56 Shades of Gray ... and more Goodies from the Post office

It's so much more fun to go to the post office when you come home with fabric and other quilty goodness.

I participated in the Shades of Gray fabric charms swap–my first fabric swap in years.

It reminded how, when I first began to quilt, I joined many, MANY fabric swaps in online groups.  It was a great way to build a scrappy stash and I still have a few of the many 4-inch wide-of-fabric (WOF) strips, 10-inch squares, fat eighths and fat quarters swapped so long ago.

I gave up my swap-a-holic ways long ago, but since I didn't have much variety in the gray fabrics in my stash, when I saw the shades-of-gray swap, I saw an opportunity to enrich my collection.

Here's the stack of 56 charm squares that I sent  and the 56 shades of gray that were returned to me–I'm not sure they'll sit in my stash for long ... I keep thinking of things to do with them.

Also in my post box were the patterns below, won in a giveaway on Glen's blog, Quilts and Dogs.

I love Edyta Sitar's patterns and I love these tulips–I'm thinking wall-hanging to be ready to hang next Spring.  The Hula Hoops pattern looks like a great pattern when a large quilt is needed quickly. Thank you Glen.