A Happy New Year to you all

I received this lovely package yesterday from Sarah at Sew me.  She had a giveaway for her 1 year blog anniversary and I was the lucky winner of a moda charm pack, a crocheted brooch and some lovely chocolate

Thank you Sarah. I have also been blogging for nearly a year now: 20th Jan (i think)  I have an idea for a giveaway which I hope  will you like! 


I have seen some lovely mosaics of productivness on blogs today but I am having issues with my laptop and am borrowing Jenny's for now so I don't think I will get to do one, and I really wanted to chart 2011 progress. Maybe when I get my pc sorted I will do one retrospectively


My wish for 2012, apart from the obvious of health for my family and yours, is to finally finish my exams and become qualified.  I am tired of revision and studying on top of everything else that I have to do!  So, thats my goal!!  (oh yes, and hopefully purchase a golden ticket and get to the fat quarterly weekend too!)
Happy New Year to you all x

Mystery quilt top finished!

Yay, I managed to finish this off today:

I really love how this has turned out - thank you to Sheilas mystery quilt along.  This has taught me how to paper piece and Sheila sent me a link to a great you tube video and I am now a paper piece convert!
I love the colours too.  So, now I have to try and find a suitable fabric to put on as the border and I will be well on my way to another quilt

Productive Christmas

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.  My Christmas day was very quiet, but I did manage to do this:

I was on my own so I decided I would do something I wanted to do (ie definately no revision!)  I had this batik material left over: I don't really like batiks but I do love these colours

I made this whilst sipping away on my bubbly!
I also made one of these, on Christmas Eve after the girls had left:

Made from a tutorial on Cluck Cluck Sew, and lovely and easy to make.
Father Christmas was very good to me, yesterday (the girls came home boxing day so we did our Christmas day then)

And, to top it all off I won this



over at Sarah's blog.  What a great Boxing Day suprise.

For now though, its back to the revision, with a shopping day planned for tomorrow :-(

Happy Christmas

I havn't been blogging much, mainly as I have nothing to show or say!  Its just been lots of revising and studying.
I havn;t made anything new in a while - well apart from the Christmas quilt, which will be finished tonight!
So, I wanted to say Happy Christmas to one and all - all the lovely people that I have become acquainted with since I started my blog.  I hope you all have a wonderful happy Christmas and are all raring to go again in 2012 xx

A short Christmas break-in Gods own country

I am having a few days away up at 'home'

its hard no to chill out when you wake up to views like this

This isn't the house I grew up in, but this is the part of the country that I think of as home: I had a very nomadic childhood but spent a long time living here in the lake district so this is home to me.

I spent the best part of yesterday revising (boo) but friends came over in the evening and we had a lot of fun.  Today Beccy and I are off Christmas shopping and also to Windermere to visit Lakeland HQ - sadly its no cheaper that any other Lakeland but it has EVERYTHING there!!
Jenny has had to stay at home and work, which sucks.  Its really strange without her here

Secret Santa

We had our work christmas do this afternoon.  We have our team meeting in the morning and then back to someones house for eats and drinks.  We all put in £15 and are well looked after.  We also do secret santa.  Look what I got:

The theme was something in a bottle, that wasn't alcohol.  Someone knows me very well!

Now, I do know who put this together for me - my collegue Nicola.  We were having a disscusion a while ago about our secret santas and she said she needed a wide necked bottle as she wanted to fill hers with something specific, so when I received this,  I put 2 and 2 together: but I'm glad I was able to thank her specifically because this is so thoughtful

See the ribbon around the top and in a roll at the bottom.  There are buttons, threads, pins: all sorts.  I have to say, everybody did well with secret santa and there were some very innovative ideas: but none were as great as the one I received!!   :-)

A birthday bash

Today Beccy and I did a 160 mile round trip (well, actually I did the driving!) to visit my friend Donna who lives in 'The Chalfonts'
We went to celebrate her daughter Hollys 18th

Jenny, me, Donna and Holly

Donna and I first met when we worked together in 1988 (!!).  There is 6 weeks between Holly and Jenny and we have stayed in touch despite not living so close now.  They came over for Jennys 18th a few weeks ago

Holly and Jenny

Poor Jenny couldn't come with us today, as she had to work, but it was lovely to catch up with Donna and her family who I have known for just as long, and also her husbands side of the family.  I am completely knackered now after 4 hours of driving!
Holly was poorly last year, with a fainting disorder, although it is all now under control.  She looked gorgeous today (obviously I completely forgot to take any pics!)
So Happy Birthday Holly, for Tuesday

A Christmas finish

This is the quilt that I was making for my mums birthday back in November.  Things happened and I didn't do it for her birthday.  However, it is now her Christmas present

I absolutely love this quilt.  The pattern came from Moda bake shop and the material were charm packs (can't remember which)

I hand quilted inside each star

I did a wavy sort of thing along the sashings in between the squares. 
So now it is going in a box, as a disguise, and I will wrap it up

I encountered a problem whilst finishing this off.  I used fmq to do the wavy bits and towards the end it kept dropping stitches.  Not too much of a problem, I put the feed dogs up and did it that way.  But it does mean I can't finish my Christmas quilt.  My fmq is just not happening whatever tension I use - it just wont pick up the bottom stitch at all - HELP!  Any advise anyone?

The decorations are up

Well, Christmas has arrived in our house and the tree is up: I did try to take a pic but it looks dreadful, maybe over the weekend!

I did get a pic of this

I made this several years ago - it was my own design, although I am sure there are loads around like it.

I 'hung' some gold thread on it, with some yo-yo's and glitterly bobbly bits and some beads on the gold thread

So, its now hanging on the wall with lots of other christmas decs.  I never usually put our tree up this early, its just that we have so many other things going on over the next few day, this was the only time we could do it!

Its arrived

Look what arrived in the post today from The Intrepid Thread - how perfectly presented as well:

and with a handwritten thank you card too, how lovely

.... with these lovelies inside

my pictures are nowhere near as good as the ones on their website

lots of lovely summer colours

Cant wait to get making something with these!

A weekends work

This sums up my weekend:

The book and the calculator have been the biggest part of the weekend, trawling through that book, trying to get finished in plenty of time before the exam to allow for revision :-( 
My purse saw a lot of action yesterday when I was christmas shopping, but at last I feel like I am getting ready for Christmas.

I didn't use those rubber gloves for washing up: I used them for FMQ'ing!  What a difference a pair of gloves makes!!  Now, I know there are plenty of much nicer quilting gloves out there, but these were on hand when I started

I can't imagine what I must look like sitting at the sewing machine in my rubber gloves!! I have managed to quilt about half of my christmas quilt, which I am really pleased with, but have now run out of thread - aagghh!
This is only my 2nd attempt at FMQ'ing (not counting my hot water bottle cover)  This was my first attempt

Its not amazing, by any standards.  I learnt a lot from this one.  All I need to do now is bind it and pass it on and hope that it gives someone some comfort.

And finally, see that little bottle of fizz - thats what I am about to open!  Hope you all had great weekends

December already??

 Can some one please tell me where Novemeber went?  I didnt even remember advent calendars because I had no idea that today was actually the 1st of December!!
So what did I acheive in November:

And I do also have this to show from last night:

November was mainly taken up with 18th birthday celebrations and the christmas table runner swap (which was fantastic-can we do it again next year)

And..... although I sneaked a picture in of my mystery quilt, I did say to Sheila that I hoped to put in a pic of a fininshed mystery quilt: but it isn't!  I can say that I am definate that it will be in my January mosiac .

Linking this to Lilys quilts