Birthday goodness

This bowl is similar to one that I have long been coveting whenever I visit my sister's house - I can't quite describe what it is that I love about it, but it seems to me to possess essence of bowly perfection. It is one of my lovely birthday presents from my mother. The gorgeous pink boxes inside are face creams. For as well as eyeballing my sister's possessions, I sometimes find that when I'm in conversation with my mother I end up staring at the side of her face, rather than concentrating on what she's saying (which must make me scintillating company, not to mention appear more than a little odd, but luckily she has to love me whatever), for it is so unbelievably smooth and soft-looking. So when she asked me what I would like for my birthday, I asked for some of her staple Rosa Fina cream in the hope that I might end up with some of her peachy loveliness. I don't normally keep things in their boxes...but these are too nice to discard.

You may or may not recognise what Mr Teacakes' cake is this year...so for those of you that don't, it's a cake-incarnation of one of my teabag holders (actually very much like this one that I first made around the time of my birthday last year), fortunately with butter cream and sponge in the place of dried herbs. He also chose some beautiful fabrics and had them sent over from Holland for me - I can never believe quite how well he knows what prints are likely to appeal to me.

And what a lovely surprise to find, in with his order, this gorgeous handmade tag from Noor. Her shop is one of my absolute favourites that I spend far too long browsing in (and Ian, with his now extensive knowledge of Internet fabric shops from years of birthday and Christmas shopping, declared it to have the nicest selection of fabrics he'd ever seen).

My sister, as well as other bits of loveliness (wonderful Halva brought all the way home from a recent trip to Israel - one of my favourite things to eat, but the Sunita varieties available in this country don't compare to the real thing that we ate as children), sent me this card, which I fell in love with the minute I opened the envelope. I'm hoping to buy a frame for it this week.

This evening though, I finally got around to looking up the website on the back of the card in the hope that some bigger prints might be available...but when I read the 'about' section on the website I may have temporarily stopped breathing such was the awe that struck me. For I wouldn't have guessed that the amazing range of prints, including mine, was created using fabrics and a sewing machine. At first I thought that it must be refering to a different range of cards that I hadn't yet seen, but when I looked closely (Dinosaur-boy's bug-catching magnifying glass was involved) I could see that, indeed, the ribs of her tights, the creases in her dress and the shape of her shoes was actually created using tiny rows of stitching on a background of delicious fabrics, mixed with a little bit of paint here and there. It takes applique and textile pictures (or art in this case) to a level that I hadn't even begun to imagine and leaves me feeling quite dizzy. And yes, as well as being able to applique like that (but is it applique? I'm still mystified), I would also very much love to own the dress, tights and shoes of the girl in the picture. For more jaw-dropping stitchery cleverness do go and look at the Gwendolen website.