The Best Laid Plans

of mice and men- as they say! Did I say I was doing a workshop today? Wrong! Unfortunately it turned out that, because of illness, bereavement, house moving and Christmas holiday plans there were only 2 of us available to do the workshop (and the other girl really would have preferred not to be doing it!). So, after a phone call to the organiser, it was agreed to cancel it. :((

That's ok I thought. I'll just work at home on my embellisher! :)) Wrong! My dear friend Ann, who is struggling with a flare up of her ME, needed some help as her husband had to go into hospital today to get a repair done to his shoulder ligament (they only offered the date for the op on Monday). The help she needed was a little shopping and some baby sitting:-

Well, dog-sitting actually. May I present Floss! She's a cute little dog and was obviously keeping her beady eye on me!

Floss was busy watching me photograph the great post I received today.

First of all, a parcel from Lesley, otherwise known as Moogsmum. I ordered one of her Dammit Dolls to give to one of my friends for Christmas (the same friend who has PG monkey and Benji the confused bear). If you enlarge the pic you should be able to read the poem that goes with him and which still cracks me up when I read it.

Also in the parcel this delightful corsage (plus another which I can't show, in case......)

And finally, this lovely extra which I was not expecting! This is a coffee cup ring/cuff so you don't burn your fingers on your takeaway cuppa! Oh and not forgetting, chocolates! And my favourite maltesers too! Thank you Lesley, you are too kind! and very generous!

The next parcel came from Kate and was some beautiful blocks that she had offered to send me.

Aren't they beautiful? There are some lovely prints and batiks in these pieces. Kate is offering more of these on her blog as a giveaway (you need to pop over there quickly if you're interested). As I don't know much about quilting, and as I don't quilt myself, I cheekily said I wouldn't mind just one or two to give me a head start on some crazy quilting, well, crazy embroidery really. Kate very kindly sent me these. Not only that, but she followed it up with a quick tutorial by email! Thank you Kate! (She's probably fed up of me by now! LOL) These 4 blocks should keep me quiet for a while as I will use them for postcards and ATCs most probably.

I don't have any art from this week to show you so I thought I would pop up this watercolour I did a while ago of a ruined cottage near Roundstone in Ireland. (This is supposed to be an art blog, after all!) :))

Now, where did I put those chocolates??