The first of many

I'm so excited! My Rouenneries Stone Soup wall hanging is done! Thanks so much to all of my quilting and non-quilting friends for their border help. I went with the red, obviously. But then Shelleybean left the idea of a red flange with the tan block print (option 3) after I had the top all done. I thought that was a GREAT idea, because as many of you know, I love a flange!!!! If you don't know what a flange is, this is a great explanation (and it looks like they have some fabulous quilting how to's).

Binding Guru Karen dropped it off Tuesday night and I promptly washed it to get it all wrinkled and quilty. I was a little concerned about how the linen blend would wash, but it turned out nicely. I think the linen gives it a nice texture. I have at least 4 quilts I want to make with this fabric.  

I quilted straight lines through the light colored squares, which I think makes it look like the dark squares are more complicatedly (is that even a word?) pieced, like they are really a sqaure in a square instead of just blocks. I used my water soluble interfacing technique to quilt the feathers in the setting squares and the outer border.

The backing is from an old Moda 3 Sister's line called 'Wuthering Heights' that I had in my stash. 

Now I just need to find the right place to hang it! It will have to be somewhere where I see it often.

I also whipped up this cutie patooty bag. I don't think it's possible to not smile when you see Girl Scout cookies. The fabric is from Kaufman's 'Girl Scouts' collection. I couldn't resist it, having been a girl scout myself. I made the bag for my friend's daughter, who, it goes without saying, is a girl scout! I'm also going to make one out of the pink cookie material for her to give as a prize to the cookie salesgirl who sells the most cookies in her troop. And I have the green cookies to make myself a little something. I made the pattern up as went along to try to highlight the fabric. I'll have to make the little racoon badge stand out on my bag. I loved that badge as a child.

And even though I do not do the whole Valentine's Day thing because of my V-Day curse, the hubby suprised me with these gorgeous hot pink roses and sushi for dinner. Wasn't that nice of him?