Saturday, May 9, 2009

Gifts in the Post


I went to the mailbox today and was so excited to find a package via Royal Mail. It was full of goodies from Amanda. I was the winner of her recent giveaway for her 200th post. Look at all the gun quilting goodies! There are some fat quarters, a lovely needlework bag, an appliqued towel, a fringed bookmark, a little bear pin and a tiny quilters charm with a spool of thread on it. Oh, I almost forgot the packages of shrinkles. Anna nabbed those as soon as the package was open and was ready to start crafting. Thank you so much Amanda for the goodies, I will enjoy them all. Congratulations of 200 posts.
I went online this week and ordered another panel of quilters sayings so that I can finish off my May UFO. I had one panel that I had ordered from Keepsake Quilting a little bit ago. I putzed around with it and ended up making some little 3.5 inch (3 inches finished!) squares to alternate with the printed blocks. I'm not sure how many came on the panel, but this is all that turned up when I pulled it out again. Getting something to fill out the quilt top seemed like a plan. I couldn't find anymore panels at KQ, but did a google search and found some at a place called Clotilde. I had never heard of it, but I thought it was worth a try. Each nine patch is a different pattern. I already had the Log Cabins, Flying Geese and Spikey Stars ready to go. Today I added the Nine Patches, the Amish Strings, the Jacobs Ladder and the Broken Dishes.

In searching for some squares to use, I stumbled across my baggie of bonus triangles. Does anyone else sew behind the corners on sew and flip patterns and save the little HSTs? I am a compulsive saver. Occasionally I'll get the bag out and iron or square up some little squares. I had started putting this batch together already, I think the pattern is called Depression Blocks. The little squares are 1.75 inches unfinished, so it is rather an odd size. I seem to have a lot of them though, so as long as they play nicely with each other It shouldn't matter if it is an even size. I had another bag that finished at 2 inches, and I started turning them into broken dishes blocks.
It was a nice day of putting around the house trying to put back together after the slumber party and finish off a few weekend chores. The kids were all fairly tired and were content to spend a big chunk of the day relaxing. Kurt is either getting sick or fighting off allergies, I'm not sure which. There are several more swine flu cases that have shown up, but the consensus seems to be that it is not any more dangerous than a regular flu.

7 comments:

Amanda said...

I'm glad the package arrived safely, I'm always amazed at how quickly things travel around the world these days. I save my little triangles too, but they always seem to be different sizes so I haven't done anything with them yet; one day perhaps.

Micki said...

What a lovely package! Have fun with it all creating wonderful things!
Micki

Amy said...

OOOOOOOoooooo
that layout of the Quilter's Sayings is so FUN!
AND...you bet Angela! I double-sew as well. In fact, I created 24 new HST's (2" finished) by double-sewing the corner pieces of the Double Wedding Ring I pieced yesterday. I just think about how much waste is created when quilters chop off the "excess" fabric when sewing corner-to-corner. If only we could broadcast worldwide this SIMPLE step of double-sewing. THINK of all the HST's that could be created instead of thrown.....

(BTW---mine are currently creating a Barn-Raising layout----a little bit at a time)

Amy said...

OOOOOOOoooooo
that layout of the Quilter's Sayings is so FUN!
AND...you bet Angela! I double-sew as well. In fact, I created 24 new HST's (2" finished) by double-sewing the corner pieces of the Double Wedding Ring I pieced yesterday. I just think about how much waste is created when quilters chop off the "excess" fabric when sewing corner-to-corner. If only we could broadcast worldwide this SIMPLE step of double-sewing. THINK of all the HST's that could be created instead of thrown.....

(BTW---mine are currently creating a Barn-Raising layout----a little bit at a time)

Amy said...

oops---sorry! Got click-happy!

Julie said...

What a nice package you received from Amanda! She is very generous.
I like those depression blocks. I have lots of bonus triangles too, hmmm....

LuAnn said...

Love the Depression Block quilt. Those HSTs are really small. Also love the sleeping bags you made. You do such neat things with your kids. You are making great memories!!