Swap sneaks...

I was working and working last night...
These are some sneak peeks for my Four Seasons Summer Quilt Swap. I was inspired to not wait until the last minute. I thought..."What might getting something finished ahead of time feel like??"

Well, I finished the quilting last night and I feel GREAT! I got a little crazy with thread painting (for me). I like this one, and I hope my partner likes it too. I was excited that she gave me some preferences and it enabled me to focus the creativity a bit. Here, I thought that I had been nice to my previous partners by being so open, but now I am thinking that giving a few broad focusing ideas is helpful and even inspiring. I have been enjoying peeking in on her blog and divining something that she might like. We will see...
This happy package reached mi casa last week and I have been so lazy about posting. This is from my Flickr swap group... our theme was triangles and I just love my seascape star quiltlet! My partner, taylynnsbean, sent so many fun things along with the great quilt. My favorite is the Lucky Charms postcard that she made me. I was never able to eat this cereal as a kid, but I always LOVED the commercials for it and the jingle, it's Magically delicious! My oldest son swiped the pedometer that she sent and I haven't seen it since. I am sure that he has it stashed in his pillowcase and is using it as a super secret computer. Hopefully, he won't break in to the Pentagon, I can't take the stress...

My quiltlet for her is finished (another early finish!!!) but I can't show it yet because she might be peeking and reading the blog... I have to say my binding is getting WAY better with all of these little quilts to finish. I feel like I can whole-heartedly call myself an intermediate quilter now.(even though I started my first quilt 15 years ago!!!)

One more note:
I had a great experience the other day with Freecycle. I had some patio furniture that had been passed down to me that I was DONE with. I posted it and a wonderful woman came and picked it right up and was so happy...and I was so happy that it didn't get sent to the dump (or that I didn't have to cart it to goodwill...) Check it out. I think that I might post a bag of magazines next... I always want to keep them to collage with, but I don't need to keep more things. I really don't.
Happy Summer Day!
JMB