goodies received

I've received a whole boatload of goodies over the past few days and have at last got round to scanning them so I can show them to you.

The first six cards are from the Surface Design groups 'May Blossom' swap.

 I love May Blossom the cow with her bell, unfortunately it stuck up a bit when I scanned the card so there is a darkening of this card, which is from Pauline.  The beautiful bird is from Lesley which is handpainted and finished with machine stitches. Carole has appliqued a branch and and embroidered blossom onto it.

 Irene's card also has painted the background on which she has sewn some pretty flowers on, I think created on a soluble fabric, very effective they are too.  Jan and Jacquie both depict flowers in different ways.  Jan's are stamped, painted and quilted, Jacquie has made use of printed fabric and photo printed fabric of blossoms plus a rather lovely stamp enhanced with a bee button.

 This card is again one of the Surface Design swaps with the theme of  'Coast'.  The card is from Pauline who has painted the background sky and used puff paint rocks and embellished the whole with hand dyed fabrics and topped of with hand embroidered flowers.

 One last swap, again with SD this one 'Art Dolls'  The top doll is from Debs and made from a tiny glass bottle.  The second doll is from Pauline and has beautiful moulded arms and face.

Last, but not least my QuiltGallery basket swap arrived all the way from Oslo, made for me by Anne Kari Holli.  It's a lovely bag, really sturdy just the right size for me to take to workshops with my lunch packed it it.   I love the faux quilting she has done on this bag.  It's made from strips of fabric sewn then attached to the bag by sewing them down the centre in a criss-cross fashion.  After that she has further defined the pattern by embroiderying large cross stitches in the centre of each  section.  I rather like this idea and hope she won't mind if I use it myself sometime in the future.