Thanks for the nice comments - I've found these go together pretty fast, and it's nice to be using up some of my rather large candy stash. I had a few totes of 2.5" strips and found I was not using them, so I cut them into squares and now have a lot of them. But they are getting used and that is the goal.

I still have a lot of neutral candies, so I'm thinking of doing 4 patch and then square in square and putting them around as the border. For this one I picked out several large print fabrics to use for the hourglass part. The original pattern only uses two fabrics, but I wanted something with more contrast and more variation. For me, most of the fun is to take the basic pattern and see what modification I can come up with. When this is done, I'll have a dozen lap quilts ready to give away, or hang in my office as they are the perfect size for that.

OK, Swappers it is that time of month for me to send out the new list of May Birthday girls. Huston, we have a problem https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/wave.gif. My world was hacked. My financials, my work and I can not use my laptop until it has been scanned for evil viruses and the like. Guess what is on the laptop? You bet'cha all the birthday list information. It will be a couple of days before I can get my laptop back. It goes to the Geek Squad tomorrow morning and they predict 2 to 3 days. I have borrowed a unit from my daughter so I can continue to work from home but of course our list is on the desk top of my own machine and not on any thumb drive. Who would have expected this?

So, I think we have three birthdays for May and one is the 12th or 13th as I recall and the other two later in the month. Get ready to send if you aren't already. I will send addresses ASAP. We should still be OK if we send out quickly after the names and addressed arrive. Sorry my friends. I fell for the trap that sounded so real, a call from Amazon because they saw some unusual activity on my account. They mimicked my account to prove their point and then went crazy. No money lost, but most of my day was consumed with getting the good guys to close accounts and open accounts and on and on. I will be back tomorrow with news, good news I hope. In the mean time, quilt on!

Oh no, WMUT. So sorry that happened to you! I think it's everyone's great fear. We'll hold tight til you get the addresses back.

WMU - yuck. So sorry to hear you are going through this. So many strange and mean things in the computer world. Here is for a speedy recovery of your machine!

It is a sad world when one of our fears is being hacked! I answered a text and now all I get are absurd texts at all hours. No way to stop them once they have your "active" number.
I have my envelopes ready for addresses so have no fear!

So it looks like neither birthday card was received for April. Not sure what happened. They both were maile. So I am sending them out again. With tracking, somebody will get them. Sew fun

I'm sorry, cuppy. Will let you know as soon as I get mine. But with tracking, maybe you'll already know. https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/wink.png

Did you receive a birthday card from me

Today cuppy's long lost birthday card showed up. It had been damaged in transit, so the postal service had to doctor it up a bit before sending it on. The postmark is April 2, so she was definitely on time in mailing. Thank you, cuppy!

I wanted to say I have received several cards with damaged envelopes. Seems we thrifty people are using those free cards that charities send out with their requests for donations. The envelopes are not up to snuff for being packed with candies! If you choose to use them, please tape all the edges real well, or they will split open. This causes long delays in mailing, if you ever receive them at all.

So, I think now all of my candies are in. Thank you everyone, for helping me celebrate my birthday!

Cuppy, I have received yours on April 6.