I WON!!! Thank you for voting! (+ a Giveaway)

Remember the competition last week for the most interesting sewingroom?

Guess what? I WON!!!!! Yay!!!!

I must say, I have been totally overwhelmed with the amount of people voting for me.. 182 apparently! which is approx 70% of the total vote with 10 finalists taking part.

The Oz Material Girls sent me an email saying "make sure you tell all your friends and family". As most of my online friends are either in the Old Red Barn Co or Doll Quilt Swap or both, I thought I'd post a thread there as the easiest way to reach everyone, never thinking anything of it otherwise....

I was SO surprised by the enormous support I got! Thank you ALL, SO much for voting for me. I was truly flabbergasted!! Marblesbestfriend even roped her husband and teenage relatives in to get extra votes.. Totally beyond anything I was asking for but much appreciated!

I does mean that I won though :-) and to say thank you to everyone who helped I have put together a little giveaway to show my appreciation.

Firstly 4 coordinating FQ's from Cranston Village and a few bits and bobs...

Secondly a panel with a gardening theme... maybe to cover your spring gardening notebook with? and some bits here too..


To win either of those please just leave me a comment. Nothing fancy this time, anyone welcome, anywhere in the world.

I'll randomly pick a winner after the weekend.

Good luck everyone and thanks again!

A double honour!!

You know how you get so terribly behind when you are out of the running for a couple of months or so?? Now that is what happened to me.....

I haven't been keeping up with the blog reading when I was ill, and so I never saw (and never commented) when I was awarded the beautiful blogger award by Lauranie ! (from the lovely blog 'This is sew my life'). Thank you so much Lauranie, it was so lovely of you to think of me and it sure was a surprise still when I discovered it even though I did so really late!!!


Then.. to my surprise I was awarded the same beautiful blogger award by Terri from 'Quilternity's Place' !! Thank you Terri!! I am thrilled she also thought I deserved the award! You know how you write posts and blog along but don't really know how it is all received? It is so wonderful to know that your blog is actually appreciated and the things you write about are of interest to others!


Thank you so much Terri and Lauranie, I am truly honoured to accept the award and will try to fullfill the conditions (which are underneath..)

I got them on here by cutting and pasting from Terri's blog but have been trying and trying to get the button in the sidebar (as I did with the DQS8 button and failed!) It is strange as I tried to do the same as I did for the other buttons but it is not working! Any advice would be very welcome!!

Here is the lovely button and here are the rules...


To accept this award, here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award. Thank you, Lauranie and Terri!
2. Paste the award on your blog (see above)
3. Link to the person who nominated you.
4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself (see below)
5. Nominate 7 or 8 blogs (see below)
6. Post links to those 7 blogs (see below)

Ok.. I have done 1,2,and 3. Now on to 4.

Mmmmm.... 7 interesting things about myself.... that is a hard one... I will try and find some facts not many of you know...(not sure whether they are interesting!)

1) I was born in Holland although I have lived all my adult life in Britain
2) English is my first language (even though Dutch my mother tongue) and I think and dream in English!
3) My favourite colour is turquoise
4) I started quilting in 2009, although I had a false start in 2004 when I had to stop after 3 months ...
5) I am normally quilting from patterns and I don't trust my creativity enough to 'just go and see what happens'... so I was quite scared doing DQS8, but I am happy I was forced to take the plunge!
6) I have always wanted to learn to play the piano, but every time I start, something else takes my time and I still haven't done it... it's on my list!!
7) I love photographing things but never got further than 'automatic setting' and 'click that button'... frustrating at times when I 'see' in my minds eye what I want the photo to look like but when due to not putting the right settings in (maybe I will learn that too one day) it doesn't come out quite like I imagined...

Rest me to nominate 7 (ish...) blogs (so many lovely blogs... hard to choose!!) and link to them. Here are some wonderful blogs I follow (in alphabetical order of blog) and certainly deserve to be put in the spotlight !! :

1) Jo @ Bearpaw blog http://bearpawandbearpaw.blogspot.com/
2) Greta @ Because I sew so http://becauseisewso.blogspot.com/
3) Cathy @ Cabbage Quilts http://cabbagequilts.blogspot.com/
4) Tia @ Campfollower blog http://campfollowerbags.blogspot.com/
5) Dolores @ Deeroo designs http://deeroodesigns.blogspot.com/
6) Susan @ Flossieblossoms http://flossieblossoms.blogspot.com/
7) Leslie @ Girl from tulsa http://girlfromtulsa.blogspot.com/
8) Karen @ Karenscosmos http://karensc0sm0s.blogspot.com/
9) Lisa @ Life at the blackbear cabin http://blackbearcabin.blogspot.com/
10) Bia @ Maria Retalho http://mariaretalho.blogspot.com/
11) Dana @ Old Red Barn Co http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/
12) Catherine @ The Sewing Attic http://thesewingattic.blogspot.com/
13) Evelyn @ Use the Loot http://usetheloot.blogspot.com/

Last but not least a message to my nominees...

I love all your blogs and wanted to give you this award because I so love reading them. Please feel free to put the button on your blog (if you can manage) but don't feel obliged to answer questions or nominate others if you don't want to.

I have given you the award because I think you blogs are great and I think you deserve them.. not to ask you to do things you might not want to do. I realize not everyone likes awards.. If you don't just ignore it!

Doll Quilt Swap 8. Finished!!

Yay!! I made it!! I have made my first totally designed by me - no pattern involved - little mini quilt!

I must confess... I was a bit nervous about this.. being a beginner I am still very much a pattern girl and as my partner said she did not like mini quilts consisting of a block, I read in that it had to be an art quilt.. A tall order! but I did it. and within the time limit too, which was a miracle seeing as I started so late...

I had a bit of a marathon week with this but... here it is;

The lettering is in Russian and it says "matrioschka", which is the Russian word for the russian nesting dolls. (correct me if I am wrong russian speakers! Sardana?)

a tiny bit closer....

the lettering detail;

and the face....


I am still not entirely happy with the face...doesn't she look a bit spaced out? definitely going to add the hair next time and maybe experiment with coloured permanent pens and draw the face on.. you can give it more expression maybe... not sure... but hope my partner will perceive her as being friendly, which she was supposed to be!

And this quilt is going to....

Ah .. yes.... you will have to wait for that a bit.. but is has been sent off this morning so it should arrive somewhere next week! (If the postal services look kind upon us....) fingers crossed!!

I am a Finalist!!

O my gosh.... I am a finalist!!! I can hardly believe it!!

Some time ago, the Oz Material Girls asked for a photo of your sewing space. They were hosting a competition and are looking for the best sewing space...

I did not think I had the best one of course... but ... nothing ventured nothing gained so I sent in my pic I took one evening a while ago ....

And I am one of the finalists!!! I can't believe it! and I didn't even clear up for the photo... look at all the mess... I now regret that of course ... sigh.... it would look so much better cleared up a bit....

Oh well....

SO..... if you like my space as much as I do... please will you vote for me??

Go here to the Oz Material Girls site and take part in any case and vote and I hope you like mine!

Thanks so much!!

Greta has a giveaway!

Lovely Greta of Because I Sew So blog, is having a giveaway.

It involves a FQ of Flea Market Fancy!!



Enough said... run along and check it out!!

Thank you Evelyn!!

I can hardly believe it but my bloggy friend Evelyn from Use the Loot blog has done the impossible and found my bloglist by doing some search somewhere (don't ask me where... I have NO idea!!) and sent me an email with all the links!!

It will take a bit of time to click on all of them, copy+paste, and re-add them to the blog but at least I haven't lost anybody now!!

PHEW!!!! A million thanks Evelyn!!!

I don't know how to thank you... (but I am sure I will think of something! :-)

NOW I've gone and done it.....

Do you remember my impossibly long blog list?? Well.... I kept adding to it when I saw an interesting blog... thinking... at least I can always find it back!!

Not all the blogs had google reader attached however and it became a days task to click and follow them all.... so....

I resolved to organise the list! I found I could make more than one list and wanted to subdivide in a sailing list, a list of bee members, friends I made in the Old Red Barn group, designers, shops etc. Having a lot of little lists, would make it easier to manage....

I started with the sailing ones as a practice run, as there weren't that many of them. I succesfully opened a new sailing bloglist (thus labelled) and added the sailing blogs... Then I tried to remove one of them from the main blog list... I clicked 'remove' next to the name, saved and looked in the blog... mmmm.... still there.... So back to edit, clicked the remove button again and thought.. 'surely what I have done wrong is that you then have to hit the big blue remove button...'........ so I did........ and

I LOST MY ENTIRE BLOGLIST!!!!

Oooooooh........

Welll.... some of you are still in my google reader as I put you in both!! That is the good news... the bad news is that I have no other record or idea at all where the rest of you are!! Until I come across you of course.... I told you I was surprised I managed blogger so far... it couldn't last...... snif.....

So.... if I do not come by, say hello, or mail you at all.... can you PLEASE come by and say "HI !! I'm here in case you have lost me!!" It'll take me months and months to get back up to scratch...

On a positive note, I have started sewing again! This is a sneak peak for the DQS8 border...

I have also made a start on the Russian Doll. Marianne Penner rightly pointed out she might look better with a little hair... That was so true... But I had allready finished her and no space for hair... So now she has a little.. thingie..... headband sorta thing... softens the whole thing a little... Thanks Marianne... I will add hair on my next one! as I am sure to use the Russian Doll theme again. I am really enjoying doing it and the more I do, the more other ideas I get! ... next time (bit of a time shortage this time!).

So peeps... please drop in and spread the word! I need your help to get my list back!!

Thanks so much in advance..... <3

It's snowing again!!

When you start getting emails saying are you ok... you know you haven't posted for a while! Thanks everyone who wrote, I am doing ok. This last week been quite tired so literally nothing got done, including sewing...

But I am feeling a bit more perky now and definitely on the up. I know I have been saying that a lot lately and I AM a little better every day, but I was trying to reason myself in being better and the truth is that it is going well but I have to be patient. However I went for short outings both yesterday and the day before which was lovely after a month indoors!!

This is what greeted me this morning when I looked out of the window;

looked in the backgarden;


and opened the front door...

The snow started yesterday with some snowshowers on and off, here one going off over the sea;



some were very heavy;


and some a bit lighter and fun to walk through;

Rafael certainly had fun in the park..

even though the ball was somewhat hard to find because as soon as it hit the ground it started gathering snow and turning itself into a mini snowman..


same happened to poor Rafa's paws... The snow clumped and gathered on his paws until it got too heavy to walk with and we had to make regular stops to break up the little snowballs he involuntarily gathered!

He really enjoys snow though and didn't mind the cold at all...we had to literally drag him back home he was having so much fun!

As for sewing... not started yet but definitely well enough to be up and doing things. I have started a design for DQS8 and have an idea. Also starting the bees blocks soon so things are on the up! Watch this space!!

It's still Christmas!

A parcel sent by my friend Bia in Brazil, and posted 14th December to be in time for Christmas, finally arrived at my house!! Designed to enrich my december period, it arrived just in time to cheer me up after surgery! Who knows, maybe it was delayed for a reason!

It does seem again that all good things come in threes!! First Jennifer's wonderful surprise, then my belated secret santa parcel choc full of goodies and then this one arrived!!

Bia is a very talented drawing artist. She has sent me some of her published images on all kinds of media....

Transfer stickers and some images on fabric allready;

A lovely quilting stencil, an amazing bag of buttons and her own designed and hand-made hand-painted wooden buttons. Isn't that dog supercute??

several pieces of material printed with her own designs... (I love those froggies especially!!)

and last but not least, a wonderful mini quilt to welcome visitors at the door.. Funnily enough I have been thinking of making one... but it would not have been as elaborate or beautifully done as this!

I will give it a gentle iron to straighten out the crease from the long, long journey and I will hang it up in our porch near the front door so it is the first thing visitors will see!

A few closer up pictures to see the wonderful stitching on the flowers;

french knots in the tree;

tre

and the little house;

Thank you Bia, for sending me such a lovely parcel. I love the little welcome quilt and all the other goodies you have put together and it means even more because you have sent your own work and I know you have spent many hours stitches with me in mind. I will treasure your work.