The Bags Have Landed!!

Well for me, Linda's Bag swap has officially come to an end. I have to tell you it was a very happy ending on my side of the world. Monday I received an email from Solstiches in Spain. I think she was very pleased with her bag. Her email just made me so happy. Mission accomplished! I came home from work the same day and found a box in front of my door. WHOO HOOO! My bag arrived. I forgot to get the camera right away, but I did come to my senses and I can show you what I received from Suzie The Busy Bee in GERMANY!!!

Suzie wrapped everything so pretty. I love this paper and I opened everything very carefully so that I can save it. There you can see a German postcard and some German hand lotion. I systematically opened the gifts largest to the smallest. I'm here to tell you that all were full of wonderful gifts. First, the star of the show... The Bag!

The fabric choices are perfect. Suzie hand stitched and appliqued the front and the back of the bag, it's fully lined and has a perfect little pocket inside. It cinches up really tight with the wooden beaded drawstring. I love it. I continued to open presents and was more amazed at each one! yummy chocolate!

Can you imagine my excitement when I opened these fat quarters of awesome red and white German fabric. Aren't they fabulous? and there's more!!!

Suzie also made this sweet little needle minder to match the bag, love the little stitches and needle. Look! a wrist pincushion that also coordinates. Love my reds!!

Linda has done it again! She matched me up with a great partner. One who obviously is talented and put a lot of thought and consideration into what she sent me. The only clues I gave were: No purple, I love red. WOW, I am overwhelmed and very grateful. Thank you Suzie and Linda too!!

Tomorrow I'm heading down for another sew day at Holly's with Deb, it should be a wonderful day with lots of sewing, chit chat, food and laughter. I'm excited because Holly finished my quilt so that I can bring it home with me! Hope you have a good day planned also!

xomar

Obligations... Check, Check, Check!!!

I finished yahooooo! I've finished my gifts for the PIF that I signed up for back in April. Less than six months, not too bad. So if you were one of the the 3 that signed up to play, I need your addresses. You know who you are! These gifts are for you, you and you! I'll get them to the post office next Friday. I'm anxious to show what I'm sending, but until they are received all I can show is the left overs. Sloppy leftovers, lol.

Unfortunately all that I have time to work on is obligations, I'm in the pincushion mode right now so there is a lot of stitching going on, but not much I can show. I will be using Alex's More Romance line. I love this line, so it is a joy and red/black are my favorites, so I'm hoping I don't get bored too soon. The next thing on my list of obligations is a couple of items for the Secret Santa Swap. I won't be able to share those either!! I'm going to have to dig up old projects to blog about.

The cupcakes were a hit last week. They flew, I didn't go to the event. I stayed back and watched the fort so that my staff could attend. I did manage to catch a bug and have been laying low since Friday. Just a lot of rest with stitching in between. (and no shopping!)

Hope you all have a wonderful week xoxomar

A Few Hours Later

Tomorrow is the office picnic, time to frost the cupcakes, some one wanted to see them all frosted, here they are. Again, apologies for the blurry pictures, I wonder if I have the macro on? I'll have to check it out before I take more pictures. It's a production to load pics on my computer. For some reason the card reader will only work once, after I take it out, if I want it to work again I have to re boot, this is all a pain in the behind, so what you see is what you get. So that was a picture of them all frosted in case it's too blurry to tell and here they are being packed. I collected copier paper boxes from the office and cut them down to the same depth as the lids.

TAH DAH!! yes ladies and gentlemen there will be cupcake lift off!

News on another front. Today was a lovely mail day. In my box was this sweet little package of napkins from Heidi at Hen & Chicks as a little thank you to me for sending people her way. Thanks Heidi what an unexpected little surprise!

And..

I also won over at Cath's Willow Valley Store blog. I was allowed to chose a pattern and this came today too! Thank you Cath!

Well, off to bed, there won't be cupcake lift off unless I can get out of bed in the morning. This morning I woke up with a sore throat, I'm drowning it in Air Bourne so please send good thoughts my way, I have no time to get sick, I have things to do!!! xoxomar

Politics the Musical

This will probably be my only post regarding politics, my friend Susan sent me this link, I think it's a hoot! Hope you will too... http://www.peteyandpetunia.com/VoteHere/VoteHere.htm

I've Run Amuck

Another weekend is coming to an end and I don't have much to show for it. The work week was one of the longest short weeks I've ever worked. I must of been delirious by Thursday because at the office picnic meeting I raised my hand and volunteered to make over a hundred cupcakes. I am NUTS!! This has been the hottest week of the year, hitting triple digits for the last few days and I'm gonna bake cupcakes, amuck, yes, amuck!

It seems this past two weeks all I've been doing is shopping. Since I don't have any "product" to show you, I'll share my purchases. Last weekend was Labor Day weekend, good for sales.

Saturday, on the way to my Aunts for dinner, I dropped in at the Quilter's Inn, then stopped at In Between Stitches. I've been collecting black/tans for this project. So far I have this plus some black and whites to maybe tea/coffe dye and another bag full of black/tan that I can't find. Maybe its in the trunk of the car? I hope so... not that I need it, I probably have enough here to make that quilt 3 times! amuck, yes, amuck! I will still continue to pick them up until I get the quilt made. I'm like that. I love little collections.

Here are a few other things I picked up, no particular reason in mind, like I mentioned... amuck!

I thought that maybe Labor Day weekend would be a good time to purchase a light box. I have been using a tiny one for a long time now, or putting my ott lamp under my sewing machine extension table. I headed out with coupons in hand. First stop was Aaron Bros., they had the 12x18 Lite Tracer for $69.99 on sale from $89.99. They wouldn't let me us my coupon. So I trekked over to Michael's Crafts, they only had the smaller version for $49.99, I did have 50% off coupon, but now I wanted the big one! Next stop.. Joann's they did have the larger version at a price of $129.99 (what a mark up!) & I had a 40% off coupon. Hmmm... NOT! One more place.. Beverly's. WHOOHOO they not only had the larger version at $89.99, but they also let me use Michael's 50% off coupon. This light box is so awesome!! Beverly's also had all of their fabric at 25% off for the day and some of it followed me home. amuck, yes, amuck!

I've already put my light box to good use. I've been tracing little stitchery designs for the retreat pincushions.

So on to this weekend... Unfortunately I used permanent red ink (for redwork) and found that the size of the design was too large. Wasted a yard of fabric and time, but I'm getting good use of my light box! Yesterday I went to the post office and mailed off all of the prizes for my give aways and the swap bag. What a great feeling to get those packages on their way!

On the way home I stopped in at Thimble Creek to replace to fabric I wasted. They were having a sale on fat quarters and who can resist, so this little pile followed me home. amuck, yes, amuck!

My condo has piles all over the place but it smells good in here. I have a few cupcakes too! I've gotten them all baked. No these aren't designer cupcakes, these are the cupcakes that your Mom made and sent you to school with. Thank goodness for Duncan Hines. I'm freezing them and will pull them out on Wednesday nite to frost them for Thursday. And yes Sharon, that is a cake tester!

Hope you have a wonderful week! xomar

Time to Catch Up -Quilt Frenzy 08

I thought I should finally post about my heavenly weekend. At least before the next new work week begins. I have some pictures to share, and you know what they say about old news. can't let it get too old. Some of this has already been shared by my fellow worker bee, Deb, who also attended the Quilt Frenzy.

On Friday I packed my car and headed 2 hours down south. I met up with Holly and packed her car for the 2 hour ride further down to our destination.... The Hive, yes, there was a Quilt Frenzy at the Hive and I was invited! It only took 4 of us to rock the "Hive", our hostess's husband probably thought there were eight of us with the noise we made and the food we ate.

When we got there the first thing we did was unload, then stand in stunned awe of the 'hive' and our Queen Bee's stash, omg! Deb got better pictures, but mine was so bad that it looks like I tried to do that, I thought it looked pretty cool. Next thing you know we were throwing quilts around. Holly has a long arm and Deb and I both brought quilts for her to take home. The rail quilt is Debs, all brushed cotton, it's lovely. Mine is made of cw repro fabric, I will share when I get it back from Holly. She just told me this evening that it is done!!!

The tan and red quilt is Holly's, she certainly has fun with her long arm, isn't it beautiful? Funny thing, I have the blocks made for this quilt. I made them at retreat last year. Makes me want to get it out and work on it!

The Queen's husband treated us like royalty, he made us awesome grilled poppers and tri-tip, wonderful salads, an awesome cake, woooooo, yummy!! Deb made us french beef and breakfast, even the Queen herself made us breakfast. Talk about getting spoiled! Every morning I woke up to a doe with her twin fawns eating breakfast in the yard and fresh coffee. Now that is heaven! I don't have pictures of food or deer, I need to take lessons from the paparazzi princess! I never think to take pictures of the right things. I'm just sayin.... I'm a Bad Blogger!

The weekend was very productive, we were motivated to show our host and hostess PRODUCT!Even with all of the gabbing, laughing, singing oldies, and eating, I managed to show PRODUCT! I finished a PIF (2 down, one to go), put together the back for the CW quilt to give to Holly, showed the Queen how to make a fabric basket, learned how to make a project pouch, finished about 6 potato bags and embroidered 5 or 6 little squares for the retreat pincushions. No pictures, seems I'm always working on stuff I can't show.

Deb worked on her socks and Holly the speedqueen of quilting, made all of the blocks for her Halloween quilt.

Here is Holly with the Queen herself behind her. They are both no bloggers, but we're working on them!!!

The Queen flitted from one project to the other, she made the cutest red and yellow basket ( a tisket a tasket O MY!) and no I don't have a picture!

But I do have a picture of her other project. She cut out all of these cute things from her stash and glued them down to the wrong side of a piece of purple polka dot flannel. She will then raw edge sew it all in place and finish with a grid. It turns out to be a wonderful weight, just right for dragging around and should keep any child fascinated for hours.

As you can tell, it was a perfect weekend. I can proudly say I earned my first Bee and had a blast doing it.

Have a good week! xomar