Spicing Up the Kitchen Swap - Received!

Sometimes, in swaps, you just get super lucky and your partner is amazing. In the Spicing Up the Kitchen swap, there were a lot of really fantastic crafters. As I watched things being made, I kept thinking, "Ooh, maybe that one's for me. Its really great.", only to see them sent to other people. I am used to this, as it usually happens in swaps. This time the swap happened in the middle of the postal strike, so by the time my package arrived, most of the packages had already found a home. As I looked through the swap packages that I knew had not yet found their way to their home, I remember thinking, "Those really awesome oven mitts that would match my kitchen perfectly still haven't landed anywhere. Wouldn't it be awesome if they were for me?"

Guess what I got in the mail when I got home from camp?

This lovely, lovely swap package! Hedigoneaussie made me not only a pair of beautiful patchwork oven mitts, but a cute apron out of one of my favorite fabrics ( I have the teacup print in white and I use tiny bit of it all the time because I love it so much) and a hot pad that contained one of my current favorite blocks - this x and + block. (Speaking of which, you should check out Heidi's photostream to see lots more of these blocks - she is making a really amazing quilt out of them). I was totally wowed by this package.

Here is the other side of the oven mitts and the hot pad. Emma was convinced for a few days that the hot pad was for her, and used it for everything from a doll quilt to a placemat. I had to put it out of sight for a good week before she forgot about it.

I made a slight modification to the oven mitts by adding some ric rac loops to them so they could adorn a little slice of blank wall (some of you may remember it from this post ) close to my oven.

And this is how I use the hot pad to brighten my day first thing in the morning (when a certain toddler hasn't confiscated it):

 

Isn't it lovely? Sometime the kindness of crafty strangers just bowls me over!