Mail call & turtles

I tell you, I've been getting really spoiled lately, with something interesting arriving in the post nearly every day. Nothing squishie or postcardy arrived yesterday and I was feeling a little bit sad about that (though I did receive several cheques for books I'd sold on, so I perked back up a bit, LOL) - today more than makes up for yesterday's lack. Firstly, here's a simply gorgeous piece of hand-painted fabric which I ordered from Vicky's website - Vicky visited my blog a few days back and in the way of these things, I ended up on her site looking at her fabrics. Actually, as you can see, there are two pieces of fabric - the one on the left is the one I bought - it's a FQ - the one on the right is a narrow strip, about 6x22 - and she sent that along as a bonus. Aren't quilters great people? Probably crafters in general.

Anyway.

The next items were this block on the left, which is part of the African block swap I am doing with Karol Ann - after visiting her blog last night, I was not surprised to see this in the post, but as with all fabric things, it looks even better in person than in a photo, so it was great to get my hands actually on it. The ball is now back in my court vis a vis block making, and it's going to stay there for a while - I have to finish my turtles (nearly done - see below) and do some trees for a BQLPC swap which I have been putting off because I am really not inspired at the moment for that theme. No idea why, just can't get excited about it. Keep hoping something will pop into my head, but so far, nothing much.

The postcard above is another for the spring is here theme - this one is from Mari - be sure to look at the larger sized image so you can see the funky quilting with blanket stitch and the good use of ribbon as edging. The ladybirds are very cool - there are ladybirds printed on the fabric, and then she's attached little plastic ladybirds, which don't have antennae, but the antennae from the printed ladybirds shows - clever!

And two more, as well - as you might guess, the one on the left is an Under the Sea theme card - yet another great interpretation of theme - amazing how many different fishy fabrics there are out there; this one has been embellished with several kinds of fun yarn to make seaweed and she's glued on little crystals - I really must get ahold of some of those... The card is from Diane. The one on the right threw me into a panic for a moment, as it's from a swap called Green & Brown, which I haven't even BEGUN to think about yet, and I thought it might be due sooner than I thought (I was thinking early June) - but it's ok, it IS due early June, and Debbie in New Zealand is just an overacheiver, LOL. Debbie also has a machine with a larger number of decorative stitches than mine has!

And lest you think (there's a word we don't use enough anymore, don't you think? but I digress) I didn't do any work today, I can assure you, I did. In fact, I am going to post twice, due to this post getting to be way too long. But I did work on the turtles today - they are now all quilted and the words are all on them, and I have edged 3 of the 7 in a variegated green, which goes better with the back of the card than the front, but frankly, there are so many colours on the fronts it doesn't really matter. The background, I received in a swap with Anne, when I offered my 3.5" squares. It pays to swap! I will finish them tomorrow and get them in the post tomorrow afternoon I hope - perhaps even in time to reach their destinations before International Turtle Day, which I understand is the 22nd. (Who knew?)