Presents are on the way....

A while back, my friend Mrs. Wookie over at Mrs. Wookie's Wanderings shared a "Pay it Forward" idea. She'd read it somewhere else, and shared on her blog, and then me on mine, and so forth. The idea was that the first person offered 3 homemade gifts, one each to the first three people to leave her a comment. The understanding was that those three people would turn around and "pay it forward" by offering the same on their own blog, facebook, email, whatever.

Mrs. Wookie accepted the challenge, offered it on her blog, I replied over there and offered it here. I actually had 4 people respond, two of whom have so far sent me contact information, and I'm happy to report that my mom carried off the wrapped presents and is mailing them today, so my recipients should get them in the next week or so. Sooze & June, let me know!

I won't show what I sent, since they've  not received them yet, but here are the wrapped packages, ready to be mailed....

for Sooze, over at Wild Life in the Woods

and for June, formerly of Mendon Foodie but no longer blogging
Wrappings on both are typical Brazilian gift bags.

I also sent off a gift to my little sister, and a gift to my quilting/sewing mentor. Can't show those either, since they've not reached their new owners yet.

Let me just say, though -- I had so much fun thinking of things to delight each and every recipient. Choosing just the right elements to include, thinking over what this person and that person would enjoy, sleuthing out things like favorite colors and such, and then praying for the recipients as I crafted their gifts -- it was so much fun. I'm a gift giver at heart, and my new hobby of crafting things with my hands (although not all the gifts are made of fabric and stitches....) is such a great way to implement that.

I can't wait until everyone gets their gift and I can share with you what I made. I'm working on three more gifts right now, too; one more to be mailed which I'll have to mail from here, and two for local folks. I'm waiting on one more person back home to give me some hint as to what sort of gift she'd like so I can make her something, too (hint, hint Momma 3M if you are reading...). I absolutely love that I can create things for the people dear to me.

I kind of still can't believe that a year and a half ago I was struggling to figure out how on earth to put together a few simple squares and triangles into one little quilt square, and now I've finished the main part of one quilt top, have made "stuff" which I said I'd never do (too hard!), am working on a quilt sure to be an heirloom for my boys one day, and am planning even more. I've got a design rattling around in my head for a Brazil themed quilt, and t-shirt quilts for the boys, and placemats and cloth napkins for our house, and gifts for folks for Christmas, and, and, and....

I never imagined one tiny little project that seemed so hard and confusing such a short time ago would turn into this hobby, passion, addiction, thing. I love having a new hobby that feels productive and not time wasting. I love that when I spend money on myself, buying fabrics, I can turn around and turn it into gifts for other people. I love that I'm busy in an industrious kind of way.

I'm having sew much fun, I just hope I don't bore you with my sew many sewing stories on the blog....