Thanks to everyone for your messages, get well cards and even gifts of fabric to make sure I keep myself entertained and away from work whilst recovery goes on. I'm happy to say that less than a week after the surgery, I'm off pain meds, well enough to take the dogs for a short walk yesterday and today have been to the pub for lunch. I'm still taking it easy the rest of the time, but am hoping to go back to work for a few hours on Thursday - strictly desk duties only! If only I felt fit to drive, I'd head off to meet the rest of the LMQG this evening who are lucky enough to be having dinner with Tula Pink! However, as I said, less than a week.....
Charlotte and Amy came to see me on Sunday so my other half could have a break from the onerous task of nursing me (?!?). We didn't even pretend we were going to do any sewing, and just sat around stroking the dogs and gossiping! Amy made us some lovely leek and potato soup - with 'homemade potatoes'. And a fantastic lemon cake, which was delicious.
Charlotte brought me gifts picked up from the Festival of Quilts - a glorious brown batik, my love for which is well known (not!) with the challenge to make something beautiful from it, and a more lovely gift of tape measures and spotty fabrics. I can't wait till the other half actually puts the ironing board up for me, like I've been asking for 2 days, so I can get on with some sewing. I have an idea of what to do with that batik......
I recently discovered the delights of Etsy. Admittedly I had tangled with it in the past when I tried to use it to sell stuff (unsuccessfully on that occasion), so more accurately I should say I discovered the delights of buying fabric on Etsy. And to be even more accurate, I should say I discovered the delights of finding an Etsy shop that stocks all sorts of hard to find fabrics that I've been drooling over but thinking I'd missed out on buying.
I found this little shop Blije Olifantije which I always want to call Blue Elephant, but apparently it means the Happy Elephant, which is obviously much nicer!
I found a whole load of stuff I've been hankering after, such as Denyse Schmidt Katie Jump Rope, Cosmo Cricket Tape Measures, and Melody Miller's View Finders. It's where I also tracked down the Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush fabric from which Charlotte made me the uber-impressive Kaleidoscope Crush mini quilt which you can see on her blog here. (I'm very excited to say I should be taking delivery of that very same mini this weekend - yay! Not to mention having the opportunity to once again attempt to steal the Love emblem mini.....)
Kit was really, really helpful. condensing my purchases down into 1 parcel to save me on postage and instantly refunding any over-spend there. She was also very, very patient when as an Etsy virgin I followed up far too eagerly to see why my purchases hadn't arrived yet! As it happened, by coincidence they arrived that afternoon, and I was delighted to find Kit had also included two little extras, just for me!
It's well worth a browse through The Happy Elephant, to see what's available. I've had to hide my purse in the car whilst researching this blog post so as I can't hear my credit card calling....
