And the winner is.......

Number 3!!

Cindy3 December 2012 22:39

I love the Tilda books! I haven't purchased one yet, but every time I go into my local fabric store I am so tempted.

Congratulations Cindy.  I did try to copy the random number thingy but i'm a div and whilst trying to copy it I caught the button, and re-generated!  I have just emailed Cindy, and will be posting her book out as soon as I have her address, so hopefully she will receive it before Christmas.

Ange xxx

A Charmed Life Indeed.....

Despite my doom and gloom predictions that my Texty Charms had been lost in the post, they arrived through my letterbox earlier this week, and oh my, are they beautiful!   

There will be a bit of head scratching on what to do with these, as I haven't entirely decided yet, possibly splitting off the low volume charms and adding them to the Low Volume Charms from the other swap I've joined, or keeping them all together and making something showing them all off together, or a different idea altogether, i need to ponder this one, and stroke them a little longer......

I also managed to get my Low Volume fabric all chopped up into charms, and as the Lovely Laura who is the swap boss lives in Leicestershire too, she was kind enough to meet me for coffee (well, a humongous hot chocolate for me) in the city, so I could hand them over.  And I have to say, she is absolutely lovely, really sweet, and how nice was it to meet the lady behind one of my favourite blogs!

 

Now I just have to wait for my charms to come back, and as I was greedy and had 2 spaces, that is 112 gorgeous Low Volume Charms which will be winging their way to me over the festive period, more post to look forward to, hooray!

Ange x

Tilda's Spring Ideas- A Giveaway & A Mini Book Review

 I have been meaning to do a giveaway with this book for the last month (or so), and seeing all of the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway day posts today has finally spurred me into action.  As well as the book, I will also include a little scrap pack surprise for the lucky winner, can't say fairer than that!

So, onto the Mini Book Review:
The Tilda brand of Tone Finnanger is generally considered legendary in sewing "circles", as a go to series for cute and stylish Scandinavian style makes, and this one doesn't disappoint.  It has a lovely collection of items to make, including a Garden Party Angel, Sewing(!) Angel, the cutest garden bug I've ever seen, quick make fabric flowers, and a beautiful sewing kit.  

I would describe it as a Project Book (11 in total, by my counting), rather than one of the full sized Tilda Books (like Sew Pretty Homestyle which I already own), but that doesn't stop the pages being positively strokeable, and the photography absolutely sublime.  I mean, seriously, who doesn't want to go and live in Tone Finnangers perfect world once they've seen the photos in her books?!

This is a great little book, perfect for those new year projects, when you've finished stuffing yourself with turkey, and wine, and look forward to those fresh and bright spring days to blow away the cobwebs! In fact, why am I giving it away, now that's got to be a mistake, especially as that little Garden Bug is soooooo adorable.

So, if you love Tilda, get your name down below, and you never know, you just might win (someone has to!).

Rules:
It's open internationally.  
Leave a comment below, and if you're a no reply blogger be sure to leave your email address in the comment so I can get in touch with you.  
It would be great if you were a follower, but it's not necessary for this giveaway, and if you get the chance, take a look around.
1 entry per person please, and I will have to delete second comments if there are any, as it could get very confusing if not!

I will pick a winner at random on Sunday the 9th of December, 8pm UK time.  

This book is also available to buy at RU Craft in the UK.

Ange x

I HAVE AT LEAST 4 NO REPLY BLOGGERS WHO HAVE COMMENTED AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CONTACT SHOULD THEY WIN, PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR ANSWER SO I CAN CONTACT YOU IF ARE UNSURE!!

Competition now closed!  

Fabricating A Really Good Weekend

 I'm having a very good weekend!  

Reason Number 1:
Now I wouldn't say I'm a glory hound, but there is something really great about seeing your work on other peoples blogs!  

Firstly, the lovely Lynne at Lily's Quilts has today put up my Reversible Poncho Tutorial on her fantastic blog, which I made for the Abakhan Budget Buster Challenge.  

The lighting wasn't great on Tuesday when I completed this, so the photos weren't as bright as I'd like, but hopefully the instructions and photos will be good enough to enable people to make one should they so wish!  

It was my first tutorial, and they're quite difficult to do justice to (I'm not sure if I have done it well yet, I guess we'll see in the coming weeks if anyone decides to make it!), but I think I will do some more tutorials in 2013, as it's quite a good process to get you thinking about the whole creative process, and I really want to give something back to the online community whose tutorials I have found so helpful.

Reason Number 2:
So, the second thing "making" my weekend is this...

 The lovely Kerry at PennyDog Patchwork, has launched her Indiegogo Fundraiser for a new UK monthly quilting magazine.  If you are the kind of quilter who has found that the UK market just doesn't have a good, reliable monthly modern quilting magazine (I know Modern Quilting has left a lot of UK quilters angry and disappointed), then this will be the publication for you!  But, it can only happen with your help and support. Kerry needs to raise £5000 to start the magazine and pay for shelf space at the retailers, and is willing to exchange it for subscriptions or ad space for businesses.

I got to meet the Kerry last weekend, she's pretty local to me, only about 20 minutes away, and she is absolutely lovely.  We have been chatting over email/blog a bit in the last few months, and when she said she wanted to start a new magazine, I was really enthusiastic about the idea. So when Kerry asked me if I would let her use one of MY QUILTS for the mock up of the magazine cover, I was happy to oblige!  So, as you can see if you look a little closer at the front cover, that grey quilt, is MINE, yay!  

So, now for the key bit of this post, please head over to Kerrys Indiegogo Fundraiser, and support her if you can.  I for one will be signing up for a subscription, and I clearly wont be the only one. I came across the lovely Susan at Canadian Abroads blog post this morning about the very same thing, and got a little buzz seeing my quilt on her terrific blog too.  If you haven't seen Susans blog, head over and have a look, she's quite prolific in her quilting/sewing, and she blogs most days, all good stuff.

Ange x

p.s. I'm not being paid to promote Fabricate, I have no financial links to it, although I did suggest the name!

 

Fresh Sewing- November Roundup

Before I review the month of Novembers progress, I have to say it feels like one of those slightly frustrating months where I didn't get much fun stuff finished, but made some progress on the must do jobs of the month, so that's good I suppose!  I'm determined December will be a month of fun stuff, and when the mood takes me to make something, I'll be giving it a go.

Actual finishes, well that's as follows:
Sneak peek, Secret Squirrel Tutorial reversible poncho, check out Lily's Quilts blogpost tomorrow for the full details!!

 2 x Advent Calendars

The final one!

A new snuggly cowl for me.

Mr Camohog, my fun crocheted finger puppet...

Finally finished this baby, Walk in the Woods quit

Some screen printed goodies that I made and now i need to make some Christmas and other things with them, made at Sarah Waterhouses terrific one day class.

Photo care of Sarah Waterhouse

 A princess crown, getting it's first proper outing at a party this very afternoon

 A couple of pencil cases (the bags i completed in October).

And a book review, it's not sewing, but it was another thing off the list of things i needed to do, and I've even started a new project inspired by the book, it's secret squirrel at the moment......

Tomorrow I will be having a book giveaway, so check back and enter to win, this will be open internationally, so no-one is left out!

Ange : )

List, What list?

Well the list is kind of being done, slowly, it always seems to be harder going when I have things I have to get done!  I did however have a complete day off from things on the list, and just did what I wanted to do little diversion at crochet class this week when I started (and finished) on Wednesday, a new black cowl for me, and I can report it is lovely and warm, fits perfectly.  : )

I also managed to finish my final Advent Calendar yesterday, just one day before it absolutely had to get done, and have hand delivered it to it's recipient this afternoon, i think it was the best one so far.

There has also been some tutorial writing going on, and a big make, but more about that later as it's my secret squirrel project, and should be ready to go live in the next couple of days, watch this space.....  I have to say, tutorial writing is bloody hard, and it does make you appreciate some of the amazing hard work people put into making them usable and clear, hopefully mine will be ok, we'll see.

Did I mention, I've also started another little secret squirrel project too, wow, there really is an excess of secret squirrels round here at the moment, might even be called an  infestation, and I'm only making 1 actual hand made Christmas present this year for a 3 year old who doesn't read, so that isn't secret squirrel.

I'll be back tomorrow with a Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day round up of November, and I think for December I'm going to slim down my must do project list and wing it a bit, so i can go with the flow and make nice things when "the mood" takes me.

Ange x

Camohog

At the bottom of the garden, hiding in the leaves I spotted a rather rare Camohog! Originally designed to be a common or garden Hedgehog, when I started him at crochet class last week I only had this multi coloured yarn, so I thought why not, and I've ended up with this cute little guy.  He's a finger puppet too, and putting a smile on my face, when I'm feeling really rather grumpy!  

Mr Camohog, snuffling around

I haven't been able to find him for the last week as he has been hiding and I couldn't spot him (on an alien base station of all places!).

Ange x

Pattern from Crocheted Finger Puppets.