It's A Bird!

Come into the birthing room for a sneak peek at one member of my little flock as it makes its way into the world:

It's all so surgical. I even use hemostats to help with the delivery. ;- )

I'll be sending most of my nestlings to Regina at Creative Kismet for the Birds of Change Exchange. Remember to stop by on the 20th though (that's only a few days away!) because I'll be taking applications (via comments) for a new home for one particular winged messenger.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show you one of the few gifts I made this Christmas. Remember the Dilbert tie I found at the thrift shop? I first showed it in this post. Well, I turned it into a decorative pillow for my sister. Dilbert is one of those cartoons she really identifies with. I didn't think the black and red color scheme would work in her home decor all that well but she loves the pillow. Score!

And the back...

We've received our tasks for week two of Jump Start January. I swear, it's like Diane is holding a mirror up to my face that shows me all the things I've never seen in myself before! Amazing.

Whitman's

I went to the thrift shop Monday. It was so much fun! Mostly because it had been a long time since my last visit. All the Christmas goodies were out on display and I found some not-Christmas things for my own use. A package of small artificial leaves, 2 yards of straight black fringe (think roaring 20's dresses), short pieces of black boa that might end up on my Halloween hat someday, four silk ties...

and another Whitman's candy tin (minus the candy of course!).

Look! It's a bicentennial tin! And it's in pretty good shape too.

It wasn't until I started photographing them that I realized how many Whitman's tins I have. Whitman's candies were one of the special treats we would only see at Christmas or maybe Easter when I was growing up. I don't remember ever getting a tin full of chocolates, but there must have been the occasional cardboard box or why would they be such a fond memory? Anyway, I remember being fascinated by the boxes because of the simulated cross stitch.

I like the one on the bottom in the photograph above because it also features buildings or houses, another of my favorite things.

There are two more I didn't take single shots of... and who knows what might be hiding somewhere else that I haven't remembered?! One of the reasons I like the Whitman's tins is their shape. They're flat and rectangular and usually have a hinged lid. One holds my patterns for small things like dolls. Another keeps my coloring supplies contained. One has elastic. A couple are empty, used only for decoration. Not quite sure what I will do with this new acquisition (the bicentennial version). I was just excited to find it and be able to take it home for fifty cents :- )

Catching Up

So, now that I feel like I have a little breathing room (having finished that swap quilt yesterday) let me show you a few things I've been blessed with recently.


Carol of Giraffe Dreams made this happy little basket quilt last year. She put it in her guild's silent auction this year but it didn't get any bids {gasp!}. I admired it when she showed it on her blog and expressed an interest in acquiring it. The quilt was returned to her after the show so she let me know it was still available. We made a deal whereby I would make a quilt or a cash donation to Wrap Them in Love and she would send me the quilt. Yippee! Now all I have to do is hold up my end of the bargain ;- )

The other goodie I received recently came from my sister. Some time ago she was in a thrift store, looking for a basket to hold miscellaneous small items in her bathroom. She didn't find any baskets she liked but was delighted to find clothes that fit. Then she learned that everything in the store was 50% off that day! By that time she was on auto-pilot, cruising the store for anything else she didn't know she needed but couldn't resist. (You know how that happens, right?) She ended up bringing home a dozen silk ties along with her other purchases. First one caught her eye, and then another one that had the same colors in it, and before she knew it her arms were full of ties! She toyed with the idea of doing something with them herself but she doesn't sew much. So I got this box in the mail a few weeks ago:

Woohoo! Playtime! Except that I haven't washed them yet. I have removed the labels and interfacings, but then I had a swap quilt to make...

These are a few of my more favorite ties of the batch. Of course the colors in the photograph aren't exactly true. They are much prettier in person. A couple of them have that iridescent thing going on where you can see more than one color, depending on how the light hits the fabric. I especially like the tie with the cowboy motifs. Apparently that was the one that started the whole tie-buying spree. I can hardly wait to see what it ends up in!