best mail day in the history of forever.

Yesterday I got not one, but TWO amazing packages in the mail.  From the Pillow Talk Swap, Kirsten at Three Dancing Magpies sent me this gorgeous linen and velveteen pillow and a whole mess of goodies (button kits to make huge gorgeous fabric buttons, a Starbucks gift card, a Christmas charm pack, the pillow form and some AMH dobby dots in blue!):

Photos just don’t do this pillow justice.  It’s a very tactile pillow and the velveteen and rich dark chocolate make is so luscious you just want to squish into it forever!  This pillow is living in my studio until Christmas is over, and it is going to make it a lot easier to put the Christmas stuff away knowing I have this pillow waiting!  (And I will have fun making some companions for this guy!)

As if that wasn’t enough, another big package arrived for me from Kelly that had me squealing as I opened it.  Kelly and I are old friends from the scrapbooking world and we arranged a Christmas themed pillow swap as a spin-off of the Pillow Talk Swap.  Kelly has been posting pictures of this pillow as she created it and I was drooling and gushing all over it.  It is so fantastic and it’s just genius.  It was so fun to sit last night and look at all the different fabric lines represented in the pillow.  They coordinate so perfectly and are just so merry and jolly!  I love looking at the quilting and measurements of the strips to see how Kelly pulled it off!  (I love the logistical little details like the strips between letters being half as wide as the strips between “Ho”s .)  She also sent me a charm pack and the pillow form–how generous are my swap partners?!

It is happily installed on the sofa for the rest of the Christmas season:

I really loved these swaps.  I had so much fun opening these boxes and I think the best part of the swaps was seeing something new.  These pillows were both different from what I would have made and I love getting to see and learn from them!  Kirsten’s pillow with the gorgeous brown linen has me itching to expand my linen routine, and I never would have understood the AMH Innocent Crush love if I hadn’t gotten to see them in person put together like this.  Rich and luscious!!  I’ve been shying away from quilting on my pillows because I haven’t really been able to ‘see’ how to design the quilting.  So I loved seeing how the gorgeous two squares of quilting on Kirsten’s pillow add so much, and how Kelly quilting around the Ho Ho Hos to make them pop.  Kelly has me thinking about piecing and letters in a whole different way, not to mention thinking outside the box (or pillow form!) for more creative pillow openings.  Both pillows have me coming back to them, looking at them, examining how they were made, and so blown away by the creativity and generosity of my swap partners!  I’m like a little kid on Christmas morning, so amazed by how Santa pulled it all off, and wondering how on Earth I could be worthy of such presents!