nine hundred ninety-nine posts on the blog . . .

Wow.  I can hardly believe I've written 999 posts.  It's really weird to see it in writing, too.  And it's my last post of the year . . . post number one thousand will hit the stands at 0:00 on January 1, 2013.  And with it will come a GRAND giveaway and thoughts for the new year as well as a startling revelation. But enough about that . . . today's post is about the past.

In December of last year, Joy, of Joy & Comfort, emailed me to say she'd won a giveaway over at Cat Patches ... a charm pack of Little Apples.  Joy had found the contest from a link on my blog and decided to share her winnings with me.  True to her word, a couple weeks later I received a squishy package of Little Apples! Subsequently we decided to make something and share . . . we decided on a swoon block, which was very popular and showing up on lots of blogs at the time.  We set a date -- early in March -- to come back and share our projects, and set about to craft our projects.

I took mine to quilt retreat and put together my top.  

I posted about it HERE.  And I'm linking it up as a design wall from design walls' past at Patchwork Times.  LOL!  :)

But knee injuries and grandbabies and gardens and LIFE happened.  And so we didn't post our dual posts in March.  Or April.  Or May, June, July, August, September, October, or November.

And then we were ready!  Another December ... a year has passed ... and we're both ready to share!  Here's my sweet little project . . .

A plump and cushy little swoon pillow.  I'm not sure where it will end up yet . . . I like the idea of paying it forward!  And when I do, I'll pull the pillow form out and do a special, personalized embroidery in the center.

And so you should *definitely* check out my benefactor's project . . . Joy worked the same block, but with a different outcome and it's beautiful and go see it!

:)