St. Nick Swap

If you've been around me lately, you'll know that I've been doing a few swaps on Flickr.  Very fun, but addictive.  Here's my recent loot from the St. Nick swap I participated in:

All of that (except for the wine) from The Patchwork Queen.  Very generous!  The chocolate's almost gone already!

With that being said, I think I'm going to lay off on swaps for a bit.  All of my swap obligations have been sent away and I've received everything, too.

I am in 3 sewing bees.  One uses vintage sheets and it's got about 6 more months in my commitment.  Not sure if I'll do another round with those.  While I do have a pretty decent stash of vintage sheets, I don't LOVE sewing with them.  They are so thin.  And when you iron them, the smell is not so pleasant.  Poly, I guess.  Sometimes you can smell perfume when you iron them.  Or old man sweat...  We generally mix them with quilting fabric (cotton), but it's not my very favorite fabric.

I'm in a bee with some of my KCMQG members.  I'm really enjoying it.  Some really talented ladies who are challenging me and teaching me, too!  At the end of April or May (I forget), we will have completed one year.  I'd imagine we'll do another year.  I'm going to be game, if so.  I'm the mama on that bee.

And I'm starting a new bee in January.  The Lovely Linen Bee.  We will use a combination of linen and our scraps to make blocks for each other.  Seems like a lively group and we've got a blog already (will link to it in a future post).  I think it'll be fun.  I've never sewn much with linen.  I intend to build up a little stash of it, but haven't taken the time or $ to buy much yet.

So my resolutions for this coming year:  Less swaps, more fun with bees (but I'm not joining any more bees) and maybe finishing some projects I've had ongoing for a while.  I'm starting to be more confident with my own quilting.  Will save me money by quilting things myself!

I'll leave you with a little eye candy from my bee blocks for the Bee Vintage bee and the KC Scrappy bee...