It's amazing how fast time flies. I've been very busy at work, but...I have a whole two days in a row off, which is rare, because I usually work 6 days a week and that leaves me very little time to do the things that I truly love.
Today I had plans to get a lot of quilt squares finished. Well, as life would have it , a lot turned into a few, of which I have no yet taken pictures. I'm involved in a few swaps and have gotten 3 of them sent off in the last week.
Swap #1: Vintage Sheet Swap---just waiting to get mine in the mail--should be in the next week or so.
Swap #2: Bag/Bucket Swap--about 4 weeks before our bags were supposed to be in the mail I
completely changed gears and made a bag that was NOTHING like the one that I had started. The reason...I just wasn't feeling the love from the fabrics that I was trying to put together. I was able to finish up the second bag and get it in the mail on time...even a little early...but that's OK because it had a very, very long trip ahead. In fact, I mailed my package a week ago yesterday and, as yet, have not heard that it has made it safely to it's new home. I find that my projects are like my children, I worry about them until I know that they are safe...know of what I speak??? Anyway, in my haste to get the package in the mail I didn't take any pictures of the finished piece, but this is what I used to make it........The orange color is pretty close, but the melony looking color is really a little roseyer in real life...
Here's a picture of the bag in progress...My mom taught me to knit eions ago and I have been doing quite a bit of it the past few years.
And a close up of the bag...
So you'll have to use your imagination on this one...at least until it reaches it's new home and maybe there will be some pictures of it.
Swap #3: I joined the Miniature Booty Swap, or so I thought I had. I didn't find an email from Toni, so assumed that I was too late. Well, about 3 weeks ago I did hear from her and come to find out, I was included and her email from months before had gone to my spam folder...YIKES!!! What to do, what to do??? Can I tell you my head was spinning! I emailed Toni and explained what happened, asked her to resend my partner's info, which she did the next day, and then came the questions. What kind of things does she like...what about colors, etc...so off to her blog I went in search of clues......This is what I came up with...
The Fabrics
The bias strips are the leftover binding.
All the goodies just before going into the mail.
The Card
You'll have to wait for pictures of the finished quilt, because it won't be to it's new home until the end of the week, and unlike the bag...I did remember to get pictures of this one.
There's a new store in town and so I thought I'd check it out today...Can I just tell you that all is right with the world. Having lived the major part of my life in Southern California, I became acustomed to shopping at Trader Joe's. Love, LOVE, LOVE that store!!! Much to my dismay there are no Trader Joe's within what seems to be a gazillion miles of here...but today I found the next best thing...It's called Sunflower Farmer's Market...All I can say is Y-I-P-E-E-E!!! This is my new favorite store and I can see me spending a lot of money there. Heck...they even bag your groceries in reuseable bags and they don't charge for them. That might only be a promotion for the first week, but I came home with a couple of them.
My #5 grand child started Kindergarten a few weeks ago and so we don't get to see each other as much as we're used to. I thought that she might like to do a craft project together and so I asked her if she would like to. Of course, she was delighted. Several months ago she was at Joanne's with me and she wanted to pick out some FQ's, so I let her pick 3. They were all pink, which is her favorite color right now. They were all about the same shade of pink, so I threw in another pink, just a little darker. The FQ's ended up in my stash, but today when we were looking for some fabric for our project she went right to "her" pink FQ's.
This is what we came up with...
We had one strip left over that we added to the back...
Do you think she likes her little pillow??? I did all of the cutting and I had her do the layout (with a little help). I had her sit on my lap at the machine and help me guide the fabric. She got a little tired of it about half way through and decided that she wanted to color, so after dinner we finished. Her favorite part was the "stuffin'". She thought that was great fun. Her sharing day is Tuesday and guess what she wants to share next Tuesday...
Now for those of you that are creative gardners...check these pictures out...
That's the second story roof of a house in a resedential area.
A view from the front
And another view from the front
Now that's some creative gardening...probably blows his roof warranty, but creative, nevertheless;)
Now, I figure this entry is pleanty long enough. I have more to share, but will do that later. I'll just leave you with a couple more of the many flowers that I have taken pictures of in the past few months;)
ENJOY!!!
