Poor Martine!

My wonderful Friendship Bag Swap partener, Martine from the Netherlands, sent her swap present to me before the "must-be-sent-by" date... but it took a very long time to arrive, and she was afraid it had been perhaps lost in the mail. And then I told her I was going to post the photo I took of the sweet little bag and the lovely things she had put inside. (Yes, I did thake the picture before I had eaten ALL the wonderful chocolate she sent - and I did share with Henry as well, but not with the kitties!) What else could go wrong? The picture is out of focus, making it hard to see the lace and the pretty fabrics Martine used! I did say I was going to post to the blog, tough, and I'm already two days past when I said... so I'll do another , clearer photo next time.

Just look what was inside... a pretty laser-cut card (with a letter from Martine), a box of chocolates all dressed up in a raffia bow - each of the chocolates has the photo of a different scene of distinctive Dutch Architecture. There is a kit to make a Garden Themed wall hanging along with the fabric and embriodery floss to complete it... and a small bag of wee tiny buttons (smaller even than doll-sized) for embellishment! How nice of her to fill the pretty lace trimed bag with such an assortment of goodies!

THANK YOU, MARTINE!

FBP and Friendship Bag

For some reason I called this FBP Block "Fool's Puzzle", but I think it is called "Fools Square" on Quilter's Cache. Since it is small, I went with the very bright colors and funny aminal prints that I had used in some of the other blocks. Donna (QuiltPixie) reminded us that the only folks who care what we actually do with the blocks we make are "us" - as in the individual quilters. I'm thinking I'll take all the bright kid-friendly blocks and add some of the kid prints that Erin had left over (and left with me) when I helped her make the quilt for Wendy's baby... I'll make a donation quilt for a small kid. I really like the bright blue and the bright green bubble print! This block was supposed to have HSTs in the corners, but I didn't like those, so I took them off and went with the solid blue print corners.

Now that Florence got her bag, I can show you what I made... my first bag ever. The bag was dead easy, and I'll probably end up making bags as Christmas presents, or as wrapping for Christmas presents... they were that much fun!

I put some tea, biscotti, and a fat quarter of darling Halloween Fabric inside Florenc's bag - she said she liked all the little extras, so that made me feel pretty good about sending them off to her.