can eat a bowl of food in about 4 seconds and then she just wants more.  This dog has issues and I am not real happy with her here.  She's disrupted the whole house and I wish he'd never had that chip put into her.  I keep telling her if she runs off again, don't bother coming back.  But she always does, dammit. 

  I want to love this dog, but I don't.  I love the other dogs and all of the cats, but this dog is a sociopath, just like his black dog that died a couple of years ago.  It's the same dog in a different color.  Not lovable.  Annoying, stubborn and bullheaded.   We both call her "him" all the time because there isn't anything feminine or dainty about Quigley.  And Mr. Softie who usually has nothing but good to say about her is actually contemplating a shock collar.  Like the remote for the TV, I want to hold onto the remote for a shock collar, too.  Heh.

Thanks for letting me rant.

 OK, onto happier things that might convince you that I'm not really a monster- A mug rug for my partner in the swap.  I made this yesterday and last nights snowfall made for a really pretty backdrop.  This is the chair on my little balcony off the sewing room.  I won't be sitting out there for a while!

                                     

 Hopefully my partner will like it.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  Red and aqua are so pretty together and such a popular color combo these days.  On the back are a slew of little hedgehogs.  Now I'm busy making more bitty blocks and contemplating what I shall make for my new partner in the doll quilt swap.  I'm thinking of doing something in a rainbow village type setting.  Like this- blue sky at the top, turning into purple mountains, a red/orange/yellow village and then greens at the bottom.  All the colors of the rainbow.  Hopefully I can pull it off.  I'll probably do most of it with raw edged applique and just piece the turquoise stars in the sky.  We'll see!  At least I have an idea, that's a relief!