Handmade Gifts for me

Yesterday, the ladies of the Kitchen Guild bestowed handmade gifts on me for my birthday next week and I was quite overcome.  Firstly I opened this pillow from Laura Needles Pins and Baking Tins, possibly the loveliest person in quiltblogland and also my real life friend. As well as having "Jeepers" written on it, which I confess I say THE WHOLE TIME, every piece of fabric has been hand picked - there are many of my favourites there as well as some funny prints too including one which says "HAWAII VOTED INTO UNION AS 50th STATE".  The reason for that being on there is that Laura thinks I am a hilarious dunce for believing, until relatively recently that the reason the show is called "Hawaii 50" was that someone picked up the phone and said "Hawaii 5-0" into the received as we used to do growing up.  The convention in the olden days was to lift the receiver and state the name of your town followed by your telephone number in a BBC voice: "Carstairs 2-4-6-8" for example.

Next I opened a gift bag from my real life actual bestie Mandy made with love by mandy and nearly fell off my chair.  She gave me a mug with the logo on it which I had designed the afternoon before.  WHAAAAAAAAAT???  I am still not sure how she achieved this but I am now assuming she's a wizard or some such mythical being.  And then, because she is mad as a bag of spanners, she took it upon herself to HAND PIECE a paper pieced union jack.  Is that not the cutest mug rug EVER and actually I won't use it as a mug rug because I couldn't bear for it to get stained.

Next up were some snazzy coat hangers from Brioni Flossy Blossy who has been nagging me forever to hang the mini quilts in my kitchen from decent coat hangers rather than cheap plastic department store ones.  

Followed by a beautiful scarf.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am always cold and always wear a scarf, even indoors and now I have this gorgeous one to wear although you have to take it off when you empty the dishwasher or it dips in the wet puddle (I should imagine...).  This item was rendered more useful by the theft, by Justine's daughter Holly or the scarf I had been wearing.  However since Holly is now my new all time favourite child of all time except perhaps my kids and my neices and nephews, she was instantly forgiven.  

And of course, Justine of Simply Solids was somewhat forced into giving me solids for my birthday since I texted her, somewhat rudely, and asked if she would mind.  I've been desperate to get my hands on some Kona Glacier and the cream Essex Linen which looks like Kona snow only with a bit more depth and texture.  

Thank you to my lovely friends for all these beauties.  And what about you, do you like to give and receive handmade gifts?