Thursday Mish Mash

I've been a bit remiss in sharing my first gift from this year's guild secret sister! The potted centerpiece is just adorable and reminds me every day that spring will get here eventually. LOL! Unfortunately, I keep forgetting the brownie bites at home. Thank you SS!!!

I also have to admit that I came across some 1" jewel papers on my cutting table and put them to use immediately so they didn't get lost again. Any excuse, huh?!

Six semi-local quilt stores are having a shop hop this week - I'm off to a new-to-me store tonight to see if anything catches my eye. Not sure what I'll find but I have $$$ burning a hole in my pocket!

Our next Bibliophile Files linkup is Tuesday...have you read anything interesting lately?

Owl and a favor?

This is my little helper before a meltdown - sunny days do not make for happy recently-homeless-now-indoor kitties. Rainy days are a different story...

Just let me tell you that he has a new kiss up move...he runs up to me and puts his front paws on my thigh so I can easily scratch his little head. Awwwww! It almost makes up for being naughty...

So obviously I finished another owl block...this is lucky #13 and now I need to cut out some more. I have another road trip soon so I am deciding what to bring with me: owls or otherwise. There are sew many hexie UFOs to choose from...

And yikes - HeLP is this week - I best have something fun to share!

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And now for the favor...

Would you be willing to send a postcard to my guild secret sister?

This is the second to last month and I thought a "card shower" would be fun. You can add your own message or even just "Happy Halloween from your Secret Sister." Leave me a comment if you would be willing to send a postcard and I'll get you her post office box. THANKS!

Guild Secret Sister

My monthly quilt guild meeting was this past Tuesday. Our speaker wasn't able to make it so my quilting friend Kelly, taught us how to do Zentangle, which is essentially structured doodling. I wasn't prepared to take photos but maybe I can share our samples another day. She had a great sample of Zentangle done in hexie shapes. You know I want to replicate that is some fashion!

I am most interested in Zentangle because of the quilting aspects. In fact, some of the quilting on my recent "Walkabout" quilt was Zentangle-ish - altho I found out I did it backwards. Who knew there was a right and wrong way to swirl?! I checked all my blog pictures on the quilt and none of them show the quilting well because I used black thread on a black and orange quilt. Silly me.

Anyway...on to Secret Sister gifts! The first thing I noticed was the gift bag was from a store in Old Forge, a town in the Adirondack Mts. It's probably one of the few stores I have not yet been to, given how many trips to the ADK I make every summer :)

This cute stuffed cat was my gift. Isn't he just adorable??!! He's got a fluffy tuft on his head and he's holding a bat. If only my Secret Sis knew I had a thing against bats - they used to get in to the house when I first moved in. This guy, however, is stuffed and fluffy so we are ok :)

I also received these great charm squares. I am debating to save these for a birthday project or not. Our hexie club gives each birthday girl basted hexies in her fav color and I am planning to use mine to make a pillow similar to this one from Pinterest. I could always use more purples!

Squishies!

I've got some squishies to share and some are way overdue thanks to (delayed) sick leave.
I'm sorry :(

Some time back Nines had a giveaway of 6 crocheted doilies. The rules said you had to specify which doily you would like in the comments if you were to win. It just so happened that 6 people entered and they each wanted a different doily. How perfect is that?! Thanks Nines!!!!

Of course I picked the hexie shaped doily :)

I'm a lurker of the smallquilttalk group at yahoo.com and we recently did a swap where I was partnered with Ines in Scottsdale, AZ. She wrote about some pretty hot temps - Yikes - it hasn't been that long since I lived in Miami but those temps sounded stifling. On the other hand she spoke of the beautiful scenery colors! Ines made this very pretty and festive doll quilt using 3D bowties. I haven't quite figured out how they are made but I'm still on it. It was quite the coincidence that the package arrived with the strawberry FQ on the day of our local Strawberry Shortcake Social (a fundraiser to restore our Doughboy statue). The leather covered measuring tape will be put to use in my travelling sewing box as I often forget to take one with me to the LQS.

Last but not least would be my latest gift from my guild Secret Sister. Everything was gently wrapped in the green fabric which matched the green gift bag - we were off to a fun start. The luggage tag also holds a tiny sewing kit - there has got to be a way I can convert it to a hexie kit somehow! BTW - The tag was purchased from a vendor who was at the last/local quilt show. Is that a clue to my sister's identity?! The mouse pin cushion is adorable but I hate to stick pins in him! I don't seem to have the same problem with my chicken pincushion. Weird.

That's it for now...I'm waiting on one more squishy in the mail...

Secret Sis Report

My quilt guild is doing a secret sister project for a good share of this year. Anyone that wanted to participate filled out an index card with some personal info and then we swapped. Of course, I thought of a dozen other things to list after I looked at some of the other cards but oh well because so far my SS has been spot on!!!

This was the adorable bag I received on Tuesday. Since I was part of the team handing out gifts this month I only had time to give it a quick glance at the meeting but knew I liked everything immediately.

Yes Midgie...you can be in this photo...

Look what I got!!!! The glass cat on the left has a spot on the back for a tea light (the glass colors will be gorgeous when lit up!), pomegranate hand soap, a tiny picture frame and a lovely green/flower FQ. The cat on the right was *not* part of the gift but was begging for treats. Someone is spoiled...

In looking at the FQ closer, I realized it had the cutest selvage. Now I wonder if it was a coinkydink or did my SS remember my selvage project and pick this FQ on purpose?


Sheep of a different color!



And since I can't find where I blogged about last month's SS gift...

A lovely purple FQ and a pretty sticky note packet.

I am guessing that next month will be a yellow FQ since those were the 3 fav colors I listed...We shall see...