Sit back, grab some coffee and surf the net…..

First,  the winner of the Valentine Tote Bag is:

Thank you to all who entered.  Welcome, also, to the new followers of this blog and my Facebook page.  I hope that you will find this a place of occasional inspiration.

Thanks, also, for your kind and encouraging words about Annie and her Etsy shop, the Pink Paintbrush.  She enjoys creating as much as I do and I enjoy that we share our crafty love.

Three lovely readers purchased a clutch from Annie.  Two of them shared a nice review on their blogs:  Stacy of Golden Bird Knits who is running a New Techniques Knitalong on Ravelry, and Heather of Implausible Yarn a young blogger from Maine.  Thank you so much!

Thank you to Sarah for linking to Annie’s contest.  If you are a mom, head over to Sarah’s blog.  Not only is she a beautiful mom to five, she has an amazing gift of articulating the feelings, fears, and struggles of parents.

Speaking of moms, have you ever read Design Mom?  She just moved her family (6 kids!) to France for a year.  I am so resistant to change I’ve been in the same house for 22 years, hate to change doctors, schools, etc.,….  I can’t even imagine.

I have also made new friends on Twitter.  How does that happen?  I don’t know.  Sometimes you feel like you are “talking” to yourself, but then something happens and before you know it you have a new friend.  One of those is Luke, whom I had mistaken for a woman.  I didn’t understand why the sweatshirt tote he bought from me wouldn’t work for “him”.  Well, “she” was really a “he” who bought it for his daughter!  Check out the supplies he sells on his shop, The Supply Stop, if you are a crafter!

Speaking of Twitter, I came across another amazing shop, Made in Lowell, and bought myself a birthday present!  My brother bought his wife a 3 Carat diamond ring.  (She deserves it for being married to him.)  So I told them about the ring I bought myself:

Isn’t it the cutest thing?  I love it!  I thought it would be very “practical” for me when I construct my quilts.  I lay the quilts out on the floor to pin the layers together.  Instead of sliding my magnetic pin grabber around I can quickly grab the pins out of the ring.  Soooo pretty!  BTW, that is not my hand in the photo.  I think someday I will expose my hands to the world, well the wired world, that is.  I have ugly nails, fat knuckles, short thumbs (my dad always said that means we are stubborn) – I like to think that my hands were meant for creating.

I want to say a special thanks to Sondra on Contemporary Cloth.  She has encouraged Annie and I in our Etsy endeavors.  Annie is especially grateful for the zebra fabric Sondra donated to her!  It has been quite popular!  Check out all the neat fabrics at Contemporary Cloth.  If you don’t sew, there are some really neat wall hangings to see.

Finally, I want to thank Liz of Living My Sweet Life.  She worked on a project with me and we will both be sharing that soon!

Even though there is a hint of spring in the air, I am working diligently on sewing a wool dress coat for my eleven-year-old son.  I was putting it off because I was hoping to be a part of Celebrate the Boy and wasn’t sure if I would have to photograph all the steps of construction.  Now I just want to have a jacket for my son to wear when we go to Church or go out some place nice.  The poor boys are neglected on the jacket front.

Thanks for letting me share today!