Laume's Studio

Today was the day to mail out our packages for the Sweet and Sinister Swap hosted by Artsymama. I amazed myself by actually meeting the deadline! I tried out a number of different ideas. Some worked, some stumped me (for now), a few came to me all light bulby at the last minute and I stayed up late several nights trying to finish "just one more thing" and then another "just one more". It was a lot of fun.

Although I had everything ready and boxed up by the deadline, that doesn't mean I actually mailed it on time. No, that would be too out of character, yes? Too incredible to believe. But I actually have two very good excuses why the box is sitting in my living room waiting to be mailed out tomorrow morning.

1. Someone hit a telephone pole or something this afternoon. The lights flickered, then went out and stayed out. So I couldn't turn on my computer to find my swap partner's mailing address.

2. When the electricity finally came back on, long after the post office closed (which was good because I then had more time to add and wrap a few more goodies), I discovered that my swap partner had never actually given me her mailing address! Hopefully she'll get my e-mail and send it first thing in the morning.

I was going to post a bunch of photos of all the fun things I made or wrapped, but after thinking it through, I decided I don't really trust my partner not to peek (I probably would). Although I'm dying to share my pics, I'm more interested in keeping the secret, so you'll have to wait just a few more days. I'll share just one, a small tease.

A handful of Sweet and Sinister wrapped candies in a wee wooden box. Or is it?

But that's not to say I have nothing to share! As well as the S & S Swap, I've also been working to finish up a Halloween quilt block swap that is long past due. Although most of the swappers needed extra time, the blocks were well worth the wait. It was supposed to be a very simple Halloween Houses and Halloween Hats swap. Many swappers didn't really pay attention to the "keep it simple" part and I felt badly that my blocks weren't fancier. But, it's time to get them in the mail. (Warning - if you're in this swap and don't want to see the blocks before they arrive in the mail, now would be a good time to stop scrolling down.)

I tried several house block patterns and couldn't seem to wrap my brain around any of them. I kept cutting pieces the wrong size and ruining the attempts. Then I got an idea for a kind of stack and slash hat block. I had to fiddle with it through several incarnations before I got the hang of it but once I did, they were fun to make.

Here are the blocks. You can see how they developed as I went along. The one little purple hat on the orange background in the bottom corner didn't make the cut, it's a half inch too small for the guidelines. But the rest worked out the right dimensions.

It was a small group in the end. There was a lot of excitement over the swap when I first announced it. A lot of people signed up. Although I expected a certain number of drop outs, I was surprised and confused that almost everyone dropped out. Still, the blocks that arrived were fantastic. I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to swap all the blocks for those swappers who sent in multiple sets based on my original estimates.

Here are are a sampling of the blocks that swappers sent.