My purchases from various shopkeepers finally arrived! Whoo hoo! The earrings will be sent to a dear friend in Canada, and the bib set will be part of a gift basket for a buddy who's expecting her first child. As for the stuffie...erm. It was meant for my niece, but I've been told that it's not baby-safe. Oy.
I'm addicted to craft books. Here's the first batch of my latest acquistions!
Yes, I have a thing for cupcakes. These felt versions would be perfect as pincushions...or I could send them to my niece for use as play food.
It has been twelve days since I've done anything with the quilt squares. This is not good! Feeling more than a little guilty, I played with both sets of squares last night and finally came up with ways to arrange the squares. Check it out! 
Per my sis, B*a*b*y*L*e*g*s is the neatest thing since sliced bread. As requested, I made a bunch of baby leggings (based on a pattern my sis sent to me) for my niece.
Store version: 
Homemade version:
The deadline for filing tax returns for 2006 for is looming! Really, I should be crunching numbers and filling out forms. Bah. Instead, I sewed. Oy. Here are the latest additions for my 'Shop The Swap' swap shop:
Earlier on during the week, I toyed around with a bunch of quilt block combinations on paper because I wanted to see what I could come up with. This weekend, I cut out all the fabric pieces and stitched them up. Voila! Here are six of my favourites patterns: 
Spring is in the air! For April, CC and I agreed to swap fabrics and a couple of store-bought items. As usual, she spoiled me with all sorts of goodies:
*off to play with new FQs*
This is my latest haul of craft magazines, patterns, books, etc. at the resale shops!
Lingerie pattern book. I will not be making any of the items in this book, but I thought it was a hoot!
Assortment of old-time knitting and crochet patterns. There were several cool patterns in these books!
Quilting Resources. Since I'm a newbie quilter, I need all the help I can get my grubby fingers on!
I was having a particularly bad day (work and life in general) and found a mysterious box on my front porch that same evening. Turns out, my friend, CD decided to send me an unfinished queen size quilt that belonged to her mother-in-law, Ada (R.I.P.). It's beautiful, and I'm touched. All the piecing was completed by hand, and there are couple of blocks (actually, one kiss and half a hug...) which have been hand quilted. The stitches are perfect and even, and I can only hope that my stitchwork will be half as good. Thanks to Google, I was able to find out that the pattern for the quilt (Kisses & Hugs) was published by Quiltmaker in the Nov/Dec '99 issue (No. 70). The pattern may be viewed here.
The whole quilt...
Close-up of tiny stitches...
I've been pretty bad about taking pictures of all the wonderful items I've received in the mail, courtesy of the 'Shop The Swap' swap. Blame in on Spring. Or maybe not. The weather has been really gloomy lately, which makes it hard to get any decent lighting for photography. Here goes...
1. Darling Blue Birdie Pincushion
2. Melted Plastic Beads Bowl
3. Flower Necklace
I hate (yes, hate! hate!) cross stitching, but the patterns by Julie Jackson are to die for! Check them out here. One of the reasons I'm not fond of cross stitch, is because I lack the patience for tedious projects. Being able to complete a mini sampler in a matter of a couple of hours while I get to catch up on a couple of DVDs? Now, that's my cup of tea. 
While traipsing through various resale shops this weekend, I came across these gems...hidden among spools of threads. Vintage buttons! At 10 cents a card! If I was a bonafide button freak, I would have scooped up the lot of them. Since I'm not, I cherry-picked the ones I couldn't live without. See? I have will power *wry*
Actually, things were pretty tame. No wild parties, no oh-my-gawd-what-have-I-done makeovers, and no senseless shopping sprees either. I did sew a couple more zippered pouches (yes, my goal in 2007 is to downsize my stash of 200 odd zippers) for my 'Shop the Swap' shop!!! Since I'm also a wee bit of a *cough* fabric junkie, I had no problem finding a few pieces of fabrics to make the pouches.
