We have a winner!

Thank you lovely readers for entering my blogiversary giveaway, all 38 of you!

My beautiful bloggy buddy, Ceri, inspired me to be more creative about choosing the winner of my blogiversary giveaway.

So out came the Uno and my trusty little helper.  The first number drawn out from the 0-3 numbers was:

and then a quick shuffle of the 0-9 numbers to get

That means the winning number is 06 - NICKY!

Well done to Nicky!  Martha May will soon be winging her way to you with something Fuscia inside (better get my thinking cap on!).

And want to hear something hilarious?  Guess who was number 7?  Only Golden Touch Hadley!! Phew! Talk about a close one!  

And a final pic of a wee extra stocking filler for footie mad daughter no.2.

Ayumi's baskets - intended as desk tidies - well we live in hope!

Have a fab Friday!

Judith xo

A Lovely Surprise!

My very special friend, Sarah, surprised me last night with a belated birthday pressie!

Just look at all this lot!

Sarah knows me so well, and I love nothing more than homemade cards and gifts.

She made the card by creating her own 'fabric' using water soluble fabric & lots of stitchery magic!

Look at my lovely mug rug - there's no way a drippy cup of anything is going near this beauty!  This is going up on my wall!

All my favourite colours!

Mine all mine!

Just look at this amazing stitching.

And Sarah knows that I'm not a 'big mug' person (the old bladder's just not what it used to be!) and bought me this adorable, perfectly sized mug.  It's so cute, I love it!

Finally, as well as making this adorable basket, it was filled with stamping goodies!  I've been wanting to start stamping my own quilt labels, and now I can!

What a lovely surprise.  Thanks friend.  You are one in a million!

Little Things!

June is definitely a month of gifts and presents.

I have so many I want to make this month, and time is running out!  Eeeeeek!

My chilldren finish school for the summer holidays on 30th June, which means teachers' presents must be made by then (more on that another day!).

My daugher is going to a friend's birthday party soon, so I rustled up this cute pencil case, which will be filled with lots of goodies!

On Sunday, we have Father's Day!  Hubbie got some lovely plants for his hanging baskets, but I thought I'd run him up a fun wee mug rug for his office.

He's from the south coast of England, where beach huts abound!  Well, we can dream!

My friend's mum is also being a complete star and altering some of my clothes (I really must learn how to make & alter clothes!).

You may remember I recently made her a couple of little brooches, so I thought I'd make her a pin cushion & matching basket to put her bits and pieces in.  

Another little brooch for a very stylish lady!

The final 'little thing' today is my donation block to the Tokyo Quilt Festival Partnership Quilts. 

This is a foundation pieced, wonky log cabin block & finishes at 9.5" (perfect for the Partnership Quilts criteria).  

The fabrics are batiks, in strong orange & raspberry and reminded me of the flowers I received for Mother's Day which were called 'Tutti Fruit'.  

Don't you think a quilt made in these colours would be so tropical and fun!

I will post the pdf of this pattern on my blog for anyone else who is interested, just as soon as I figure out how to do that!!

Have a fab Thursday!

Baskets Galore!

Here are some pics of the cute wee baskets my Friday morning class have been making:

Aren't they adorable!  Well done girls!

Kaffe Fasset Fabric Bundle:

I ordered fabric for my nephew's birthday quilt from Gone to Earth & it arrived today! Yippee!! 

The purple at the front is for a pencil case gift!

Their website pictures are very true to the colours of the fabrics when they arrive.

My nephew is a very trendy, stylish almost 13 year old, and he's already approved these prints (without realising they were for him!). 

Just need to decide on a solid to break them all up, and a design. 

Baskets & Doorstops

I've been asked to take a few more classes at Oasis Caring in Action Centre this year.  I spent an amazing 12 months with these wonderful ladies last year, and got so much satisfaction from helping women from the local community learn new sewing skills and get excited about their very own makes.

This time around, we want to encourage some of the ladies to grow in confidence and become facilitators/tutors of future Quilting classes in Oasis.  We'll be getting the ladies inspired to have an Easter sale of the items they make to help raise further funds for the Quilting Project, and will be doing some old favourites - log cabin cushions & Amy Butler Swing Bags, as well as some new cutsie projects - check out the baskets and doorstop ideas below.

There are various tutorials available for the smallest sized basket.  Check out Pink Penguin and Vlijtig for fabric basket tutorials.

I sized up the measurements for a medium sized basket and a large basket (not shown), which was a bit tricky (not being a mathematical whizz!) but I got there in the end.

These little hostess boxes are a quick and easy make, although you do need to be spot on with your measuring and cutting for these.  Check out Sew Mama Sew for a great wee tut.

Door stops need to be sturdy, so I recycled my denim scraps to make this small pyramid shaped one.  The tut for this one is found on Bake and Sew.  It's another simple project, and as it doesn't involve zippers or fiddly velcro, I'm sure the ladies at Oasis will have fun making these.  It may be small, but it still took almost 1kg of dried peas to fill it!  Small but effective!

Esther's pressie!

My friend's daughter turns 9 at the end of this month.  She lives in England so when I make her presents they always have to be things that are easily posted.  This year I decided to make her a pencil case, after my success with making them for my own daughters. 

Teamed up with cutsie bunnies and characters (& a few secret sweeties hidden inside!) I hope she'll enjoy these 'little girl' treats.  Happy birthday Esther!