must. post. something.

I have lost my blog groove. Not that I had a great one, but at least I was trying. I need to post about four way swap that I have received. But my brain is too scattered to write that one right now. So this will be a hodge-podge post. OK?

* Happy Birthday to Craftyturtle! She has a birthday this weekend, so I made this doll quilt for my orange loving friend.





* The flickr group Scrapbusters has a scrap swap going on right now. Tia of CampFollowerCampBags and I are partners. I received her package yesterday. We had decided to do a little mini quilt swap too. I love the quilt and the scraps are scrap-ilicious. (when did I start channeling Blayne from project runway? it was him right? who stuck "licious" on the end of everything?) I have picked out all the scraps for Tia, but I still need to do her mini quilt.







* We got a new rat a last week (or was it the week before? boy time flies). Introducing Twinkle!



We had her a few days, and were going to introduce her to Fuzzy, when Fuzzy died too. I don't know if Fuzzy died from old age, sickness (I didn't notice anything) or grief over Nibbles death. So we are back to one rat. I don't think we will get another. We'll just make sure Twinkle gets lots of love and attention from us.



* I know Halloween is long over, but I had something I wanted to say about it. Have you seen a little trend of the "Halloween Fairy"? The fairy comes after Halloween, takes all the child's candy and leaves a toy instead. It is a way to deal with "all that candy". I think it's pretty mean actually (please don't bash me for my opinion). Here is what we do. The day after Halloween I have each child pick out 10 favorite pieces of candy. These 10 pieces are theirs that I set aside. Each night, if we aren't having a dessert with dinner, they can pick one piece of their special candy. The rest of the candy is divided. Chocolate for the grownups, yucky candy in the garbage, the rest in the treat jar.




* I have a really ouchie canker sore on my tongue. I occasionally get a canker sore on my cheek. I used to get them more often when I was a kid. It's been five days of pain. And I just remembered this remedy yesterday - rub an aspirin on it for a few moments. It really cuts the pain, and I think it heals much quicker too. Plus it works better than those oralgel type products which numb it and leave a bad taste in your mouth. Aren't you glad I don't have a picture for this?

* Anyone have any good tutes or tips for ovenmitt making they want to share? I think it is the binding around the top that is freaking me out a bit. I plan on making some for Christmas gifts this year.

That's all I have folks! At least it's something.

four way swap ~ part three

We are home from our vacation on the beach! Did you miss me? I missed you! I have a few other posts about the trip I want to share with you, but first....guess who I had the pleasure of meeting while on vacation? Calamity Kim! We had arranged for me to come to her house for a visit. We were both a little nervous about meeting in person, but we fell into good conversation quickly. Kim is so cute and bubbly and creative and generous! It was a treat for our eyes (my kids were there too) to look at all the decorations and goodies that Kim has made and collected for her home. And I loved her craft room. I was stuffing my pockets when she wasn't looking.



Just kidding. But you have to be careful around Kim. If you say you like a fabric she has she will rip you off a piece right there! So I did a little shopping in Kim's craft room.



She also treated us to lunch, then we had a walk on the beach and a trip to a wonderful quilt shop. Where we did a little shopping. Here's my loot!



It was surreal being around all the quilts on Kim's walls. Quilts that I've seen out here in blogland and on flickr. So of course I had to have my picture taken with a few. hee






But the main reason for the trip, was for me to deliver her four way swap package. The inspiration for her quilt came from Kim's love of dolls and this flickr picture.



The rules for this round were:
1. include birds
2. include neutrals
3. include recipient's color of choice (blue/aqua for Kim)
4. include liberated piecing



For the bird rule, I wanted to use flying geese, but I didn't want them to distract from the look I was going for. So I used all neutrals so that the geese gave texture to the quilt along with the pieced background. The "dolls" were inspired by a quilt by Freddy Moran shown in the book Collaborative Quilting. I free pieced the dolls (another example of taking a paper pieced pattern and using it as a guideline to free piecing).



Kim's quilt for me wasn't quite ready yet, so she gave me a consolation gift of a huge fat quarter bundle. So unnecessary, but never look a fabric gift horse in the mouth, right? Plus the bonus of her not being ready is that she might come to my house to deliver my quilt! How fun!



All in all, it was a fun day with a fun lady. I'm glad that we had that time together, even if she did hit Marguerite in the head (on accident). M's ok. No damage done. Maybe that is why Kim was giving me so much fabric.....

Until next time folks, when I share the quilts I've received so far for the four way swap!