Postcrossing Update

A while back I posted about my new hobby - Postcrossing.  I joined this group and send and receive postcards all over the world to random people.  I truly enjoy the sending as much as the receiving.  It's been just over a year since I joined and last week I passed 200 cards.  That means that I have had brief contact with 400 strangers (200 that I sent cards to and 200 that sent me cards) all over the world.  The cards have been as varied as the people.  There has only been one repeat. It's nice to think that 200 people had smiles on their faces when they opened their mailbox and saw a postcard sent by me.  And 200 others made me smile when I opened my mailbox.

Here are three of my favorites:

 

Christmas Quilt

I managed to finish another quilt in-between my other projects.

The center part was made from a pattern by Fabric Café.  I changed the borders a bit and didn't use their signature chenille by the inch.  The back is fleece.  This woman wanted a warm quilt, but I find it difficult to quilt thick batting on my home machine so I thought the fleece backing would add extra warmth.

It's been unseasonably cold here...good weather to snuggle under a quilt and read a book! 

Puppies and Babies - Is There Any Cuter Combination?

We have been visiting our puppies twice a week at the kennel.  We've become attached to SO many of the dogs there. There's Hudson who likes to play catch with a tennis ball; Titan (one of our puppy daddies) who, though he is excited to see us, is always the gentleman; Clyde who can climb a chain link fence (really!); Lacey our baby mommy who just wants love; Meg, our other baby mommy who just loves to lick; Scarlett, another mommy who needs some serious R&R after having an active litter of 7 and on and on. We usually visit with our pockets full of Milkbones for all!

Yesterday we brought Winter, our granddaughter and her Mom with us for our puppy visit.  We figured it was time the "kids" met each other.  She looks a bit curious in this picture.  What you can't see is her other hand touching the puppy's face and the puppy tasting her fingers! I think they'll make a great pair.

This guy is Aiden.  He will come live with us November 21!  On November 22 you can probably call me Sleepless.

Two  weeks later our girl (who will maybe be named Fiona...still keeping the options open) comes home to join the fun.

Fair Trade Sewing

I haven't linked with Lily's Quilts Small Blog Meet in a long time, but this month I'm going to join in the fun.  So, if you've wandered here from Lily's place, "Welcome." and "Nice to meet you!"

I mentioned in a previous post about Son #1's new adventures in retail.  He has been working on the structure of his new booth at a local farmer's market.  He hopes to set it up on a fair trade model and have a variety of sewists contribute items for sale.

So far I've made him a sign:

 Some pot holders:

Some pillows:

Some placemats:

And a few zippered and drawstring bags:

This was the "new stock".  He sold out of some items in the first batch and had a few requests so that determined the items in this batch.  I'm anxious to see what sells the next time around.

It's been fun to have something to work on together.  It can be difficult to find things to enjoy together with grown male offspring so this has been a great activity in so many ways. And it's nice to have reasons to use other features on my machine like decorative stitches and the embroidery module.  My quilt output has suffered a bit but it has been a lot of fun to work on this stuff.