We have a winner!

Thank you to all who played along in my Giveaway!!!

The MOML was very worried HE was going to be in the photo but I assured
 him it was possible to just snap his fingers :-)

Trusty hubby drew a name out of the tin tonight and I am pleased to announce that the winner is Shirley!!

Congratulations Shirley, if you send me your snail mail address I can pop the block holder in the post for you :-)
I will leave the pattern for this on my Patterns page for those who would like to make one for themselves.
Have a lovely week everyone,


PS And thanks to Cat who reminded me that I had celebrated another bloggy birthday once before, here.

Sunday sewing with Temecula.

It felt good to get some sewing time yesterday - there are lots of distractions around here at the moment. The Temecula Quilt Co sewalongs are fun little mystery projects and I find them irresistible! When I started playing along with their most recent one I gave myself a good talking to. High priority needed to be finishing the previous one!
So here it is - 

Blessings Baskets

Temecula Quilt Co ran this project in March - the instructions are still up on their blog so it's not too late to do it. It is 16" square and just so lovely.

Had another play with feathers - some leave much to be desired but I had fun!

And here is the start of their latest one - Summer Stars. We've been wet and windy recently so it's nice to be thinking about Summer! There will be eight in all so I'm half way!

I'm enjoying the chance to play with different fabrics and colour ways for these little quilts - raiding my stash so see what will go with what. I must have a liking for these duck egg blues and browns as I found a few to play with.


And my distractions lately? They mostly involve being out with these little critters and their mums - yes, calving has started and it's heads down for us right now. Last night heavy rain was threatened so we had to bring all the stock back from over the river in case it floods - fingers crossed it doesn't happen.

We had a lovely photo opportunity last week - it was warm and moist - 

The countryside bathed in mist - it  looks like we live near the ocean but there
are acres of bush and pasture under that fog!

And one last distraction - this is of the really good kind; a good book and a cuppa....

My lovely friend Megan made me this mug - neat, huh?

The book is about the life of Grace Snyder who grew up in sod houses in Nebraska in the late 1800's and went on to be a remarkable quilter (I understand! I haven't got that far through it yet). I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
Don't forget to enter my Giveaway if you haven't already - I'll be drawing it tomorrow sometime :-)
In the meantime, happy sewing,

PS Don't ask me why some words are highlighted and some aren't!!!

As promised.....

Thank you all for your birthday wishes and kind words after my previous post. AS PROMISED, I have been busy writing up the instructions for the Block Holder. Maybe if you don't win it, you may like to make one up for yourself.

Love To Stitch Block Holder

LINK FOR PATTERN HERE
(You can also get to the pattern via my 'Patterns' page
situated under my main header)

I just wanted to be part of the cycle of sharing and goodwill that is prevalent in our blogging land. I hope you enjoy the pattern as much as I have enjoyed the ideas and patterns of other crafty bloggers around the world.
It is not too late to enter the draw for my giveaway - just leave a comment on THIS post; and I will contact you if you are a winner.
Thanks for playing along - I'm enjoying this!!
Raewyn

A Giveaway!!

I've been beavering away lately making this blockholder.

I do like making these; I think it's because they are practical, pretty and achievable.

Pages of cotton batting to keep blocks cozy and safe

I've also been thinking about celebrating...Since I have been blogging I have passed special milestones like first post, 10th post, 50th post, 100 post (and so on), I've also had 1st blog birthday, 2nd blog birthday; 1st follower, 100 followers - and all these have passed by without a celebration...
This month is my birthday month so I have decided that NOW is the time to celebrate!!!
So without further ado, I introduce to you, my FIRST EVER giveaway!!!

If you would like to win this Block holder, carefully designed and crafted by moi, just leave a comment on this post. You do need to be a follower (old or new) and of course you need to be contactable (ie not a no-reply commenter).
I'm happy to post to anywhere in blogland. I'll keep this open until 31st July.

[And because I've got so many patterns and ideas from others in blogland, I will have the pattern for this available for you to download  - probably next week when I have finshed writing up the instructions and have worked out properly how to do the google.doc thing! I'll let you know when that happens :-) ]
Thanks for joining me in my celebrations!! Happy stitching,

A mini finish and another gift

I still seem to be in my Mini Phase. They are an easy thing to manage when all your sewing things are upended. I tried to be so logical and organised when I packed up my sewing cave a few months back (for our little house extension) but I failed miserably!

In the meantime, minis seem to be the way to go. I've just finished this one.

Cute huh? The pattern is Scrappy Whirlwind from the About.com Quilting site. The little blocks are foundation paper pieced and finish at 3". I probably took the papers out a bit early and therefore some of the points aren't quite matching but I decided not to lose sleep over it:-)

I had fun with the quilting - not a free motion foot in sight. After Wendy pointed out the secondary pinwheel pattern (duh, I hadn't picked it up (yet)!), I was inspired to fill the pinwheels with stitching. I quite like the effect.

Then I played with my fancy stitches and the memory button on my machine and did this simple outer border quilting.

I see Temecula Quilt Co is doing another mini Sew Along - this time with stars. As I've done both the others this year, the 12 Days of Christmas and Blessings Baskets (which is still in the quilting stage)I'm thinking, why break a tradition... I may as well join in again!

I received an awesome gift from our son and dil in the post today -

Photos blown up and printed on canvas.
Photo 1 - Mumsy and her Big Boy
Photo 2 - DIL holding the Koala, and me and my 3 kids.

The girls and I recently 'popped over' to Mid-Queensland (Australia) to surprise my Big Boy for his birthday. We had a wonderful time, the surprise was completely a surprise, and these photos will be a fabulous momento of the weekend.

Sneaky peeky

There will be some more gifting going on here (sometime) next week - so it would be nice if you came back then for another visit.....
Until then, happy creating every-body!

Another block and some gifts.

I seem to have had another bloggy break but I am hoping I am back with a vengeance this time.
While I have been 'absent' I have finished another of my Hop To It blocks...

Block 7 - Batik Beauty. Fromthe book Hop To It by Edyta Sitar.

 

I am so keen to get this done - I have just 3 blocks to go. In my last post I was wondering about my colourwaves for the sashing/borders. I've gone off the rust idea and think I will go for a different look incorporating the fabrics I have used in the blocks. In the end I decided that the rust just didn't let the blocks shine... so I will continue to play and see what happens.

I've also been the lucky recipient of some lovely gifts recently... it was my birthday and some of my gifts included handmade items from my clever crafty friends.
Leeanne made me this cushion. It is made using the Trapunto technique, with extra batting put behind areas at the back. Very lovely.

I've put this photo first as it shows the real colour.

I didn't realise the colour had washed out in the photo until I loaded it! It does
show the dsign off very well though!

Barbara made me this tape measure cover. All done in wool felt. Absolutely lovely.

Great detail - very effective.

And Kerry surprised me with this scarf. Lengths of yarn laid out between wash-away and joined at intervals with zig-zag stitch. Cunning huh?

Just my colour! And I've worn it on an outing already.

Love the textures

Wasn't I spoiled?? Thank you so much, lovely ladies. - I love them all.

I've run myself out of time tonight - will share more next time. In the meantime, I hope you're all finding some creating time - and keeping warm, or cool, and dry, where-ever you live!