Quilting Bloggers Birthday Fat 1/4 Swap 2009

Miss 12 and I almost share the same birthday. Almost. Her birthday is the day before mine, so regular readers will know that I had my birthday this week. I turned 45. Which seems an incredibly high number to write. 45. Of course, I had a lovely day with chocolates and flowers from Mr 20 and birthday kisses and hugs from everyone else. My Bradley's gift is to take me to the patchwork apple to purchase fabric once it has cooled down a little (see you in April Jane, lol!). But this birthday was different. I received packages. Six of them. Last year I joined Maree's Quilting Bloggers Birthday Fat 1/4 Swap. I am the first to have a birthday in my group and it was most exciting. I received the first package from Peg early in January. Maree had counselled us to be early posters rather than late and Peg took this advice to heart! The kids always get so excited when I receive packages and there was much fanfare when Mr 20 brought Peg's package in. I decided to open it on my birthday (practising some self-control!) The day before my birthday I received another four packages. From Dale, Kate, Anita and Lurline. I opened the packages straight away, afterall, we were celebrating a birthday that day, just not mine! The thought of all those fat 1/4's spurred me on! And then on my birthday I received the last package from my group from Chookyblue (Donna). The photo above shows my haul. A huge variety, which pleases me greatly! I have been involved with fabric swaps before and have always been thrilled by what I have received because I didn't choose it. There are always so many beautiful fabrics at patchwork shops and, being constrained by a budget, my picks are usually oh so similar! I buy my very, very favourite things. None of these fabrics are a part of my stash already so my stash has been varied beautifully by all these lovely quilting bloggers! Thank you all! I can't wait to send off a package myself now!

PS Don't worry Peg. Yours are not in the photo because they were put in a safe place whilst my sewing room was moved. I will show them off when I find them. (I mean, retrieve them from their safe place!)

Quilt-in-a-day

This is a small section of my shaggy flannel quilt. As you can see it is one of those "cheat" quilts. My word, not yours! I always swore I would never make one, but I have and I love it! In fact, I'm going to make another one. It's so warm and quilty so quickly. When I think of all those UFO's insulating my cupboards I feel like flinging open the doors and screaming - "Soooo, yah wanna see what a real quilt looks like? Take a look at this....." Okay, for all of you feeling a little uncomfortable at this point notice that I did say "feel like" not that I have actually done anything so completely loopy or discomforting!!! So, roll on cheat quilting. It's my latest thing.

I also have been looking at the scrappy cabin challenge at Melly and Me and thinking I would like to give it a go. Then when I tuned in to their blog on Friday I discovered that they have a fabric swap going! What's better than having fabric? Getting some different fabric! So race on over to their site before the end of May so that you can join in and get some different fabric too! Today was cool. Well, cool for us (17 degrees celcius maximum) here in Adelaide. Over the last month we have even had some rain which has somewhat revived my sad garden. My seaside daisies have new leaves on them now. Some of them are really dead, but some like this one (above) are coming back. We had 2.4 millimeters of rain here at RH today. Not a lot, but every little bit helps.
Who knew that my rosemary could flower? It never has before, so I was pretty excited to see these flowers. This has been a busy week. Quilting, making birthday presents, visiting homeschooling friends, journaling ;) always, buying fabric, homeschooling, and painting. Xam is using acrylics for the first time on a large scale artwork and is finding it an overwhelming experience. ("I know you can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"-Gilmore Girls) Ooops! Sorry. I just "quoted" you. It happens a lot here and you have to be able to do it to keep up with the teenagers! I hope to get his permission to show you his artwork when it's done. I think he's doing a great job!