Beautiful things have come my way

Tiina (Cottilello on flickr) sent me this beautiful little zippered pouch - my pouch from the Mouthy Stitches swap! The lining is a wonderful shot cotton orange. As it is the perfect size for carrying my knitting projects, I immediately put a project which is using a wonderful ball of cashmere and silk yarn inside - perfect.



She wrapped this in the most wonderful fabric (does anyone know it?), I am going to have fun using it. And look at that ribbon, it is no secret that this package came all the way from the UK.



Here is the package unwrapped. Even the perfect card, I love lavender and have many lavender plants growing at my summer cottage. Isn't that pouch beautiful - wonderful patchwork in some of my favourite Kaffe Fassets prints, beautiful quilting and it stands up by itself! Even a cute zipper pull.



And here are all the scraps laid out, she really send a great selection. And there are tiny charms that say Handmade with Love" that I can use on gifts. And I am pretty sure that little blue and red print at the front is some very special prized Liberty cotton, which is my all time favourite fabric ever!

Mouthy Stitches has been a wonderful swap, I wonder what the next round will be?



This beautiful rainbow pincushion also came to me late last week. It is from Lisa who blogs at A Day in the Life of Raising Six Munchkins. I received this as part of Bee a {modern} Swapper which is a group aimed at being both a quilting bee and a swapping group. The pincushion swap was the first event, and now we are making blocks.



I sent that cathedral windows pincushion and tray off to my secret partner in that swap, I hope she likes them. I actually traded that lovely wooden button out for an even nicer vintage one but forgot to take a photograph of it. I used Kim at My Go-Go Life's tutorial for the cathedral windows pincushion which is here.

Finally, Mr. Random Number generator has spoken and the winner of the Leap Day Superior Threads Giveaway spools of thread is Alisa who blogs at Making More with Less.

Although I have not been able to respond to each of the comments on the giveaway, I was thrilled with the response and have enjoyed reading each comment. I have learned that most people quilt with neutral thread colours, white, ecru, natural, light grey. Some try to blend the quilting thread to the colour of the quilt, while a few are moving toward experimenting with colourful thread. Lately I have been working hard to see thread as a design element and making choices with that in mind - which still means that neutrals are going to be one of my top choices, but hopefully not all the time.



I am off to enjoy the day. I am having fun with all these swaps but today I am hoping to get back to the Rhonda at Quilter in the Gap's Finish-A-Long. I plan to start quilting my Across the Sea QAL quilt. It is all basted and ready to go and I have new grey variegated thread to use (yup, I bought more of Superior's King Tut last week).

Best,

Leanne