Long time, no post, lots of photos!

 We had a new round of pincushions in our FLiPS swap, this is the one I made for my partner, craktpot/Teri...

 It's a little caravan/trailer and I used a tutorial from The Quilted Fish      

to start it off and then made some changes.  I altered the shape just a little, then

 I added a rear bumper and a license plate and "tail lights" and made the door so it could open, it's now a needle holder. 

 The little hitch thing on the front is actually a small pair of scissors that slides into a 

pocket and supports the trailer.  Car not included.  LOL

 The scissors work, just slide them out of the wire wrap.

 It even has a tiny TV antenna for those lonely nights at the campground.  ;)

 I received this wonderful rainbow turkey pincushion from my partner, andrcarl!  She also included a beautiful coordinating dishtowel that she crocheted for me.  Love that, too.

 One of my pincushion bebes didn't receive the pincushion that was sent to her, so I made her this one, totally copying it from one made by Little Miss Shabby.  I changed it slightly- made it taller, added ground walnut shells, etc, but it's so not original by me, but she liked it.  :)

In the mug rug swap, I made and sent off this one, which started with a bitty block...

... and this one- my partner liked "Kitschy" things....

 And I received this one from Jan/Stampqnjlr, isn't it cute?

 The Bitty Block Bee Queen is my friend Kimmie, and she loves The Wizard of Oz. 

 I made her this Horse of a Different Color... heavily inspired from a photo of an embroidered horse.  I used embroidery floss in 8 or 10 colors for the tail and mane.

 

...and the Medal of Courage.   This little medal was a real challenge, because it's so small, about the size of a half-dollar, maybe.  It's 3D and hangs loose from the ribbon. 

 The month before, the theme was sewing so I made a large fabric button and put it on 

sewing themed print fabric, and a steam iron.

 Did some bitties for winter and some for aliens...

 And some pelicans for a bird theme....

 And Medusas for the Fantasy theme....

 And Bizbee made a full and complete recovery from his illness and is doing great, but breaking things a lot and acting like a one-man demolition derby!  We love him madly.  :)  On a sadder note, we lost Shanzie Fyne, our last remaining collie, in early November to an enlarged heart.  Poor silly thing, we miss her.  She'd had lots of physical ailments in her 8 year life span, but she was a dear dog and lots of fun.

And now I think we're all caught up!  Phew.  If you read all this and looked at all the photos, give yourself a reward, you earned it!

Lots to show- received swap items, weather predictions and more!

 First, the weather prediction- we cut open some wild persimmon seeds.  See the spoon shapes?  That means we're likely to have a very snowy winter.  If they were knives, it would mean cold, sharp winds.  Pretty cool, huh?  It's usually pretty accurate, too.

 I just recently received my FLiQS quilt from my wonderful partner, Jana/megmormel.  I just love this little circle/rainbow quilt, it's darling and so well made!  She also included a mug rug and some salt water taffy, she lives on the Eastern Seaboard.  It's delish and I just loved everything, thank you so much, talented Jana!

 Lovely, isn't it?  She pegged me very well, she knew I loved rainbow/bright colors and those lovely grays in the background are the perfect foil for the brights.

 The back is darling, too.  She embroidered and pieced the label. 

 In the Bitty Block Bee, bouncypoodle/Pattiann picked sunflowers for her theme.  I made her this screen door block with a view out onto a farm scene.  The cute fabric is by Wilson & Wilson Folk Art Co, here in Eureka Springs.  It's several years old and I've been hoarding it.  :)

 The door opens....

 A few little 3D touches...

 I let the fabric do the sunflower work for me this time.

 And the other block I made for Pattiann- the center is full of seeds, all outlined by machine.

 Since the FLiQS quilt I made has been delivered, I can now show off the label.  It's a kaleidoscope quilt so I thought I should make a kaleidoscope label.  My partner was mollyjolly/maria and it turns out, she's always loved kaleidoscopes, which I didn't know.  Lucky coincidence for us, I think!

 I used a piece of Kaffe Fassett fabric, embellished it with beads and covered it with heavy vinyl.  Added a tiny binding and then stitched it on to cover the end of the hand-appliqued base.  It will swivel up so she can see the words.

 This is the front of the quilt, almost all Kaffe Fassett fabrics. 

 And this is the wonderful mug rug I received from Jodie/jm1122 in the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap!  I love it, it's got 2 sea turtles on one side and a fun octopus on the other! 

 She also send me generous pieces of her background fabrics because she knew I really liked them and treats for the dogs and cats, how sweet was THAT? 

Bizbee highly approves of the treats and has taken over part of the computer armoire, 

I think he likes my mouse!

 

So it's been a busy few weeks around with great stuff arriving in the mail and ooohing and aaaahing!  I hope you've been having fun, too.  I'm trying to think of a project to get me going.  We're going thru some issues with my mom and her health right now and I could use a distraction.  I'm tossing around using some of my bitty blocks to make a perpetual calendar. If I can BEAR to use some of them, that is, and if I can make myself actually make a real decision, I'm turning into a waffler and I hate that!

Bitties, Mug Rugs and a Fab Little Quilt to Swap...

 The themes for August were cats and Halloween- So I made everyone in my group a miniature Nosey Parker.  :)  This is a 3.5" take-off from a mug rug I made a while back, in the spring.  I can't believe I forgot to add whiskers to them, though!  They've all been mailed out whisker-less.  Dumb butt! Oh, well, I guess everyone can add their own if they want them.  I spent a long time on the handstitching on these, I watched a lot of Olympics while I worked on them. 

 For my Halloween blocks, I made some mini Amy Bradley vampires!  I love how they turned out, and I only had to embroider his mouth, yay.  :)  The fangs are white paint.

 My 2nd group got these- I saw something like this in a new magazine and loved it- a couple of people didn't get it, until it was explained to them.  YOU get it, right?

The summer mug rug swap- my partner likes beach/ocean things and I found a cute clipart drawing of a turtle.  He translated nicely to fabric.  A little seaweed, some sand and water and he's good to go.  I hate to send him away, because I have a special place in my heart for sea turtles.  They struggle from the moment they hatch to survive and only one in 5000 makes it to adulthood, they say.
Those are horrible odds!

And I just recently sent off an angel mug rug to the UK- a lady that was in our spring swap never received her mug rug so I made her this using a birdhouse bitty I had, and some Kaffe Fassett fabrics.  I hope she likes it. Better late than never, and better than getting nothing!  :)

And speaking of Kaffe Fassett, I am using his fabrics to make a mini doll quilt for my partner in FLiQS, Fab Little Quilt Swap.  It's a kaleidoscope quilt, paper pieced, and gives great illusions of light and dark large circles, which you can see beginning to happen if you squint at this.  Here's a small sample of it, this is 6 blocks, there will be either 25 or 30 in the quilt.  Each block finishes at about 3.25", so it'll only be 16" x 20", roughly, without a border.  But I'll add a border to try to tone it down a little.  It's going to be wildly busy.  I've got 18 blocks done now, only 7 or 12 to go!

 

So that's I've been working on, while Bizbee continues to grow.  He's getting his adult teeth now, currently he has 2 fangs on each side, and he's so rambunctious, almost crazy.  He gets neutered next week, maybe that'll calm him down a tiny bit.   Or maybe it's the teething making him nutsy, whatever.  I just hope he doesn't stay like this, he's a real handful right now!  Cute when he's sleeping, though!

 

Have a great weekend!  Jim's at an all-day firefighter class, so I've got the house to myself, I'm going to go knock out some more little blocks for my quilt!  What are YOU doing today?

More swap results, another new mug rug, a bitty or 2 and who knows what else...

 I decided to make one more mug rug to see if my partner in the swap liked this one better than any of the others.  Some red/aqua, linen, thread painting/sketching...... kind of simple, not too fussy and I had to photograph it under the only red/yellow tulip that bloomed.  :)  I think I'll be sending this one away, along with the "wake up world" clock.

 And I received my mug rug!  Made by Nannette/nanotchka, it's the most beautiful butterfly/flower mug rug!  Made with the most amazing hand-dyed fabrics and so much talent, I purely love this mug rug and she had to know it, too, because I commented on all her photos as she was making it!  I got so excited to see her name on the envelope that it came in, along with all the neat loot, too!  (Shell buttons, pieces of the dyed fabrics, a nice note and some Chenille It {which she used on her quilt that is on the cover of the new issue of Quiltmania! Yes, Nann is quite famous now!})

 Check out all the details!  LOVE THIS!  It's going up on the wall, no way could I ever actually use it! My photos aren't doing it justice for some reason, it's very vibrant!

 I joined my first bee- it's for bitty blocks, we have a limited number of members and each member has a month where they determine what their theme is and we all make that person 2 blocks.  The first month is Marilyn's and she requested "bees" and things that go with bees.  So I found a wonderful source for new patterns  and she had one for a paper-pieced hive, and I shrunk it down to a 3" block and made it yesterday.  It wasn't as hard to do as I thought it would be, but I'm glad I only had to do one of them.  :)  If I had to make this 11 more times, I'd freak!  lol

 A few embroidered details....

At the Bitty Block Committee, we're going to do a side-swap with the theme of Alice in Wonderland.  One of my blocks will be Alice playing flamingo croquet.  Hopefully I can make this work!  In side swaps, we occasionally relax the rules so we can make taller blocks, this one will be 3.5" x 5.5".  Hopefully I can make it work!  My other block is going to be wild, crazy mushrooms.  I had to go to the library to get the book because I had never read it.  I'm glad I didn't read it as a child, it's very odd.  The Wizard of Oz movie freaked me out, I'm not sure Alice wouldn't have, too.

My FLiQS partner got my Wheel of Fortune quilt and now I can tell you, it went to the UK, to my friend, Jo- aka sewjo2009!  I loved making it for her, she's a real sweetheart of a lady. 

My lilacs are blooming like crazy, there are so many butterflies on it, I'll go get some photos to share.  The aroma is fabulous!

Enjoy your day!  It's a sunny one here!

Spring Mug Rug time! And NP's evil twin sister makes an appearance!

It's time for Spring Mug Rugs!  Here, the early bird is hoping to catch a little worm.  Eeeek! 

The artwork is from a rubber stamp from rubberhedgehog.  This company makes great rubber stamps!

I changed the hat to a beanie.

 Spring really IS here, though and it's early, too, just like that bird.  Our redbuds are just lovely, there's a hill that runs all along the back of our house and keeps going, and the redbuds are plentiful there.  This is taken from my balcony- looking down into the redbuds, thru the tulip tree, is even more beautiful than viewing them from below.

A red and aqua mug rug with a clock that wants to wake you up to the fact that 

Spring is almost HERE!  Yay!

And the good Nosey Parker modeled for a mug rug, sniffing on some tulips!

 Her evil twin is a tad cranky that Daddy is messing with her during her nap.  She looks mean, doesn't she?  Good thing she's a lightweight, small cat!

 The ears are a clear warning! "Don't touch me with that thumb again, Mister!" 

He did.  LOL

I hope you're having a pretty spring, too!  We sat out in the sun for an hour yesterday, it felt great, but the mud-daubers are just awful right now.  I'm so glad they aren't aggressive.