Home again, home again, jiggity jog....

Well, we made it home late last night after a relatively nice week at the cottage. The weather wasn't the greatest - I think there's something horribly wrong with wearing jeans and sweaters in the middle of July! - but we did manage to enjoy ourselves nonetheless.

I noticed that Silverlotus received the blog giveaway prize that I sent her just before we headed north. I still can't believe how long it took me to get my act together - I did the drawing way back in February! Thankfully Heather has some serious patience!

You see, I have had the good fortune to have met Silverlotus a few times over the years and while I fully admit that I don't know her well, I felt a real urge to attempt to make something personal and not just stitch any old thing. That's where all the problems started. :-) It was hard to decide on a project and then even harder to get the thing stitched and finished. Then I half changed my mind and stitched something else entirely and attempted to finish that. Then I couldn't decide, so I sent both things. I wanted to include some other fun things too, so I did some serious snooping around Silverlotus' blog and tried hard to come up with a few things that would make her happy. The end result took far too long, but I think the end product was worth it. Here's some pictures (there's more on Silverlotus' blog too - go look!):



This is only the second tape measure cover I've ever made and while it's not perfect, I'm relatively happy with the end product. This is the over-one project that I was working on some time ago that was giving me fits! I think I started and re-started the darned thing at least 3 or 4 times before I finally got it to work. I found the pattern in a stash dive and thought Heather would like it.

Here's the back of the tape measure:


Then came the second project:

I found this freebie on-line somewhere, but darned if I can find it now. I played with some Dinky-dyes that I had in my stash (I know, hardly a surprise, right?). The finishing on this gave me fits to no end - I've never attempted something heart-shaped before. I did discover the merits of photocopying though - I copied the finished piece and then drew a heart shape around it that was slightly larger and used that as a template to cut out the mat board I used to mount everything. Sounds simple, right? Well, it was downhill all the way from there though. :-) I stupidly cut the stitched heart too small (I have a math degree, but apparently don't have any ability to actually *use* those skills.... *sigh*), so I had to fiddle with the heart shape and it's smaller than I originally intended. However, it did come together for me in the end. Naturally, I'm not entirely happy with the finished piece, but then I rarely am. I'm probably being too critical, particularly because this was a gift. Anyway, it's done now and in Heather's hands....

Here's the back of the heart:


And the rest of the toys I sent:


Just a few things from her wish list and some cute little finger puppets that I had put away for just the right little person.

I'm very happy she seems to like what I've done.

I have an update on the Traveling project's adventures from last week, but that will have to wait for another post - the laundry pile is threatening to overwhelm the house and I'd better attend to that right away!