Coincidences? Good Fortune?

Today's been a bit different. Several bloggy friends and acquaintances have reached out and touched my day in different ways.

First thing this morning, as I got my cuppa coffee, a tulip quilt Red Geranium Sharon had shown us awhile back popped into my mind. This is one I really want to make, and I copied her photo onto my computer. Here it is:

(I know that Sharon tends to skim over words and concentrate on photos, so she'll probably see this photo before she reads what I've written and she'll think it looks a lot like her quilt. Then she'll realize I'm posting her photo and she'll probably threaten to sue me. Oh, well, what are friends for, eh?!) Anyway, so I'm thinking about this quilt, wondering whether Sharon ever got it quilted, when I turn on my computer and find I have an email from Sandy No Blog (see, photos aren't the ONLY thing I steal from Sharon! I also steal the "No Blog" name--before I'm done, "No Blog" will be more common than Jones!), and Sandy's talking about the VERY SAME QUILT! Isn't that a strange coincidence? Tonight I'm thinking about looking through my scrap bins because (1) they're getting full and I need to use some scraps, (2) I want to make a tulip quilt for spring, and (3) I'm really only in the middle of ONE quilting project (bunnies) if you don't count several BOMs, so is that really enough to occupy my mind? Anyway, keep an eye on this blog--you may see some tulips popping up before long!

So, having chatted about tulip quilts with Sandy No Blog for a bit, I read a few more emails and found one from another quilter, Karrin (Karrin's Crazy World), who lives maybe five miles away from me, and we never realized from each other's blogs that we were both right here! For whatever reason, she just read my profile and realized how close I lived. And here I'd been wondering why there really aren't many quilt bloggers in my area, and all the time, Karrin was only a hop, skip, and a jump away!

Now here I digress a little. Sometime ago, someone tagged me for that meme requiring us to write about how we got into crafting, or something along those lines. I THINK it was Carole, but I'm not 100% positive. I'm not very good about memes. I get tagged and figure I'll write about whatever it is the next time I can't think of something to write about, and then that just doesn't seem to happen, so I never get around to the meme. My bad! The other day I was surfing around some crafty blog sites when I came upon A Very Mary Design. Reading through Mary Ann's last few posts, I came across THIS ONE. (I don't know Mary Ann as well as I know Sharon, so I'm not nearly as comfortable about stealing her photos--you'll have to click on that link if you want to see a photo.) Mary Ann was giving away packages of "vintage" feathers circa 1950s or so. The give-away was done and over, but I commented anyway about my first real experience with crafting. Here's more or less what I told Mary Ann and the answer to that crafting meme:

Sometime back around the mid-1960s, a woman my mom knew was making and selling lovely feather birdcages to adorn her customers' livingrooms. They were made using two styrofoam disks for the top and bottom bases and white pipe cleaners for the "bars" of the cage, connecting the top and bottom. The styrofoam was then covered up with feathers. The birdcages were to be hung from the ceiling, suspended from pipecleaner chain links. Lovely visual, huh? I'm guessing I was about 8 or 9 years old, and these were the prettiest things I'd ever seen, particularly because they could be made using any color of feathers. So this woman took me under her wing (yes, the pun IS intended!) and taught me to make these beautious creations. And THAT, my friends, was my first "real" crafting experience.

When I got home from work today, I had an email from Mary Ann, telling me she had been cleaning out some things and came across another bag of these lovely feathers, and if I'd just send her my snail mail addy, they would soon be mine! Goodness knows I have absolutely NO IDEA what I'll do with them. Perhaps I'll be so overcome with memories and emotion, I'll press them to my nose to smell that authentic dyed chicken fragrance and asphyxiate myself with the plastic bag they're packaged in!

To round out my day of bloggy friendships, my mail lady brought me a package all the way from Synthia No Blog, who is currently in Hawaii. I had sent Synthia a sketch of a little applique project and she sent me this cute little bag to hold projects to take along with me. Tucked inside one of the pockets was a shell necklace.

This little bag will really come in handy because I usually try to take some kind of hand work to the office with me to keep me occupied during the lunch hour. Thank you SO MUCH Synthia! And thank you to the rest of my bloggy buds who come into my life in one way or another!

I'm sorry if this post is a little long, but you may not hear from me tomorrow as we're expecting to be blown to the Land of Oz. A big storm's coming in that is expected to rival the one we had in early January--remember the storm that knocked down fences and took out trees? I plan to hunker down in the Sweat Shop with Toto--I mean Bernina--wrapped tight in my arms. Enjoy your weekend plans, whatever they are!

P.S. Sorry that first photo appears blurry. I don't know why it turned out that way, but I tried taking it TWICE. Good lighting, setting on close-up, and still--CURSES! A person could go BLIND reading this blog--or at least THINK they were!