Swaps, gifts and other things that come in the mail

I have been meaning to blog about all of the above. But there is always that sad excuse of mine – LACK OF TIME!!!
And I think the baby excuse is getting old...no matter how cute!

So let us start with gifts:
As a birthday surprise (3 MONTHS AGO!!!!!) SewMad sent me the most wonderful birthday package:



The most fabulous seam ripper (fliegenpilz!), stitch markers made by herself, jack skelington buttons, beautiful fat quarters, a nifty piece of fabric from IKEA (that I am seriously considering turning into a shopping bag, or two), hot pink mohair, and the piece de-resistance (how do you spell that?):


My very own SewMad original, a Fliegenpilz wallet. I love it! And I use it all the time now. My cigarette case –turned- wallet is now living in the diaper bag with important Maxim info (insurance card etc).
I had to wait until she posted her fabulous pattern (which I also have a pattern for now – thank you Katrin) before I could post a pic of the wallet – of course i waited way past the time she posted it .

If you haven’t figured it by now I am not very punctual with much of anything.

As for the swaps – I joined 2 apron swaps this summer. The first one was over at Apronista.ning.com (because I need to join another on-line community). The apron I made went to Sue Ann of Giabella Designs and the apron I received was from Deb, the Crochetholic. I loved my apron from Deb! So cute! And it is already blessed by Rit Dye and Clorox Bleach from work.

The next swap was on Ravelry.com. The Sew Obsessed group decided to have its first swap this summer thanks to Carlitadee. We all took a vote and aprons won! SO I got the chance to make another apron – this time I copied an apron given to me by my MIL. I actually cut out 2 before I cut out a 3rd and finished it. Swaps are hard if you do not really know what the person likes. I realize that I had a fabric that I thought my swap partner had used in the past – so I changed my mind entirely – I also realized that one of the aprons was really for me (haven't finished it tho...of course)

Here it is modeled by my old boss: (little trinkets thrown in found here.)

Isn’t she cute? And she makes my new sewing room look good.

Here is a view of the room from where she was standing.


There is another swap – the Theatrical Crafters on Ravelry are also running a swap…i really need to get working on that one...but I have until the end of the month….

There is so much more to fill you all in on - all good news (and no, not pregnant). I will be taking some time off this and next week – so hopefully I will get some more knitting and crocheting along with a bit of blogging in :)