December 2008

Hi,

These were the last of the swap items I had to send for 2008. First I had to send to our swap mom Anett on the CAPC group, a packet of stickpins for each persons birthday according to a list we were given. Anett and I agreed that I would make her a pincushion in return for her sending me the stickpins for my birthay in 2009 because I couldn't send a stamped envelope from here. Anett told me that her favorite color is purple so I made her a santa pincushion and stickpin in purple as my gift to her. Her birthday stickpin is inside the package with the other stickpins and she can't see it till her birthday in August.



I also had to send a christmas pincushion to Janie so what better than another santa but this time in red, together with a red stickpin and some trims.




Now I had to concentrate on the packages for my friends Susan and Miet. I knew Susan's favorite color is blue so a blue santa, stickpin and trims. The other goodies I had to leave out because we didn't have large enough envelopes at the time and we couldn't get any for another couple of weeks. I decided to send just part of the package as the photo shows.




Miet's favorite color is autumn colors so I made her santa in a dark wine red, with the same additional items as for Susan and sent off my packages as quickly as they would go. The other part of their packages they will be getting soon.

First to arrive was a huge box from my dear friend Susan filled with the goodies you can see in the photo, a beautiful decorated Christmas tree and two ball ornaments, two soft fluffy towels, an angel ornament, thread, fabrics, trims and some beautiful pieces of felt with "diamonds" on them, and a thimble from Texas. Thank you Susan I love everything!





Next to arrive was another large box, this time from another dear friend, Miet. A gorgeous santa and Christmas tree pincushions, some cute little felt trims and two boxes of wonderful Belgian chocolates. For anyone who has not tasted Belgian chocolates the box in the photo is to die for! The other box is hidden for now - LOL. Thank you Miet!

November 2008

Hi again,

Shalom was home from the hospital, resting, mainly laying down because he couldn't sit. He actually still can't sit but that's for a later post.

I made this pincushion for Kathie for December, decided to get it off early because I had to make some Christmas pincushions for my friends Susan and Miet. I sent this to Kathie together with a stickpin, lace and fabric and waited for my swap to come from Kathie.



On 22nd of November I was chatting with Liat and she told me she was on her way out to visit an old school friend, Elad, who she had a crush on way back in high school and they had met again and were going to give it another try. I wished her all the best and told her I would call the next day.

Later that evening I got a call from Liat, she said she was in the ER and had a broken ankle. She put my son Eyal on the phone and he explained that she had broken her ankle in 3 places and would need surgery to fix it back together. for now they couldn't operate because her ankle was so swolen so she was being hospitalized till the swelling went down.

She had her operation on the 25th and what was supposed to take only 40 minutes turned into 3 hours. they had to put in a plate and about 10 screws. She was in hospital for 8 days and because she lives alone and had to stay off her leg for at least 6 weeks, we brought her home to be with us.

I now had 2 patients to look after.

October 2008

September and October kind of melded together for our whole family. In October 2000 my husband Shalom suffered a massive stroke and was put on the waiting list for a heart transplant. Over the years the pills are what has been keeping him going. Early in 2008 after seeing him struggle with lots of blood coming out in the toilet and him telling us he was OK. My daughter Liat and I decided we were going with him to his next cardiologist appointment. He was immediately given all kinds of tests to undergo and we found out he had colon cancer. He went through a series of chemo and radiation treatments to reduce the growth as much as possible so it could be removed. At the end of October he underwent a 6 hour surgery to remove a growth 32 cms in length and they opened up a hole in his abdomen for a Stoma bag.
I managed to sew this cat pincushion and stuff it while visiting him in the hospital. I made this pincushion for my friend Miet from Belgium. The cat was supposed to hold a bobbin of yellow thread between it's paws but I couldn't find yellow thread at the time so I sent her red thread instead.

This is the beautiful butterfly pincushion I received from Miet, together with a tissue holder, a small tin which will be made into a small sewing kit and a beautiful thimble from Holland where Miet went on vacation. There were also some chocolates in the package but my grandsons "found" them when I opened the package and they were very quickly eaten - LOL.

Till next time,

August 2008

Hi there,
This is where things started to get mixed up and I'm missing a couple of swaps here too. So I'm just adding what I have for this month and will update when I can.
These are the pincushions I sent to Jamie for July and August. July was Red, white and blue. August was a surprise me pincushion.

We also had a bird swap, i made a cute bird sitting on a container for Patti but forgot to photograph it before I sent it. If I can get a photo of it from Patti I will add it later.
Meantime this is the bird pincushion I received from Patti.

When I recieved the snail pattern I just had to try it out, I think it looks so cute even though I say so myself - LOL.

Ever since I can remember I've loved the look of the Babushka dolls so when I found a pattern to make them from fabric I just had to make myself a set.

Lots of swaps for July 2008

For this month we had lots to make and receive. I had to make a red, white and blue pincushion for Janie but was running late so sent it to her with the August swap (photo to come in the August 2008 message). I was supposed to receive from Mikki for the red, white and blue swap but still have not received it.

We had a Christmas in July swap for bowl fillers and here's my swap from Kirrily in Australia.

Here are the bowl fillers I made for Kirrily.

Another Christmas in July swap was for a scissor case and this is what I sent to Jo in Australia.

Sadly till now I have not received any swap in return. If I do finally receive something I will update.

Yet another Christmas in July swap was for a pincushion and needle case. This is what I made for Wendy in Australia.

and this is what I received from Wendy. Here the needle case is open,

and here it is closed.

Here as promised in my earlier message is my second version of the Pincushion Tree.

Last swap for July was a Ladybug pincushion swap. This is what I sent to Char,

and here are all the goodies that Char sent to me.

till next time,

Pincushions and Creations for June 2008

Hi,

Here I am back again already with the June hapennings. This month we had to make a fruit pincushion for our swap partners.

I made a "fruit salad" for Skeat, an apple, a pear and a banana.


I received this cute apple pincushion and some apple fabric from Janie, you can almost smell the apples on the fabric.


One of the gals in the group sent a photo of a pincushion tree and had everyone scrambling to buy the pattern. Since I would rather have the challenge of trying to make it myself, I gave it a try and this was my first version of it.



My dowel was a very thick one, actually a paper towel holder because one of my grandsons decided he needed my dowel for a game. When he finally gave me my dowel back I tried another version of the pincushion tree. That will be coming next time.


This next pincushion came about because I saw a pincushion that my friend Susanne from Australia made. I used up quite a bit of fabric before I finally managed to get it right. These umbrella pincushions are so addictive and look so pretty. In this photo you can see the pincushion part (the inside of the umbrella).


and here are the three that I have made so far.


For July 2008 there will be lots of new photos, so till then,

May 2008 Pincushions

Hello again, I'm starting to get caught up (a little bit). I managed to get photos taken of most of the swaps so that will be easier for me to get everything up in a few days. First photo is of the swap I sent to Miet, Janie and Audrey. I sent a different color to each of the ladies.

These are the pincushions I received in return.

This one is from Miet, my very good friend from Belgium.

this one is from Janie from the US.

and these two are from my "niece" Audrey also from the US.

We had to make an Owl pincushion for a challenge and this was my entry. Audrey won the challenge.

April 2008 Pincushion Swaps

Hello again, continuing with the pincushions.
Next swap was the April swap, I sent this one to Marilee:

and received this neat one from Skeat:

Also in April we had a container pincushion swap. This time I sent to Val in Australia, the box can be opened and Val can put her sewing notions inside:

and Val sent this sweet pansy pincushion one to me:

A new year

Here we are already 12th January 2009. Last mail posted was back in April 2008. I'm going to start the year off by posting photos of pincushions I've made and received throughout 2008 in various swaps.

This was my very first swap in March 2008 and sent to Marilee. Sahar my grandson made the x's with tulip paints.

Here's the pincushion I received from Marilee, isn't it gorgeous?

more later.