Doing the Happy Dance

The package from my partner in FTLOS arrived today. Do you ever have those moments when you realise that you have been totally spoiled and think you should act politely restrained so that you don't make others jealous? Nah, me neither!!

Look at what I got!

How awesome is that then? I love the mini. Happily I told my partner I loved it when she was in the process of making it. February was so busy I did worry about missing the right one and not commenting - and we all know how horrible it is to have a silent partner. My partner for this swap turns out to be Toni, aka Contadine on Flickr and she has the greatest name for her blog - Quilt Stricken. Even better, she is using a cropped shot of my mini in her header right now.

It's a given that I am eating the Jelly Belly jelly beans while I am writing this. Having a little guess the flavour game on my own. I could turn the box over and it would tell me the flavours but that isn't as much fun.

Back to the mini -

There isn't anything not to love about this for me. Those shots of colour in the sea of blues are just perfectly balanced. The quilting is so well thought out too.

I don't know if I made something like this if it would ever occur to me to quilt rectangles like this, in abstract places. I wish I could think of things like that on my own, but then that is why I blog and go on Flickr - because the rest of you give me endless inspiration.

You may have noticed in the first photo that Toni sent me some fabric and perle threads as my 'extra'. It is taking everything in me not to start sewing with these right away. This fabric feeds my addiction. Bright. Tone on tone. Solids. Colour. I am tempted to move to Toni's and camp outside her door and beg to play in her stash because it must be amazing!

You can't tell from the photo but the green and yellow perle are hand dyed and have those subtle variations that you get in threads and yarns that are hand dyed. I am going to have to think long and hard what to make with this beautiful pile of fabric and thread because I am not breaking it up and putting it into the colour drawers in my stash. These fabrics need to be kept together, used together.

So a huge thank you to Toni. You couldn't have got me better than you did with what you made. I appreciate it hugely and thank you for helping make FTLOS such a perfect swap for me.

Susan