Mug Rugs are Delightful

Mug Rugs are Delightful
Originally uploaded by quilterinagarden

A package has arrived at my house today! It contained the mug rugs for the Quilting Gallery swap. These were made by Lyn S. and they came all the way from Australia! She included a cute koala bear kitchen towel and a wonderful tall mug. The mug has cute little cake slices on it! Many thanks the mug rugs are just perfectly designed for me! I love them so much.

Lovely, aren't they!!

The Mug Rug Swap on Quilting Gallery

I have just registered for the Quilting Gallery's Mug Rug Swap.

 

Perhaps some of you may want to consider doing this fun exchange also.


It was only just last month that I made my first set of 4 mug rugs and it sure has been a nice size to have around for the occasional snack and always for my morning coffee by the computer.  I think I need a couple more, just for the variety.


I will be making 2 mug rugs to send out to another participant while another quilter will be making 2 mug rugs for me. We will find out our partner after January 21st. I noticed on the registration form that there was a place to request colors or themes, so the maker has some ideas of what the recipient might like. That is a nice idea! 


I am providing a link to the registration page in case you are interested.




This will be the third swap I've done with the Quilting Gallery, so I'm really looking forward to it.

All Things Strawberry

Personalize a photo album

I have wonderful goodies to share with you today. Here are some items that I received in the strawberry swap.



Look at the DARLING pillow created especially for me by Michele of MamaBug's Musings.

Update: This crafty trim does unpin from the pillow and it does double duty as a pin for a sweater, hat, or in this case my purse! Thank you Michele.

I really love how she embellished it in the center with the loose and layered flower petals.

There were many fine items in the package. I love the fact that Michele included vintage items like a cute juice glass with red green and white painted strawberries. The tall mug will be great for my coffee and tea that I like to drink everyday!

The pillow looks right at home in my kitchen sitting on a fruity chair that I painted a while ago.

My blogging friend Terri of Terri's Notebook has decided to run a swap in the month of July. In her recent post she has described many fun ways of crafting some wonderful ornaments. I have signed up and am looking forward to making an ornament for a partner. We will mail them off by the end of July. If you're thinking of doing this swap, please check Terri's blog for the details. She was hoping to take signups only until July 4th, so time is ticking away quickly.

Delicious Strawberries and the Strawberry Swap

I've been collecting some things Pixie Dust's upcoming strawberry swap. But I can't show them yet. I have been matched up with a very nice blogger in a North Eastern state. I've been busy stalking her blog and trying to understand what she may like! I already picked out a few strawberry items and have a few things set aside for a project which I will reveal later. Perhaps she may like some recipes that call for strawberries.

This photo is just a shot I took this afternoon after my trip to the Food CoOp. The berries are freshly picked from the area. They are the juiciest and sweetest I've had in a long time.

Now, to decide what I need to make with these... I've been thinking of either a frozen ice cream style torte, or some meringues with a strawberry sauce.

Four Seasons Holiday Swap

Revealed here is the quilt and ornament I made recently for Jeanie in the 4 Seasons Holiday Swap hosted by Margaret. It was great fun making fabric choices for the quilted gifts and now I'd like to make a version for myself. It will probably have to wait until my Christmas vacation as I'm pretty busy with work at school right now. Making the crazy quilt portion of the ornaments forced me to sort out most of my embroidery supplies, so I am getting anxious to get back into making this style ornament.

Check out the Flickr group pictures to see more of the lovely quilts in the swap.

(Click on the image for a close up view of the CQ stitching)

I did get the idea to submit the quilt photo to my school's Artsonia page and have some Christmas cards made up for my husband and I to send out this year. They will have the quilt image centered on the front and it will be surrounded with blue snowflakes. The cards will probably arrive at my house on Monday and I will post a picture soon.

Clues About 4 Seasons Christmas Quilt Swap

I'm excited to hear when my 4 seasons swap partner receives her Christmas quilt package! I sent it off earlier in today's mail. Hopefully it doesn't take long for it to arrive at her doorstep. I think she may live somewhere very near Chicago.

It turned out that I made her goodies all fit inside a Christmas stocking.

When I wrapped the package I tied on a handmade crazy quilt ornament to finish off the gift.

Perhaps I could give just a clue, but I have disguised the look by giving the photo a sepia tone.

When I hear that she has actually opened her box, I will definitely post more photos.

Christmas Mini Quilt Swap

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Here's a special little slide show to let everyone know how wonderful my new Christmas quilt looks in our home. Press the play button and enjoy the show. When the cursor is on the slide some magic stars get sprinkled on the screen. Many thanks to Phyllis for her lovely work and dedication to this fine project and cute, coordinating ornament! I love it!

More Details of Christmas Mini Quilt

I'm getting even more inspired on this little quilt that I am making for Margaret's Christmas mini quilt swap. It is a secret project I will be sending out to my partner soon. I did work directly from a pattern I had at home called "Delightful" by Sandy Gervais. I love her fabrics and patterns that she designs for Moda and her pattern company Pieces From My Heart.

Previously I had made a cute table runner for Christmas called Table Attire and I just love the cheerful look during the whole holiday time. I changed the pattern just a bit, when I modified the 3 ornaments with crazy patch piecing.

Aromatic Rosemary

I moved a few things around on our patio today and did a little decorating for fall around the front and side door. My rosemary and bay plant are going to need to be moved inside for the winter. But having them right up against the house and on the south facing wall should buy them a few more days of outside sunshine. I went to the store looking for fall mums, but they have been sold out most places. Fortunately, there were lots of pumpkins and gourds still available so that's what I brought home.

Thinking of all things autumn, Kim from Kim's Country Kitchen and Sugar Creek Hollow is organizing a recipe swap for bloggers. If you are interested in joining click on this link to find out the details: http://kimscountrykitchen.blogspot.com/2009/09/autumn-recipe-swap.html

One of the ingredients I plan to use for my recipe for Kim's swap is from my garden herb pot and it is a very aromatic herb.

~Kathy, the Cottage Garden Quilter~

Summertime Hollyhocks

The quilt I've been working on this summer is finally in is finished form. I am overdue at mailing it, but not by too many days. It turned out that I wanted to do more hand quilting around the asymmetrical border and it took a bit more time than I budgeted. I also knew I wanted to include the darker green piping before binding and that little bit was kind of tricky.

More color blocks for swap

I have 40 more blocks done for the color block swap.. Since red was a color that was behind in the count, I decided to sew these up. I have safety pinned them in 4 groups of 10 as I sewed them. I find that when I don't use the safety pin, I am forever recounting blocks.

Next I will repress them and use Mary Ellen's lavender scented spray starch, clip threads and double check the size of each block against the acrylic 6 1/2 inch square ruler. http://fourseasonsquiltswap.blogspot.com/

Summer Color Block Swap

I have been making these fun blocks for a little over a month now. My first ones were for the swap that Margaret is running. I sent 40 off to that. They were so much fun to make that I started making more in most of the colors and surplus ones in the brown and red family.

Just yesterday I received my squishy package of 20 swapped blocks. I must say I am very happy with them. Margaret was really careful when she did the sorting to distribute the colors and weed out the poorly made blocks. She is a SUPER hostess. Now, since they are trying to even out the colors, I am going to try to make more in whatever color she got less of for the second part of the swap. Currently that is red and orange.

I am thinking of making a coffee inspired jacket with all my brown blocks.