Swaps to my Stitcher's Angel in Australia

My Stitcher's Angel in Brisbane, Australia finally received my package of goodies....so now I can show you all the things I sent to Margaret! (she doesn't have a blog site yet) Because this was my first swap, I think I went a bit WILD with my extra goodies! I'm sure Margaret didn't mind! The Swedish Christmas Goat is rather special, so I sent her a cross stitch kit and fabric with the JULBOK on it. And some wonderful Swedish chocolates......Japanese fabric print cards and a lavender candle. I also made a simple angel star goodie holder to hang on her tree...inside a little angel key ring. I have to admit that it was a little hard to decide what to send to her since I couldn't "spy" on her blog for ideas...so I put a little bit of this and that into her package!
Here's my FIRST ever embrodiery project.... the armchair caddy from Hugs and Kisses designer, Helen Stubbings. I liked doing it so much that I'm making two more for....it's a surprise! The other little thing is a "pin ring". These were made out of the autumn fabrics she said she liked. Sorry Margaret...I'm a just getting back into sewing and I couldn't muster up the skills needed to do hexagons for you!
Here it is in use....a pin cushion ring! Very handy!
Margaret said she like 1930's fabrics....so I used these reproductions to make a pincushion and needle book. The needle book is decorated with some hand made dollies I bought at a Loppis in Sweden. Both of these came from patterns from Anne-Pia Godske Rasmussen 's book Traed Nålen. She's a Danish stitcher I've met a couple of times...just love her stuff!

Here's the email I got from Margaret today....She's been quilt traveling!

Hello Carol,

When I returned home just after lunch today your parcel was waiting for me on my doormat.

I just love the contents - Thankyou. I love 1930s fabrics and just love the pincushion and needlecase and I've just returned from a three week trip to USA in the northern states where we saw all the golden, red, brown leaves etc so your autumn leaf fabric on the armchair caddy and pincushion couldn't have been made with a better fabric. All the other bits and pieces are really lovely too. Figs are one of my favourite different type of fruit - we used to have a fig tree growing in our yard when I was a kid, a long time ago, and I just love figs so am looking forward to trying my chocolates.

I don't have a blog so don't really know how I can photograph and show my goodies to others but I will look into it. And, thankyou for the goat fabric - I thought they were reindeer until I read your note - I will make something when I come down from cloud nine after all that has been happening in the last few days since getting home.

I went to USA on a quilting tour organised by my local Patchwork shop (30 ladies in all) and we went to Chicago and then the Amish areas of Napanee, Shipshiwana, Lansing, Frankenmuth and then down to Houston for the Quilt Festival. We arrived home on Tuesday morning after two flights within the US ( 2 hours and 3 hours each) then our 14 1/2 hour flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane. I slept all day Wednesday to get over the jetlag and feel quite good today and needed to go out this morning to purchase food etc.

I've been downloading my photos (all 600+) to my computer this afternoon so will be able to have a good look at them soon.

Thankyou once again for my gifts -the parcel had been opened by Australian Customs, they put a note in the parcel to say they had opened it and inspected the contents but not removed anything from the parcel. Both my suitcases were opened between Los Angeles and Brisbane too and then sealed again but everything seemed to be in order.

Bye for now,

Margaret