The End of 2 Swaps, I'm so sad! Back from vacation, too.

Sad that the swaps (and my vacation) are over, THRILLED with what I received!  :)  Vaca was great, lots of fun, new experiences, so many laughs and good times.  Back to reality, though, which lately hasn't been too bad!  See the photos!

This is the doll quilt that I sent to my friend, Dena Wayne in New Mexico, and she really liked it.  I call it "The Wheel of F#@&(*% Fortune" quilt, because I did a lot of cussing while trying to line up points and seams.  A LOT.  Dena understands the title, because she "gets" me.  That's why we get along so well, we are kindred sisters.  :)  The only reason I didn't abandon this project is because I knew Dena would love it and appreciate all the hours that went into it.  It was one of the most complicated piecing jobs I've done, but paper piecing it really helped me to get those seams to line up.  That and about a million pins!  :)

 And this is what I received, from my partner Silvana, aka Silort on Flickr.  I totally love it, the quilt is one I had been lusting after as I watched her make it, she showed a lot of progress shots and I really loved what she was making, not ever dreaming it could really be for me!  I knew she was in a different group than I was, but the sneaky swap mamas played a trick on me and it turns out, it WAS for me after all!  I got home from my vacation to find this waiting for me- look at all the fun extras she sent, too!  That book is wonderful and very inspiring.  The chocolates are delish and so creamy and rich and they made it here in the summer without melting at all, I have no idea how she accomplished THAT!  lol

These tiny suns are just amazing, as is the rainbow border that she pieced.  Those little squares are 1/4"!  Just amazing the amount of work and skill that went into this little beauty!  Thank you so much, Sil!  I will treasure this forever!  Don't you love how she quilted it?

The mug swap is over for me, too.  This is what I sent to my friend Edy, in New Mexico.  She sent me the longest, funniest thank you note and it was heartwarming to read, what a sweet lady!  I knew she loved red, birds, cats, nature and humor, so I tried to cram it all into one little mug rug and it actually worked!  :)
Her Haiku-
Puddles are okay
but your cup of tea beckoned.
Some privacy, please?

And this is what I received from my friend Jules, chickenjulie on Flickr.  At first I was a little befuddled- it's a great colorful string mug rug, love that, but what is that brown puddle on it?  Then I read the Haiku, which was our theme for this swap and it made a little sense, it was gravy.  

The Haiku-

Gravey on mug rug

is totally better than

Gravy on mug rug.

 

OK.  Still a little odd, but OK.  lol  

 THEN, I flipped it over to see what fabric she had used on the back and there was GRAVEY!  Our little chubby girl, Gravey!  NOW it all makes perfect sense!  

Bwahahaha, how clever is this?!  Gravey is depicted sitting on the mug rug itself, it's a picture in a picture, totally clever and cute and it has my baby on it and I love it to pieces!  She did her usual excellent job with choosing a design, great fabrics and wonderful workmanship.  Her binding is incredible and of course, the cat steals my heart!   And the extras she sent are great, too.  A little rainbow package of fabrics, a spool of turquoise thread and a package of chocolate covered sunflower seeds, yum!  Thank you so much, Jules! This is of course, going up on the wall to be treasured!  Gravey has finally made it, she's officially famous now.  

 And no post is complete, lately, without some shots of bitty blocks.  :)  This upcoming month's themes are insects/bug and kitchen gadgets.  I'm signed up for both.  I made Luna Moths for the insects.  This is my prototype and I don't plan to change a thing, I'm happy with this as it is.

And for kitchen gadgets, I'm doing citrus juicers ....

 .....and toasters with real pop-up toast made from card stock. 

 I've seen some photos of what the other ladies are making (paper pieced butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, silk beetles and blenders,  measuring spoons and mixers, etc)  and it's going to be a fun month, getting all the great little beauties in the mail.  I'm addicted to these bitties like some perverts are addicted to porn, so when my husband brings in the mail, he calls out "porn call!" if there are obvious envelopes with bitties inside.  If the day is a bust and there are no bitties, we sadly sing "Porn Free" to the tune of  "Born Free".  Yeah.  We're a little warped like that.  :)  He likes to look at them as I open them and we oooh and ahhh over them together.  It's fun!

I hope all of you survived the storm OK and are having some fun as summer dwindles down. 

Finished Doll Quilt, DQS 11, and some more bitty blocks.... and some thoughts on swapping.

I finished it this morning and I'm as pleased as pleased can be! It measures out to be 17.5" x 14", finished.  It's adorable, if I may say so.  I would love to keep it, but I made it for my partner with her in mind the whole time and I just can't bring myself to "stiff" her like that. 

This is the back of just the top, you can see all the seams here- there are a bunch of 'em!

This is the back of the quilt, with the label and my partner's name blocked out.  I made this using a leftover bitty block from the month we did "text", this was one I made and it is perfect, I think, for this label. 

 

Close-up.

 And a close-up of the quilting.  I can honestly say that I worked harder on this little quilt than I ever thought I would.  And it paid off, I think.  All the cussing and ripping and re-doing was worth it. 

Thanks for looking at all the photos! 

And here are the bitty blocks I made for this month's group- Jars.  I took the liberty of making bottles, actually, but no one in the group seems to mind.  

Ships in Bottles-

 Close-up of ship in bottle-

This is my third attempt at paper-piecing and I'm liking it!

And at the risk of offending some people, I'm going to have a little rant, because this is my blog and I should be able to say whatever I want to here, right?  I don't want to hurt any feelings, but I think someone should be able to say what I think an awful lot of people are thinking. 

Some swaps require you to state a skill level when you sign up, that helps the swap mama to make proper match-ups.  Some swaps don't have that skill level taken into account.  Regardless though, all the skill-matching in the world won't mean a thing if people take the easy way out.  

When I see people making fabulous things for swaps that obviously took hours and hours, even DAYS, I am in awe and so appreciative of them.  Yes, I do it, too, and I know it's voluntary- I spend a lot of time making things for swaps because I am a perfectionist and I only want to send away my best work.  So when I see people showing off what they made and it obviously took them about 10 minutes to make what they are sending out, it pains me.  I have to wonder how in the world they justify that and feel like it's fair?   

As an example, and I'll just make this up- say the swap was "wonky houses".  Most people would piece or applique or embroider several different fabrics to make a wonky house, from scratch, and they would all be different and unique and so clever.  And a couple of people would search out fabrics that had wonky houses on them and cut them out and stitch them down onto another piece of fabric and call it done.  I don't consider that to be very creative.  Using novelty fabrics to consistently do all the work for you instead of creating something from bits of nothing, I disagree with that.  Every now and then, in my opinion, it would be OK, especially if the perfect novelty fabric was framed by pieces of other fabric, but to just use the novelty fabric and maybe add a few beads or something, that seems like taking the easy way out.  It's not very creative and I don't think it's in the spirit of the swap to do that.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE novelty fabrics and buy them all the time.  But I rarely use them except as background fabrics when I'm creating something, or like the ship in the bottle, I used the ship as a feature in the block.  I realize that time constraints play a part, too, but a person should know their limits and only sign up to do what they think they can really devote themselves properly to.

So I wish swappers everywhere would ask themselves this- "Am I putting enough effort into what I'm making to be fair to the others in the swap, considering the efforts they put into it?"  If your answer is yes, then that's wonderful.  If it's no, then I am sad.  

And that's my rant for the day.  Please play fair.  

DQS 11 ideas.... Wheel of Fortune

We're starting a new doll quilt swap, round 11.  We've changed the rules a little for this round.  A more traditional quilt is required this time, one that is more like a miniature of a full sized bed quilt, not an art quilt.  So this means- teeny, tiny piecing!  Good thing I recently learned how to paper-piece!  That's when you sew your fabrics to a paper foundation, using the lines that are on the paper to guide you.  I did my wonky stars using that method and it was great practice, so now  I'm going to attempt to make a Wheel of Fortune miniature quilt.  It's similar to a spiderweb quilt, like I did a couple of rounds ago.  After stalking my partner and learning a bit about her, I think that she'll like this if I do it up in white with scrappy bits of pink and orange and red.  If she doesn't, maybe I'll have to keep it!  I think I'm going to like it a lot.  :)

 
On the personal front, it's been hotter than heck here, over 100º every day for the last few weeks and no rain, just scorching hot and still humid, go figure.  Finally, today, we're getting a few drops of rain, I hope it's enough to revive the drooping bushes and thirsty trees and parched grass.  NW Arkansas is a beautiful place but we typically have dry summers and when we get rain in July, it's such a treat!

All the cats are fine, they lay around most of the day and night, because it's just too hot to do anything.  The hummingbirds are eating like crazy, but have slacked off the last couple of days so I suspect they're sitting on their second nest of eggs right now.  We have 4 big feeders out and I was filling them every day, but now I can actually go 2 days!  So that little break for me is nice. 

I hope you're all having a nice summer!

Doll Quilt Swap 10- Received and Sent and more!

 I received a most wonderful doll quilt from the DQS 10 swap!  Louise, aka lululollylegs,  lives in Melbourne Australia.  She made and sent to me a fabulous flamingo quilt with 3D feathers and it is just the most wonderful thing ever!  Each of those feathers was made individually, carefully placed and then layered onto the bird and sewn down by hand.  The entire thing is hand quilted with the most perfect of stitches and if you click on her link, you can see the details better than my photos show you.  The quilting in the water around the flamingo's leg is just incredible and so fun!

 Look how well it goes with our stuff on the verandah!

 And she sent me wonderful extras, too! Aboriginal art playing cards, Australian fabrics that are just divine, and a great note.  

 The back of the quilt is gorgeous and she made a fun label for it, too.  Love her drawing of a flamingo!  I have a real thing for flamingo and actually go by that name at several message boards (which she didn't know) so this quilt is just super-extra-special to me.  Thank you so much, Louise!  You are a sweet lady and I am thrilled that you made this for me!  I can't leave it on the verandah all the time as I don't want it to get dirty, but I will hang it here occasionally when we have company over, so I can show it off!  The rest of the time, it'll be upstairs in my work room area so I can see it all the time!  Thank you so much, again!

And now I can show you what I sent to my partner in the swap, Monika, in Germany.  This is the complete Rainbow Village.  The houses and the rainbow are removable so she can move them around, rearrange them, etc.  The sun spells out her name, an idea that I got from my friend Pam at uberstitch.  She did that on a small quilt for another friend and I asked her if I might use her idea on this quilt and she very graciously didn't mind. 

 

Close up of the sun-

And here is the entire package of what I sent Monika- one of my patterns, some text fabric, some house fabric (which is like the back of the quilt) some perle cotton thread in variegated colors, a snail tape measure and some tiny metal tags that say "made with love".  Since I was sending it so far away, I went to a box store and purchased THE most perfect box!  It was 20" long and 6" wide and 6" deep, so I was able to loosely roll the quilt and place it in the box, along with all the other stuff, too, with room to spare.  That was so much better than tightly rolling it and shoving it into a tube!  This way I could include some extras without damaging anything.

I had a lot of fun making this quilt for Monika and NO stress, because I consider her to be my friend already and it's so much easier making things for people you know as opposed to making for a "stranger".  She sent me the nicest thank you note, too, so I'm really happy that she likes it.

And- I was in a STUD swap- that stands for Swap Til You Drop- my first time in this swap.  The theme for this month was "My Favorite Things" and I told my partner, Cindy aka CASharp,  that my favorite things were bright colors, tropical, my white cat Nosey Parker, pirates, and the beach.  (I think those were the 5.)  Rules are- you must use at least 2 of the things in the quilt.  Well!  I think she used all 5!  

She made this wonderful pirate cat quilt, titled "Arrrr, I Be Nosey Parker!"  lol  LOOK at how cute this is!  The cat is soft and fuzzy as she used Minkee for it, wow!  And she's wearing a blinged out eye-patch over her beautiful green eye.  There's even a treasure chest pinned on!  How adorable this is!

I love everything about this, even the back is gorgeous!   The quilting is a great split leaf philodendron, my favorite tropical leaf!  It measures a nice 18" x 18".  Love that patchwork border, too!

And she sent SO much loot with this- a wonderful quilted snap bag, a tiny quilted pincushion, matching pins, a flamingo bookmark, and....

... a mug rug that spells out my nickname, Sooz, in Scrabble tiles!  :)  How fab is that?!  Cute little hula dancers, huh? Love all this stuff and her fabrics are so fun!

I am such a lucky girl.  Cindy really spoiled me.  Thanks so much, Cindy!  

Of course, I made something for her, too.  Her favorite things are sunshine, clear bright colors, laughter, her little cat Tookie and blue skies.  I can't wait to show you what I made for her!  She might get it today, so I'll show you soon.  Stay tuned.  And thanks for looking at all my show and tell stuff! 

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. 

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.

Doll Quilt Possibilities....

After a lot of sleuthing and snooping and prowling around, I think this is my plan for a small quilt for my partner. It's called a Spiderweb quilt and I've never made one before. I have great expectations, though and hopefully will be able to start it soon. I have until the end of August to get it done, so it shouldn't be a problem.

These are the fabrics I'm planning to use, along with some solid white.

Hopefully she'll like it! I think it'll end up being about 24" long and 16" wide. I feel a little better for having a plan, I must say. And it was a tough decision but I can't tell you why just yet, in case she's peeking in. :)

And this is what I did this week while Jim was in CO, along with some sewing and making tiny 3.5" quilt blocks for a swap.

This is a before shot- and it was crammed even more full than this photo shows- I've done a little too much fabric shopping this year. *gulp* I was having to move entire stacks to get to the color stacked behind it and it was very inconvenient. So I refolded everything....

And this is what it looks like today!

I think this will be easier for me to deal with. I don't like the look quite as much, but function is very important and it's easier to slide a certain fabric out without disturbing the rest of the pile.

I'm in a beach swap where we all make a dozen or so little 3.5" blocks and mail them off. This month's theme is beach/underwater. I made these little pineapple drinks and also some mermaids, which I'll show you later. I love how these came out!

No Nosey Parker photos today, sorry! Please don't hurt me! :)

The Doll Quilt Swap is up and running again!

This is the new hot spot in our house- my friend Jennifer gave me 2 towels when we were at her house a couple of weeks ago. The cats have all commandeered them! They are really soft and squishy, the towels, I mean... well, the cats are too, but I'm talking towels now....and they just all take turns lying around on them. This is Beeswax and Murphy, the brothers, on the lime green froggy towel. I just love these big boys! Parker likes to lay on it or under it in the late evening, before bedtime.

Last Sunday the participants of DQS9 were notified (something like 200 of them!) by their swap mamas and given the name of the person they would be creating a little treasure for. This was an eagerly awaited notification, we were all chomping at the bit, even the mamas, because they are making for someone also.

To get to that point, though, first the mamas are assigned their group and then they have to investigate each and every person by prowling through their Flickr photostream and their blog, if they have one and also the photo mosaic and/or photo favorites or gallery of inspirational quilts that they have marked. Notes are made on each person in various catagories and then match ups can begin. After that's all settled, emails are composed and ready to go when the time comes and all the "bebes" are notified at about the same time.

Then THEY get to investigate their partner that they are sewing for and come up with plan for a little quilt. Sketches are posted, fabric selections are photographed, discussions ensue from the serious to the bawdy, and a good time is by all. Well, by all who participated in it. There are still some very quiet quilters that don't say much and that's kind of a shame for their partners because any kind of feedback is better than no feedback at all. If I had my way, every single person would devote 15 minutes a day to commenting on other people's photos and ideas. Not only will make those people feel good, it's also inspiring and fun to see all the great ideas and colors and fabrics.

It's early days, though, it's only been a week, but I've already seen one finished quilt and a lot of great ideas posted. We have until the end of August to make them, so I'm hoping to get inspired soon and find just the right thing to make for my partner. I don't know what it'll be yet, but I do know this- this is the most fun swap I've ever been in, it's well run and very organized and the people who take part in it are extremely talented and fun and witty. I'm so pleased to be in it again for the 2nd time.

Part 2- vacation....

We left FL on a Wed morning and spent the night just south of Jackson, MS. It takes FOREVER to get out of Florida, it's a long state to begin with and then we ran across the top of it, in the panhandle. It was about 10 PM when we finally stopped and we were so tired that we didn't even care much that our door was loose in its frame and wobbly, we just showered and conked out and slept a good 5 hours before getting up a little after 3 and hitting the road again. We were heading to Longview TX and there were fish there with Jim's and Charles' names on them, just waiting to be caught. Got to Longview about 9 AM and after a quick bite to eat, the boys left to fish. Jen and I spent the day catching up and she worked some, she works from home. The men came home hot and happy, having caught a slew of bass and catfish. I think we all hit the sack early that night, it had been another long day for us.

The next day Jen had lots of work errands to do and I was her assistant, pulling real estate signs, labeling envelopes, etc. That earned us lunch out at a sandwich shop called Newks that was SO good, I could eat there every day. We had a chicken/pesto/goat cheese sandwich and a Greek salad, it was all yummy. Mmmm mmm. Now I have to add goat cheese to the shopping list! The boys caught a couple of fish, not as good a day as the one before, so they requested and got an early dinner so they could go out again and do some later fishing. Chicken/spinach enchiladas, that was so good! I have that recipe now, Jim really likes it too so I'll be making it a lot, I'm sure.

The day after that was Saturday and the boys took the day off from fishing. They went to Academy, a fabulous sporting goods store where I had bought some wonderful shirts for Jim(like the aqua one in the photo, $12.88!) and got myself one, too. Jen and I went to the local quilt shop, Sharmin's. It's very nice, not huge but well stocked and I got more fat quarters and ..... vacuum cleaner bags! lol They sell vacuums and sewing machines there, and fabric. That was great, I always have trouble finding bags for my vac.

One night we made shish-ka-bob and corn on the cob. OK, here's what good friends we are- after dinner, we all sat around the table with little flossers in our hands and got all the corn and meat out from between our teeth. lol You couldn't do that with just ANYBODY, you know? *snork* We laughed SO much over this long weekend, we all got along so well and had just the best time. Pranks were played, even a game of Uno and Chinese Checkers (my husband is a whiz at that game, what an analytical mind he has), all in good fun but very competitive, too.

We stayed several days with Charles and Jennifer, had a wonderful time and hated to leave, but our housesitter had other jobs to go to, so we drove home happy and content, but already missing our best friends. Did I mention the boys washed all the love-bugs off my car the night before and that Charles even cleaned my tires? I felt so swanky on the drive home!

Nosey Parker was happy to see us, all the animals were, so that was nice. NP actually came inside and sat with us for hours, during her usual play time, so I think she really missed us.

Here she is on one of the towels Jen gave me, a shark attack towel. Way to feed my fears, Jen! lol Good thing the baby isn't as neurotic as her mother.

Memorial Day Weekend, Longview, TX

My best buddy, Jennifer and me, in her front yard, waiting for Robo-Jogger to run by in the heat of the day, and believe you me, it is H.O.T. there at noon. She was always telling me about this crazy guy with the super-erect running form who runs when it's just too, too hot. So when he ran past just as we got home from shopping, her DH set up a viewing stand in the front yard and got out binoculars and everything for his return pass. Then he stood there and took pictures of the poor guy, and of us, until we got to laughing so hard we were crying. Poor guy must think we're insane, but it was so funny how Charles just pimped that guy out for us.

It's been crazy since we got home- we had to take Artie to the vet to get an ear infection cleaned up, we installed a ceiling fan in the guest room which took all day on Thursday (long boring story, no good way to get into attic, required removal of attic fan and lots of itching and crawling, poor husband and a drive to the big city for parts) and then our pond messed up yesterday and we had to take it all apart and clean it and catch fish, etc. Now he's mowing and I'm off to the grocery because we have company coming tonight, my brother and SIL will be here for a week. My other brother is already here, staying at my parents, he's allergic to pets.

Never a dull moment around here!

Be sure to check out the Doll Quilt Swap button on the right- sign ups are over and the fun is about to begin! I'll be busy with it a lot because I'm a swap mama this go-round, this ought to be interesting!

The Doll Quilt Swap was a success!

Yesterday, I received the most wonderful package in the mail- it was the doll quilt that was made especially for me, by Christina, The Sometimes Crafter. I was so excited! I had ordered some fabric online so when I got the package, I just assumed it was my fabric. When I noticed the fabric was wrapped in tissue, I got suspicious and when I saw little cat faces peeking at me, I was bumfuzzled- I didn't remember ordering any cat fabric. Then it HIT me! It was my little quilt and I knew exactly who had made it for me and what the other side looked like- it is the coolest pineapple block and it's so me!

Included in the package was the most lovely notecard that she made herself with a great owl on it. I love owls, too! And a long, handwritten note that I read aloud because Jim was standing next to me, wanting to know why I was so excited! Such a sweet, personable note, too. And she had noticed that I was a very active member of the swap, which was nice. Of course, some people probably wished I'd shut up a little, I was into everything like a rotten little kid! lol

Also in the package, in its own little glassine envelope- a sweet little month-by-month calendar with the most exquisite photography- the top of each month has a close-up photo of something to do with sewing- either fabric or thread or binding, a tape-measure, etc. I love this so much! I really enjoy things that have "parts" and this set has 13, man, this is so great. lol Really, I was giddy over this calendar. And then to ice my cake, Christina- a fellow pirate aficionado- sent me a fat quarter of some really cool Japanese pirate fabric!

Wow. She is a girl after my own heart! She nailed me- knew what I would like, made it happen, sent it all on time, added goodies and the sweetest note ever and I am just still over the moon with it all. Big, huge thanks go out to Christina, the sweetest, cleverest and most talented young woman I've met in a long time! She couldn't have been a better partner for me!

I have hung the little quilt by the back door where we'll both see it constantly. It looks outstanding! I've been needing something there and it's just perfect on the apricot colored wall. And unbreakable, which is why that spot's been vacant for years and years. It's a busy little doorway and things get bumped.

Doesn't it look great here?

And this is the quilt I made for my partner, Kristan.Ellsworth. I sent it out last Saturday, wrapped in a tube for mailing and she received it on Monday, in AZ. I was shocked at the speedy delivery time. She was pleased to get it and I'm glad. I had fun making it and searching out just the right kind of birds to put on it to give it some life. I had to go get these fabrics because this style and color of quilt was not really my cup of tea, but I liked it very much and it was hard to send it away.

So the Doll Quilt Swap is over for now, for me at least, but I'll still have fun watching to see which quilts are received by the other members. And also- I joined another little swap since this one was so fun- a potholder swap. I have to make 2 potholders for a certain someone. I have an idea of what she likes but I'm off to stalk her and search out more information before I settle down and make her something. This ought to be fun! She's got lots for me to look through, yay!

I am hereby sold on swaps, this was so much fun and great entertainment and a real learning experience for me. And it kept me inside during our long, cold winter, too!