Thursday, August 4, 2011

Birthday Cake for Me

Adam and his girlfriend, Katie, came down the other night with a birthday cake for me. Oh, it was 10 days AFTER my birthday, but I am the QUEEN of Late Gifts myself, LOL! It took me by surprise to the point that I "puddled up" a bit...aren't I the one who's supposed to be doing stuff like that for others? What's with this "somebody doing stuff for ME" thing?

Umm, here's the cake. Umm...ok, so it's a HALF a cake. No, Katie didn't just bring me a half a cake...some peeps have been munching on the cake (who would that be?). But when they brought it down, I was so stunned, I didn't think to take a picture right away.


SO out-of-the-blue it was...it rocked me to my core! It also made me think that the old saw "It's better to give than to receive" goes both ways - sometimes you've just got to receive so that someone ELSE can give ;-) But, having said that...I immediately pondered how I could get back at Katie, LOL! I decided she needed some reusable grocery bags. Her favorite color is green, and I'd recently tried Keyka Lou's Grocery Bag pattern, so decided to make her a couple of those. I love this pattern, and the only change I made was to add a hanging loop in the middle of one side at the top. This was Ben's idea so that it would fit over that little pokey-outey peg on the grocery store bag holder thingie at the checkstands (technical terms, I'm sure).

Of course I didn't have anything suitable in my stash (IS MY NOSE POKING RIGHT OUT OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN INTO YOUR EYE?), so I zipped off to one of my LQSs, Bayside Quilting, and got these lovely green batiks and a green dot. Since they are lined, these bags take a LOT of fabric, so they are definitely in the GIFT category, rather than the money-making category (unless you have some fabric that was on sale to the point it was almost free). About $15-$17 apiece if using LQS cotton quilting fabrics since it takes 1 1/2 yards per bag at the going rate of $9.49 to $11.49-ish per yard (of course it would be less using JoAnn's or similar fabric). But since I don't sell my stuff, that's ok with me. Also, the fact that the pattern is an instant download pdf is a real bonus - no waiting for the mail!
The colors aren't quite so garrish in person - believe me!
A couple people have commented that the fabric below looks like The Matrix movie!
Thank you Katie for the wonderful cake! You are such a sweetie :-) And I hope you enjoy your bags :-)  

3 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great surprise in return.. I am sure she will love them.. oh btw can you send a slice of the delicious looking cake to me??
M

Anonymous said...

Cake is good while you sew :)
The bags turned out very nice! and Yea it's amazing how much fabric these little dears take. But using good fabrics will make them last. She'll be the most fashionable shopper! see you again real soon,
lovesusie.

Cathy said...

Oh what a sweet friend you are. I know she will enjoy the bags for years to come.