The One About Moving...

Some of you may have heard...not sure if I mentioned it on here at all...that we were waiting to hear if the man of the house got a promotion.  Well, the GREAT news is that he did!  Hip-hip-hooray for my honey!  The tough part of the deal is that we have to move.  I've moved a lot over the years...I've lived on both coasts, in the mountains, in the south, in cities and suburbs, on Army posts, in apartments and in our lovely little home here in New Hampshire.  So, the idea of moving isn't so bad, especially since we've always known that this is part of the deal with Paul's job.  BUT, we've never moved with school-aged children before.  We've never moved after living somewhere for 6 years.  I think it'll be a hard but awesome experience for all of us.  We'll be moving to the Northern Virginia area - Paul will be working in McLean, which is right outside of DC.  How cool will it be to live so close to DC?  So cool!  Paul has to report in a month...the rest of us will head down after school gets out and our house sells...so, sometime this summer.  Lots will be happening around here!

One thing that I won't be doing much of in the next few months is swapping.  Oh how I will miss it so!  I just finished up a couple of good ones and have a couple of small ones left on my plate.  It has taken all of my self-control and some pleading to friends to help me NOT sign up for any right now.  There are a few great ones that I'm bummed I can't do this time around:  the Modern She Made swap, the Potholder Pass, the Tabletop Swap, and the Fab Little Pincushion Swap, just to name a few.

Luckily I've been involved in some pretty great swaps lately.  Here are a couple I finished up -

The Scrappy Mug Rug Swap.  I love making minis...they're so quick and fun!  It's great to try out new blocks and ideas and techniques on a small scale so you don't spend too much time (and fabric!) on something that may not turn out fab.  My partner for the Scrappy Mug Rug Swap was the crazy-fun Kristen of Gock's Frocks.  She likes bright and scrappy, just like me, so it wasn't hard to be inspired for her mug rug.  Do you like it?  I tried some organic, wavy quilting and I just love how it turned out!

I received an amazing mug rug, too...I'll share it with you tomorrow...once I finally take pictures of it.

I also took part in the Doll Quilt Swap.  It's one of those swaps that can be a little intimidating (at least for me) because of the amazing talent in the group.  Not that my other swaps weren't full of awesomely-talented ladies and gentlemen, but there was just something about the last round or two of the Doll Quilt Swap that made me a little nervous to join.  I just sent this puppy out this morning, so mum's the word on its recipient:

This swap comes complete with some rules...I can be a rule-follower when I want to be, so I was game!  We had to make a quilt using at least 6 blocks, one of which had to be a log cabin, flying geese, churn dash/shoofly, drunkards path, or N.Y. beauty.  PLUS, we had to use a non-white solid.  So, after taking it all in and checking out my partner's mosaic and doing some stalking, I decided to do hexagon log cabin blocks, a la Lee of Freshly Pieced.  I made a pin cushion a couple of months back using her Hexing Around block and I just wanted to do it again...they're way fun to make!  I put them in a staggered setting on a spring green background.  I wasn't sure about the color at first (I mean, hello, white goes with everything!) but now I just love it...I think with the quilting and the orange binding the whole thing just works.  I sure hope my partner loves it as much as I do!

The last thing I sent off is a secret.  As soon as the recipient gets it, I'll fill you in...it's a good one!

So, between my swaps, bee blocks, other sewing, and moving, I've got lots going on!  I'll keep you posted on everything - it's a whirlwind around here!!  Thank you to everyone who has signed up for my Charming Travelers giveaway.  If you haven't, check it out HERE.