Lovely things in the post and a bouquet of new corsages

 
Don't you think that our lovely community of crafty bloggers are the nicest, most generous people in the world?! I do!
A few months ago I got a very nice email from a lady called Elizabeth Scott, from San Francisco, who had found my Little House Pincushion Tutorial while searching the internet for Greengate fabrics (she had found our shop website and therefore this blog), and had made a gorgeous version of it (with a birdcage in one of the windows!) which you can see here.
A few months later Elizabeth sent me an email to tell me she was coming to Scotland in March and would pop in to our shop to meet me and that she would like to give me some fabrics 'from her collection' to see what I would make with them. Well, as you can imagine, I was very happy to accept any fabrics that might come my way, though unfortunately, I wasn't around on the one day Elizabeth could make it.

And then a little parcel arrived in the post this week from the USA, and out tumbled this big pile of gorgeous fat quarters! With a note from Elizabeth saying that she hadn't managed to get to the shop anyway and so had sent me the fabrics once she got back. I was so happy and excited!
I don't want to keep moaning on, but for various reasons too numerous to go into, life has been really rubbish recently, so to get this amazing parcel from someone I hardly know was so very special and cheered me up no end!
And then I looked a bit closer at the fabrics and realised that Elizabeth Scott had actually designed them!!

I had completely missed the fact she was a fabric designer when I first visited her blog! And when she said 'fabrics from her collection' I assumed she meant her stash!! Duh!
Wow, so now I was even more happy, excited and impressed!! Thank you so much Elizabeth for completely making my day.
And now I have this fabulous bundle of fat quarters to make something really lovely with! Take a look at Elizabeth's website where you can buy her fabrics.

The postman has been especially good to me recently. Look at what I found in the parcel I got last week, all the way from Portland Oregon...

Look at these gorgeous handmade boxes all filled with pincushions from my partner in the Scrappy Pincushion Swap!
This round my partner was Mary of 13 insane penguins, who was also my partner in a mini quilt swap last year.

Mary made me not 1, but 3 amazing pincushions! Look at that fantastic mouse, not only does he have a bendy tail and whiskers but he is also so realistic I daren't let him near my cats! And also Mary sent me 2 uber cute crochet pincushions - a cupcake and a fat little orange mouse!
Thank you Mary, I love all my little cuties!

After all that excitement I had to do a fair bit of crocheting to calm myself down.
I thought it was time I made some new flower corsages for the shop. These are always a good seller, especially with Mother's Day coming up next month.

I also really enjoy making them as I can be as creative as I like, so they never feel like a chore.  This time I have also used some of my special buttons. 

Well, what's the use of just hoarding them in tins? Better to set them free to bring joy to others!