Wednesday wonders...

Well, my aim today was to be as productive as yesterday, and I think I managed that - especially if you include the load of laundry and the fact that I went grocery shopping...

First thing I did today quilt-wise was to finish the quilting on the little secret santa piece. No points if you guessed I was goign to quilt snowflakes onto it. And just like real snowflakes, no two are alike! (But unlike real snowflakes, a few of them are a little wonky, symmetry-wise.) I still have to sew the binding down & the bottom of the sleeve, but that's all. You can see at the bottom where I've pulled the binding down that the border around the angel is pale blue, not dark blue.

Once I'd finised the angel, what I did was edge things. I edged all the "L is for (lightbulb)" cards and another handful of Christmas cards - only one handful left to go, hoorah. I've included another closeup of a lightbulb card, as I think the filament part shows better on this dark background (ran out of the other one, nothing special about this card...)

After that, I decided I had enough time to tackle my "reused and recycled" postcard swap - I had a little extra time today, as Wednesday & Thursday I don't have to collect children from school - my friend Lana does those school runs (I bring her kids home on the other days). So, here we go - first I made some "fabric" out of a couple of carrier bags (i.e. plastic grocery bags) - that's the orange and purple plasticky looking bit on the left. Those of you in the UK might be able to guess where I get my shopping delivered from on the basis of those colour bags... The middle section is a cut up purple dyed handkerchief - I bought an entire carrier bag of handkerchiefs at a jumble sale for 20p. Some of them, with interesting trim, etc, I cut up; the more plain ones, I dyed to use later. And the wild print on the right is a funky polyester shirt I also found in a jumble sale and couldn't resist, even though I knew I'd never wear it (it did fit, but it was too polyester). Now it's a shirt with one sleeve mostly missing...

I just stitched all three of those things on madly and then added some old postage stamps, and some ribbon (which I hasten to add was not bought new, but was salvaged from various boxes of chocs, etc, which come tied in ribbon. Which is why I didn't have enough to use the same ribbon throughout). As an added bonus in terms of recycling and reusing, three of the postcards were built on top of cards I had started and abandoned for one reason or another, including the reject Christmas card from a week or two ago. And the others were all built on vilene bases which were pieced together from scraps. The backings are card, which were saved from some Christmas cards the kids brought home from school (the card part was advertising). Even the bobbin thread is kind of recycled, as it's from some large cones a friend passed on to me when moving house.

And it was a bumper day for post stuff, as well.

These things are from my ornament swap on ArtWeMail - the chap on the left is from Debby L, and has a knit body, tree braches for hands and a great hat and jacket. On the right, things from Aurora in Romania, who has outdone herself by sending a stocking, a macrame Father Christmas and a woven paper heart. I feel like my little face ornaments are a poor showing next to that bounty.

And finally, I got the bits on the left inside a belated birthday card from Debby L, and on the right above is the colour play swap from my surfacing group. Whew. Impressed? I am!