Random Show and Tell

I love coming home to fun mail! In the box yesterday, I found my August Button of the Month buttons - Sail Away. The picts a bit fuzzy - I couldn't get it any clearer. And handmade grapefruit shea butter and gingergrass/honey/beeswax soap, ordered from Amisha's etsy shop, Bijou! Can I tell you just how much I love this stuff? I mean totally in love with the Grapefruit! Amisha is a soap-making Goddess!
I have been itching to dye some fabric, only I was out of one of the needed ingredients to create the chemical water that I use for the dye bath. What I didn't realize was that all along, there had been a big 5 gallon bucket, half full of chemical water, under my kitchen table (I thought the bucket was empty, until I moved it). I was doing the happy happy dance of joy! I mixed up a little cobalt blue (that always turns denim color - I really don't like it and I always forget that - so I dumped some red into it and made a lovely raspberry color that fades out to a funky pink), some emerald green and this lovely, lovely turquoise!
Oh, I was so pleased with this! It's going to be the backing of a "foot-pocket lap quilt" that I'm making for my friend Fran. Actually, I have plans to make 4 of them. The idea is that the end of the quilt will be flipped up and sewn in place (pre-binding, with either flannel or fleece on the inside of the pocket) and when my friends are sitting on the couch or at their computers (three of them are hard-core gamers), they can slide their feet into the pocket, pull the quilt over their lap and have toasty toes and legs.

(I really love these two fabrics together!)
This is the plan for Juli's quilt
The fabric is cut, but I realized that I didn't buy enough, that I should have gone with at least another quarter yard of each one (oops).
But I pulled these ones out of my stash, so rather than go back to the store, try to find all 6 fabrics that I randomly picked up (and all 6 of the ones I found for Maddie's), I figured I'd use what I already had - that's the whole reason for a "stash," right?
And I had to show you Monster Plant. Marcia gave me this plant. Her 90 year old mother-in-law received this when she was in the hospital a few years back. It was tiny and cute and she had repotted it 3 times since she got it (Marcia told me that her in-laws have green hands not just thumbs!). But her mother-in-law said that it was just getting too big for her to handle and she had to give it up. It is now happily sitting on my porch, providing Tallulah with her own private jungle from which she can hide behind and spy on the neighborhood.
And here ends my random show and tell for Friday.

Enjoy your weekend - my family and I are heading to Freeport tomorrow night for a free concert of my most favorite Newfoundland band, Great Big Sea. If you're in the area, it's happening right at L.L.Bean's Discovery Park!