Stuff and Things

That's what I have to write about today, Stuff and Things. 

 First up, I have a favor to ask you all. 

 I am making a rug using fabric strips. 

 Knitting one right up. 

 Only problem is, I am completely out of strips. 

 So if you have selvages, or strips from squaring up your fabric could I ask you to save them and 

send them to me when you get a bunch? 

 I like 1/4-1/2" ish strips, the longer the better!!! 

Tying them is kind of a pain!  

Also, the more color the better.  

If you need my address email me and I will give it to you. 

 I know I could cut up regular fabric but if it is stuff you were just going to throw out?  

Then throw it out to me!  

Right? 

 I appreciate that so much.

I received another Bee Vintage block in the mail.  

It is so beautiful!  

The photo doesn't even do it justice.  

Thanks Jodie!

I received a few gifts in the mail that I need to say thank you for also.  

Sara, send me this beautiful vintage sheet. 

 Wasn't that the sweetest??  

You're the BEST, Sara!!

Then my friend Mary Ann sent me this adorable package to celebrate my "birthday season", 

nice way of putting it.  

Her wrapping is always so pretty.

 Just look at this cool fabric! 

 Where do you find such goodies, Mary Ann? 

 Thank you for thinking of me during my birthday season!!  

You're just swell!!

My DH bought me a new camera. 

 I can't even begin to tell you how excited this made me!  

I am beyond thrilled.  

It arrived in the mail a few days ago and I have been playing with it. 

I found a really cool setting where you can de-focus the background like in this photo. 

 I think it makes Aiden look so sharp!

Alright, this post has taken me 2 days to write.

 I didn't even turn on my computer last night! 

 Life has been more crazy than usual lately.  

I am completely slammed at work, so much so that I am having difficulty getting it all done.  

It is difficult to keep up the fun side of my life 

while being engaged with work things for 11 hours every day!

I would like to say that I see an end in sight but I don't think there is, only more work.

So please hang in there my friends.  

I hope to have some things to show in the near future!!

Your comments are so encouraging too, thanks for that.

~XOP~

Friends

I know that Amanda Jean is talking about her pattern testers today. 

 I wrote a post yesterday about my quilt that I made when pattern testing for her new book.

  Now I want to show you what I received from AJ as a thank you for doing the testing.

I received a nice box containing fore things for both Pauline and me.  

This was my stuff. 

 Hers was similar.

  Some chocolate, some pins, a layer cake of Salty Air, a book plate,

 a handwritten note and a mini quilt!

The quilt is gorgeous!

Funny that it is the one Pau1ine tested!

I seriously love that I have such nice friends!
 It was an honor to do the testing for you AJ and this went above and beyond a necessary thank you!

~XOP~

Presents From Friends

Who doesn't love a gift right?
  I was blessed by some unexpected gifts this week.  First up was this adorable bag from a friend of mine that I work with.
She is such a sweetie!

A little while ago I met a reader and she was longing for one of the DS quilts lines so I offered to get them and send them to her.

I've done this for a few other folks too.

Really not a biggie.

She lives in the UK.

Lookie at what she sent as a thank you!

Have you seen this magazine? It's FULL of eye candy!! Thank you Gil!

The third gift arrived in the mail today all the way from Australia. I "me" Lesley when my DD1 went over to Australia to stay with her daughter. My DD1 stayed with her daughter for 6 weeks. Later her daughter came here. I wanted to get to know the family before I sent my DD1 all the way over there and it turns out the mom, Lesley, is a quilter!! Small world eh? I am sending her a little giftie along with my DD1's gifties for her friend and she isn't done shopping!! It will arrive eventually. In the meantime I will show you the patterns she sent me by Aussie designer Natalie Lymer

What great friends I have!! I have some more to share but it will have to wait until tomorrow

. ~XOP~

Surprise Package

Oh my goodness did I have a day yesterday!  Mamogram in the morning followed by a trip to Checker with Cori.  Then she and I went out to lunch.  I mentioned to her that I needed to put up the cedar roping and she volunteered her gutter hooks, so I decided to take her up on the offer.  So it was kind of warmish here in MI and I thought, "oh, why not put the roping up?"  First, find the lights.  Check.  Then find the red bows, ok off to the store to buy new red bows, check.  Ladder to put the roping up, check.  I tried to use the screw on hooks but they kept breaking when I lifted them with the pole so I drug out the ladder.  I managed to get all the roping up across the front of the garage, then the front porch.  At the porch it has to go around a corner and then across the front of the house.  I had just put on the bow, still on the ladder and leaned back to check if they were all even and ...POP, pop,pop,pop,  WHUMP.  All the previous clips snapped and whump the entire length of roping landed on the ground.  It would have been funny if it hadn't happened to me!!  HAHA, no...it was still funny!  So I left it on the ground and thought I would do it when DH gets home tomorrow.  So I thought, until the stupid dog ate 3 of the bows.
I can't win for losing!!!
OK, I can hear you all laughing at me now = )

I decided to change my clothes and head to Zumba to exercise off some frustration.
When I got home there was a package waiting for me from Edyta Sitar.
I had done a few things for her and asked her to pick up something for me from Fall market.
  I really needed the pick me up so thank you Edyta!!
You are the BEST!!

This is the bag all the goodies were packed in

And a FQ bundle of Natalie Lymer's new line Woodland!!!

It is funny that it was this fabric that arrived. I have had an idea kicking around in my head for a little while.  

I am considering doing a stitchery BOM and was thinking about using this fabric.

I have to do some sketching AND stitching before I am ready to share but would anyone be interested in joining in the fun?

I'm going to leave it at that for now.

It will have to wait until after the new year anyway.

I happened to catch my cat Hallie in this sweet pose the other night. I know it is a dark photo but all I could think of was "And to all a good night!"

Have a wonderful night! ~XOP~

ETSY Anyone?

Do you shop on ETSY?  Do you even know what ETSY is?  I happen to have an ETSY shop and I have a few things listed there.  It is kind of like a "buy it now" type deal on eBay, but way cooler.  All the things listed there are handmade, vintage or supplies.  I have just listed some vintage items but also have some supplies and some quilts.  If you get a minute you should stop over to ETSY and have a look around.  There is some amazing stuff there!

I came home yesterday and found Autumn laying on the deck railing.  I wanted to take her picture and of course she moved!  I did manage to snap a few cute ones though.

She fell when I opened the door, I think I scared her. She managed to "hang in there baby" though.

Does anyone else remember those posters with the cat hanging on to the tree branch?

I had to take the dog to see the vet last night. She has not been feeling well lately and we found out she has lost 13 pounds in the last year. They took some blood, and urine and a stool sample. We are waiting to get the results from the blood work back before we will know what we need to do. Keep your fingers crossed that it is a simple fix.

My friend, Hiro from Japan is back visiting in the lab for the week. He and his wife,my dear friend, Yuki, brought me the most amazing little gift. Hiro told me that the company that makes these also makes the fabric for them. I am especially fond of the "angry" looking red bunny.

Just look at the detail on that little flower attached to the zipper pull. I miss Yuki so much! I hope she will be able to come back for a visit in the near future!

Lastly, I am sad to see a follower leave today. Let me ask you this, what makes you stay as a follower on someone's blog? I know the things I like but I would like to know what you guys like. What kinds of things keep you coming back. Just curious!

I realize this post is kind of jumpy but there is a lot of stuff happening lately. Have a wonderful day. ~XOP~

Wedding Party!

My nephew got married in a destination wedding last Dec.  You may recall the tumbler quilt I made for their wedding gift.  I blogged about it here.  The reception/party to celebrate the wedding was on Saturday.  It was held at my SIL house in their back yard.  They had a tent, good food, an open bar and a DJ.  It was a lot of fun.  Here is my nephew and his wife with my MIL and FIL

We got to meet our other nephew's new girlfriend too and she was a real sweetie.

My SIL and BIL brought their 4 kids, who we hardly get to see. You may remember Jessie, I made her a graduation quilt from the LCQAL. This is the 4 cousins with my DD2 in the middle of all of them. They were making somores.
My DD1 brought her BF and I managed to actually get a nice shot of them together.

And just because he might feel left out, this is my son (in the white) with his cousin. The two of them are always together at family functions!

I thought you might like to see what I did for the label on the tumbler quilt too. I had made a two row strip across the back and there happened to be one white tumbler. I used that for the label!

I put a Gaelic saying on it too:

Beannachd Dia dhuit! 

OR

Blessings of God be with you!

I'm told the bride cried when she read the label. My favorite response to gifting a quilt! How about you? What kind of reaction do you like to see? ~XOP~

I LOVE Surprises, Don't You?

I mean the good ones of course!  You know what I mean.  Someone brings you flowers, cleans your house, gives you that unexpected little gift.  I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't love that right?  Well I had 3 packages waiting for me when I got home yesterday.  THREE!!

First was a wee small one with the charms I won from the Sweetwater FB giveaway. I got to choose 3 charms from their website. I chose the three you see. Funny thing is that they had hometowns and so I thought no harm no foul asking for my own hometown and low and behold they sent it to me! Grand Rapids! How cool is that?? Thank you ladies of Sweetwater, I love my charms!

Now this is an "It's a small world" story so you might need a Diet Coke or a cuppa something to read it. I'll wait while you get something, go on, I'm serious! Back? Right then here we go.

When I first began blogging a LONG time ago (5 years ago to be exact) I found blogs, probably like everyone, by finding one, reading their blog list and finding more. One of the first blogs I read was Gone Aussie Quilting. I loved her blog, and I still love her blog. I followed her for quite sometime, through a period where she was not blogging much as she had a rough pregnancy. She blogged sporatically but always had the most amazing quilts to share!(and she still has the most amazing quilts to share!!) Bored yet? No? OK. So fast forward to recently and the HUGE release of the new Denyse Schmidt fabric at JAF. I belong to a group on Flickr that was all a buzz about it. Several of the Aussie's wanted it (as well as some people her in the US w/o a JAF) so I volunteered to go and get what they wanted. I ended up at the JAF near Ann Arbor and dropped some serious cash on all their fabric. I posted about it here.

I took it over to my friend Cori's house (Crazy Quilt Girl) and she helped me cut and then ship it out to everyone. One of the people was someone named Heidigoneaussie in Australia (or Oz). I was happy to help out my Aussie friends. Then, like a lightening bolt it hit me, Heidigoneaussie was Gone Aussie Quilting, or Jeannette!!! LOL, my friend!! Even funnier, I have learned that she grew up in Saline, MI which is very close to where I live now. Can you believe that??

I know, get to the point of the story right? Well, Denyse Schmidt released some of her fabrics only in Oz and Jeannette was sweet enough to send some FQ's to me. Even after I at first told her I didn't think I wanted them. She knew I would change my mind, LOL. So thank you to Jeannette for being such a wonderful friend! Here is what she sent me.

Can you guess which one is my favorite? If you know me at all you will easily guess. It's the aqua one third from the left!

Now if my evening wasn't good enough with all that goodness, just wait...there's more! Seriously, can you believe it?? The over the top generous Jeannette sent a few little gifties. A little FMF love (OMG!!!) and two amazing charm packs.

There are 20 charms of My folklore (how did you know I love this line with their Dala horses??) and the BEST EVER??? Forty squares of assorted Heather Ross fabrics!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost fell over with the excitement of her generosity! How do you make such wonderful friends that you  have never met IRL? How I ask you? Jeannette, when you read this, please know how happy you made me and I was not having the best of nights up until that point so from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

I hope you all have some wonderful blogging buddies out there too. Remember making friends all around the world and sharing what we do and who we are is an amazing thing. I have had such great experiences with all my blogging friends. Most of them have been generous to a fault. I try to pay that forward when I get the chance too. One of my favorite sayings is what comes around goes around. It only takes a minute to be nice and you may just impact someone's life like you never expected you would. So go forth, my blogging friends and pay it forward today!! Tell them Mama Spark sent you!! ~XOP~

Easter Fun

I took a great video of my cat Jack "Marking" (aka rubbing his face) all over the Easter baskets and the chocolate as if to say "This is mine, if you need/want candy go and get your own!"  I will try to insert the video when I get home.  The new blogger editor doesn't like to upload with my Mac here at work so you will have to view the photos instead!
He loved him some Easter candy (No, I didn't actually give him any chocolate, it's not good for his kitty digestion!)

My daughters brought me this beautiful flowering Hyacinth plant.  I LOVE the smell!  That was the cake we bought for dessert, a strawberry short cake type thing from Sam's club.  Normally I would bake but still not feeling well has some advantages = )  Also the lazy Easter bunny just put all the candy into a bowl instead of hiding the filled eggs like he usually does.  I guess he figured that since all the kids are over 20 maybe they didn't need to find hidden eggs anymore?  What do you think?

We had a wonderful day, all three kids were home and DD1 with her boyfriend.  We ate good food, and watched a lot of movies.  I even got the two rows of tumblers for the back of the tumbler quilt sewn together.  That means I could package up all the left over fabrics and the left over tumblers and get them ready to go to their new home with Katy in the UK. (all except for the brown).
 
I even got the label traced onto fabric to be embroidered for Project Special Delivery!   So QQ it will be coming your way soon!!!
 
I was in a quandry how to do this and make it neat, then I though, "hey, why not print it out from the computer and then trace it?"  BRILLIANT!!  (and neat), so this is what I ended up with.  Once it is embroidered I will put it into an improv type block and combine it with 2 more on the back.  Next up is to finish the actual PSD improv quilt top.

I'm finally beginning to feel like myself although I am still horribly congested.  I bought a Nettie pot and tried it, (gross) but it cleans out the sinuses.  And did I tell you how much I love Nyquil??  I used it for the first time last night and slept like a baby!  Amazing.  Now I need my head to drain and all will be back to normal!  How was your weekend?? 

I've Been Sooooo Ill

I'm just going to throw this out there and tell you that I am so sorry for not posting .  I had pictures and I had good intentions of posting but WHAMO, I got hit by a horrible cold!  You know, fever, aches, headache, stuffy nose, runny nose, all that good stuff.  It hit me on Wednesday like a freight train.  I missed work on Wed, drugged up on Thursday and then took Friday off too so I could sleep.  I am still feeling sick but am improving.  Now to catch you up on the other things that have been happening, and there have been quite a few.

First I finished the wedding quilt for my nephew and his new bride.  They were married last December but are having a party at their new home in June.  I used Liz's GO! and cut out a tumbler quilt.  I had bought the fabric called Natural Effects quite some time ago and it was perfect for this quilt.  I had added some additional fabrics, mostly solids to it and I LOVE how it turned out.  I just need to make a back and it will be ready to go to Liz's house for quilting.

I want to make two rows of tumblers across a Kona Snow back.  I had some left over fabrics and thought about making some pillow cases to go with the quilt.  When I put this up on Flickr my friend Katy fell in love with it.  I am going to bring her all the left over tumblers and whatever fabrics I have after I make the pillow cases too.  Speaking of Katy, she made a great quilt called Scrap Vomit and asked for others to help her out with a block, so I made one of those for her too. 

I got another gift package in the mail for my going out and getting fabrics for others.  I think this was an amazing thank you gift pack, what do you think??

Last but not least I think I told you I make a quilt top for spring market, right?  Well I did.  You can see a sneak peek of the fabrics (and who the designer is) here.  I thought I was done, but I received an email last week asking if I would work on another quilt for someone quite special.  It will be on display at market too.  So sure, why not?  The fabric arrived at QQ's house on Friday afternoon.  As crappy as I felt I went over to her house and we cut everything out.  She is doing part and I am doing part.  I worked all day today and finally finished my part and brought it over to QQ''s house tonight.  She needed mine to do hers.  We are hoping to get it into the mail by Tuesday at the latest since it still needs to be quilted and bound all before market. 

I am still waiting for the last 2 blocks for the back of the quilt for Project Special Delivery then I can get that finished and off to Liz too.  I need to work on getting the top put together, but after the whirlwind of late I think I am going to just finish cleaning my house and cook and celebrate Easter with my family tomorrow.  How about you?  What have you been up to lately??

Have a blessed Easter and stop back, I just may have some more stuff to show you soon!  ~XOP~

Sweet Gifts In The Mail

Remember my post telling you all about getting the DS fabric for some of my Flickr friends?  I charged them exactly what it cost me AND I used coupons for everything too.  The only thing I asked was that if these people had some things on my ISO list maybe they could send me a little sum-sum, ya know?  My Flickr friends are great! I got a wonderful package in the mail yesterday from Dana and Thread, just take a little lookie:

Obviously Heather Ross' Munki Munki is on my ISO and Swell (and Sweet too) are on my ISO list.  How very generous she was to me!!

Have you discovered the wonderful community of Flickr yet?  I think many bloggers use a photo sharing website to host our photos, I know I do.  Flickr is one of the choices, Picasa and Photobucket are 2 others.  I LOVE Flickr.  In addition to hosting my photos I can follow my friends and see all their photos, make new contacts (or friends), I can use Picnik from Flickr to edit my photos, I can use FM (Flickr Mail) to send email to my Flickr friends.  I can join groups and boy have I done that!!  There is a Flickr group for anything, you name it, there's a Flickr group devoted to it!  In those groups you can have discussions with others that share your passion for whatever the group is all about.  For instance, I am part of a swap group and boy do those ladies know a LOT about a LOT and always have tips about things like sales and new fabric lines coming out and many, many MANY other things.  I now understand when my friend Lynne told me she was just doing Flickr and hadn't blogged in awhile, it's THAT good!!  I know, I know, you are already on the computer a lot now and you don't want something else to do, BUT I promise if you get involved in the community you will love it too!!

OK public service statement time is done, LOL.  Seriously though, go check out Flickr...really...GO...RIGHT NOW!!
~XOP~

Don't tell me you are still reading!  *G*O*!!