I love my postie, again!

Over the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to receive some gorgeous parcels in the post and today I'm finally going to share the photos.  I'm not quite sure why it's taken me so long to blog about my wonderful post but I think the swap with Nicky and the fugly fabric party came at around the same time and there are only so many things I can squeeze into a blog post (I know, not much squeezing going on, that would imply short, snappy posts - not my thing at all!).

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win Dana's giveaway and this parcel of lovely Christmas fabric has been made very welcome - thank you Dana, I love it all!  (Oh, the shame!  I've just gone back to look at the 'I've picked a winner' post and it's almost a month ago - I'm so sorry I've been so tardy!)

Susan, let me know if you'd like a Christmas owl or robin for your bird quilt!

I think it's going to work nicely with my other Christmas fabric and, thanks to Hadley's suggestion, it's all going to become a Christmas Cherry Star and if it's half as nice as Hadley's version I'll be chuffed to bits!



The next thing to arrive through the letter box (well, it would have done if it had been thin enough, as it was it got collected from the depot a couple of days later!) was my prize from Sarah's giveaway...want to see?

The outside...

...and the inside - eep!

Isn't it wonderful?   It's a wonderful idea and will be really useful when I'm planning projects as it'll give me somewhere to store my numerous (bad!) sketches and ideas and it's big enough to hold other quilting books - ingenious!  Look at the detail on the panel - I'm told that Sarah and her mam both worked on this, they're very talented!

The quilting on this is incredible!

As if that wasn't generous enough Sarah had also included some FQs of Klona solid - I've not got much solid in my stash and this is my first bit of Klona.  The darker grey goes so well with my fabrics  for Sarah's QAL that I've decided that's going to be my sashing for the project.

Apparently this is what you get if you put a photo of Elliecat (rather than Elliecat herself, 

that would be cruel!) into a colour palette generator - she's as attractive in fabric as she 

is in photos!  I wonder what you'd get if you did the same with a photo of Archie?  

Probably not a lot other than white and brown!!

There was also some stuff in the parcel (I know, Sarah is so lovely and generous!) but it didn't quite make it to the photo shoot.  It did survive quite a while and I became very partial to a chunk of frozen stuff with a cup of tea!  Yes, frozen!  As delicious as when it's defrosted but takes longer to eat so must be 'better' for you!!  Thank you so much, Sarah, I love it all!!


And then this morning another parcel arrived, this time from the lovely Lucy, hostess of the fugly fabric party - what a fabulous idea that was!!  I was lucky enough to win the prize for linking up (believe me, getting rid of having the opportunity to pass on some fugly unwanted fabric was prize enough!).

 I love Lucy's business card and the quilt is stunning!

I've already had a good fondle of the charm pack (the cards are on my mantelpiece so I can admire them whilst I'm sewing) and I'm looking forward to working out what I'm going to do with it.  I think they'll be like the Terrain charm packs and become a carrot...we all need a reward for a job well done, don't we?!  Thank you, Lucy!  Lucy is currently campaigning for the removal of all word verification on blogs - the new version on blogger is unbelievably hard to read (sometimes I need to refresh the choice four or five times before I get one I can read) and I suspect it's putting a lot of people off commenting.  So come on, support Lucy and turn off your word verification!  Pretty please?  With a cherry on top?!

So, that's what I've been lucky enough to receive.  What have I been up to?  Well, I've cut several 2.5" squares for the blue and white quilt

About a quarter of what I need...

I cut most of these on Saturday (I found the navy ones in a scrap box - they just needed some stray threads clipping, perfect!) but I did too much and made myself poorly.  Honestly, by 4pm on Saturday I felt dreadful and I didn't really perk up until this morning.  I didn't even do that much but I think I should have had a snack and a break at some point.  I haven't cut any more since!  My plan had been to cut one FQ every day until I had enough squares but I haven't felt up to doing any cutting at all for the last few days - good job there's no deadline for this quilt!

I've also been stitching grey borders onto my Drunkard's Path blocks. I used Inklingo (a method that allows you to print shapes on the back of fabric - see here for more details) but for the borders I'm cutting the shapes out of freezer paper, ironing them to the back of the fabric and then drawing round them to get a sewing line - the same method I'm using for my hexies.

That's a shadow cast by gorgeous sunshine - so lovely to have a little bit of sun!

I think I've got another eight blocks to go (they've already got their 'short' borders attached) and then I can add the turquoise stripe - I hope it looks as good in real life as it does in my head!


Although it's sunny (but not warm, there's a chilly wind blowing - it is February after all!) I thought I'd show you one of my favourite photos of Archie - taken when we had that little bit of snow a couple of weeks back.  I thought it would be the perfect end to a post full of lovely things

I love the snow - can we stay out all day?!

Doesn't he look happy?!  I'd love to say that skill played a part in taking this photo but in reality it was sheer dumb luck!!



I'll be back soon sometime (hopefully before the end of the month) with some hexies and a fancy pincushion.  Have a lovely day and enjoy your pancakes!  I'm going for either butter and sugar or treacle (golden syrup) as usual - maybe one of each?!  How about you?