Happenings

A lot has been happening here this past week, I was hurrying from the post office and I fell. I had to be taken to the ER by ambulance. I was pretty banged up and I'm still hurting after a week.
Anyway I had some good news, both Miet and Susan received the other part of their Christmas boxes as you can see from the photo below, courtesy of Susan. The only difference in the packages was the color of the humbag bag.

We had a new swap on the CAPC group and this is what I sent to my swap partner Marian in Australia.

This gorgeous mouse angel is what I received in return, together with some fabric, a postcard of where Marian lives and all wrapped up in the cutest baggy.

This is the back view of the mouse angel where you can see the scissors Marian added. Thank you Marian for a wonderful swap package.

Now I'm working on some new pincushions, one is for a birthday and two will be for swaps.

Election Day

Today is Election Day here, we are hoping that our candidate will win. It started to rain as soon as we left the house to go vote so that meant that Liat couldn't get out of the car as her crutches slip on the wet ground. When we arrived at the polling station we also found that instead of our usual classroom (we vote in the primary school near us) that they moved our station to a new place (the size of a closet) and with steps up to it. That also meant that even if we had waited for the rain to stop Liat still couldn't vote because of the steps.

My friend Susan gave me permission to post a photo of Abby, her new puppy. Take a look, isn't she the cutest puppy you've ever seen.

Here is Susan with Abby.

Till next time,

February already

Can't believe it's February already. January just whipped by and I didn't manage to get all my photos uploaded. Oh well there's always tomorrow. I sent off the rest of the Christmas packages for Miet and Susan. I didn't take photos so as not to spoil their surprise. I hope they like what I sent.

My friend Susan has a new puppy, Abby is her name and she is just the cutest little doggie. Susan took a photo of her in a cup - LOL, I'll ask her if I can post the picture here too.

We had a "Swap 3 items" on the CAPC group for January, Sahar helped me package up my swap for Marian in Australia but left out half of the package - LOL. I sent off the other part on Friday so I hope it all gets there soon. As soon as I receive my package from Marian I will upload a photo.

Liat decided that she wanted to try and drive her own car today. I've been her driver for the past two months. She did very well and is now thinking about going in to work for a couple of days next week to see how she manages that. We have to go back to the specialist on the 23rd so we'll see if there is any improvement with her ankle and if he'll let her put her whole foot down and not just the toes.
till next time,

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.