It's not a wonder......

When your stuff looks like this......

And this.........

It's not a wonder that I'm not sewing but doing this..........instead.

I thought I'd catch up on some Christmas cookie baking before the next swap starts.. After all, I freeze them all anyway.

Something exciting did happen today though.........by mistake, after owning my camera for 5 years (and obviously never reading the instruction manual) I found a Macro setting completely by accident. I thought my camera didn't have one. Duh!

Just think of all the neat sneak peeks I'll be able to show now.........how cool will that be?

A Quilters Topiary

Isn't this cute? It's just the perfect project to do with your older kiddos too! And they look so adorable on a tree!

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with all these when I cut them up into 2 inch squares the other night, but I was sure I'd come up with something...........and then......the next morning it came to me.....

First, gather your supplies. You will need your 2" fabric squares (about 50 for each ball), glue, 2" styrofoam balls (I got mine at Michael's.....12 for $4.99 without a coupon), ribbon, cording, or rick rack for the hanger, and a poker object.....I used the opposite end of a paintbrush, but a think chop stick would work too. Just look around your house. If your kids are doing it, you surely don't want something they could get hurt with.

First cut your ribbon, or cording into an 8 inch piece, put a dab of glue on your styrofoam ball, double your ribbon, and stick it onto the dab of glue with a stickpin. (I didn't take a pic of that, thinking it was pretty simple). Then, I put a ring of glue on the ball, around the hanger, and took a 2" fabric square, (right side down) and poked it into the styrofoam ball about 1/2 inch. I continued around the ball in the same manner, making sure no spots were showing until I got all the way around, filling it up as I went.

Here I am poking the fabric into the ball. My son was kind enough to take these pictures since I don't have 3 hands. LOL (Although sometimes I wish I did!!)

This pic was too far away, he decided, but I thought it was interesting with all the fabric squares in their own little pile.

When you're done, if you cut enough squares in the first place, and you watch a football game like I did while I was doing this, you'll have quite a bunch when you finally run out of squares:

And don't they look cute hanging on a tree? (Here I am running outside to our one and only pine tree again!)

These would make wonderful teacher's gifts too. Especially if your little ones help by giving you the next 2" piece if nothing else. Have fun!

The postman cometh!

I always show you the stuff I send for swaps, but rarely do I show you the stuff I get back and I'm not sure why. I think I forget, or am too concerned with the next swap obligation on my part. Well, since I've been a slacker, and have been reading instead of sewing these past few days, I'm going to show you some of the stuff the mailman has brought. I'm telling you, it's so fun getting packages instead of bills. First is the pillow cover and wall hanging (although I am going to use it for a table runner) that I got from tracyjay in the All about Christmas Swap. It matches my tree skirt just perfectly and I love them. I can hardly wait until Christmas!

Next is the little quilt that I got from sewgentle for the STUD swap (swap til you drop so you don't get the wrong idea. LOL) She sent a package that you wouldn't have believed. It was just like Christmas! Honest! Everything was all wrapped up so pretty and I really didn't know where to start. I should have made a list of all the stuff she sent along. Wow!

And here is the pretty quilt. We had to do fussy cut. She wanted to do shadow pumpkins:

Next, was an awesome mug rug from bahamadawn (who I always thought was named Dawn, but NO! Her name is really Kim.) If you recall, I made her a birdie mug rug with her name as the flower pot. We did a private swap and I admired this one so much......little did I know it was on it's way to me. Isn't she just the cutest? Green eyes too, just like me!

Then, I got the cutest little fabric postcard from another one of my favorite artists, Sandy in Buenos Aires. This girl is a wonder and I'm so happy she had my name. This little 4x6 inch beauty is now gracing my kitchen wall so I can see it all the time. It's just perfect for this time of year!!!
Then, lastly, I got my mug rug. I swapped 3 mug rugs in this swap and this was the last one and the BEST one. I love it!!! I must say that I was overjoyed!! It was one of my favorites of the whole swap and Amanda got my taste right on the nose:

My red and white dotted mug is perfect with it!!

So that's it so far. There are a few things to go and I still have to make one more thing for a swap and I'll be done until the end of the month when it'll start all over again. E-gads!

It arrived!

I was wondering how long it would take my placemat to reach my swap partner in Australia, and now I know. She got it yesterday.....yippee!! So now I can show you! Here is the drawing:

And here is her placemat:

Another swap done! Two more to go and I haven't even started those although I do have some ideas. Who knows, maybe I'll start one today?

Believe it or not, I haven't sewn a stitch since I finished that funky tree skirt. I thought it was about time I did some visiting of new things in my town since the weather has been so nice. Yesterday I went to a new HUGE 200,000 sq foot grocery store (if you can believe.) I wasn't looking for anything specific, just wandering, but ended up spending $60 and 1 1/2 hours there and I didn't even go up and down every aisle. I figure to see the whole thing you better plan on a minimum of 4 hours! LOL Next time I'm wearing my tennis shoes and bringing my pedometer! Maybe if I push the cart full of stuff real fast, it can even qualify as exercise!

Whatcha think?

I guess this will be a new pattern for 2011. It was kind of a surprise to me too considering that only a week ago I knew nothing about it. Just shows how fast stuff can happen. LOL One day I'm minding my own business in a quilt shop and the next week I have a whole new pattern designed and sewn up. Eikes, sometimes I even surprise myself.

Julie (the owner of my LQS) saw her finished tree skirt today and loved it so everything has been submitted to my fabulous graphic artist for his expertise in designing a pattern cover. (I still think it would make a marvelous New Years Eve table cloth though so I included instructions on how to do that too!) How fun, huh?