And the winner is......

commenter number 12, which was Driftwood

Congratulations Tess - please email your address.

(knitting.needles@yahoo.co.uk).

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Easter Break & a giveaway.

It's been a funny old week, and in a few minutes I'll be setting off to collect my little lady from school.

She'll be breaking up for the Easter Break, so I probably won't be back in this blog space of mine until she returns.

Before I pop my coat on and run out the door, I thought I'd stop by and wish you and your families a very happy Easter.

Also, I thought I'd have a little giveaway.

Just leave me a comment on today's post to be in with a chance of winning.  You have until Sunday 27th April.  

Good Luck 

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Xmas giveaway

Happy Friday.

Today, I'm hosting a little giveaway.
 

The prize will include a fat quarter of the pretty fabric above, called Tree Farm, the lovely slate Christmas Tree ornament, as well as a few other surprises with a Christmassey theme.

I hope you'll all enter.

You have until Sunday 30th November to leave me a comment on this post, telling me what you'll be asking Santa for this year.

 

Good luck.

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Good morning.

Finally, I can sit down to write a short blog post today - I've spent the last 20 minutes or so, trying to remove 5 toys, which Violet had dropped/pushed/stuck down the back of the radiator - not an easy task I can tell you. 

Anyway, first off I'm going to introduce you to my friend's new little baby - Rosa.

Check out what she's wearing.

Yay - she's sporting one of the baby cardies I knit for her. 

Rosa's as cute as that little ladybug button - OK, she's cuter. 

Before I get too broody, I'll get onto the second thing.

I've been trying to organise a couple of boxes (ahem!) of all my cross stitch paraphernalia, and have discovered that I have two of these....

Here's a closer look at the picture.

The pattern is called Winter Queen, and was designed by Nora Corbett.

I haven't got the foggiest how I ended up with two copies of it.  So I thought I'd offer one of them to you guys gals.

If you think you might like it, just leave me a comment on this post.  If more than one of you fancy it, then I'll obviously have to put all your names in a hat and draw a winner.

This is a really beautiful cross stitch to do - I should know, I stitched it for an aunt of mine about approx 14 years ago. 

It's stitched on 32 count linen.  There's beading involved, but this is very easy to do, and some very fluffy 'whisper white' thread is called for on the Ermine edging of the ladies dress, which might make you sneeze alittle when it goes up your nose - ATISHOO.  Gesundheit.

Have I tempted anybody to give it a go?????

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If you want to see what Louise won in my surprise giveaway.....

...... pop over to Louise's lovely blog.

I'm sure that you all guessed that one of the surprises, included in the giveaway, would be a cross stitched lavender pouch. 

Here's a close up of the one that I sent to Louise.

Material - Belgian Natural Linen (32 count)

Thread - DMC (dark purple)

Chart - can be found in Silhouettes in Cross Stitch, by Julie Hasler

In the book, the pattern had been used as the base for a tea tray.

I know my gran, and possibly my mum, would have used a tea tray, but I'm not quite sure whether people still use them these days.

I've been asked to make a couple of lavender pouches for my aunt, who wants to give them to friends as Christmas presents.  It's lovely to be asked to make something for somebody else.  I just need to decide on the designs I'm going to use.

I was hoping to make as many Christmas presents as I could this year, but time is slowly slipping away and I haven't even started on anything even remotely Christmas related yet. 

Last year I made some truffles and they were a very big hit.  I always assumed that truffles were difficult to make, how wrong was I?  They were so simple and utterly delicious.  I'll go and search out the recipe I used and share it with you all. 

Sorry to mention Christmas when it's only August - it's just been on my mind.

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And, on a totally unrelated note:

At the weekend Violet kept asking her dad and I for a song called 'Honey Bee', but we didn't have the foggiest which song this could be.  This morning enlightenment dawned when 'Imma Be', by the Black Eyed Peas ,was played in the car. 

She's a very big Black Eyed Peas fan.  I should have known - bad mum!

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Picking a winner

(Sorry for the really crap photo, but Violet's hand was as quick as lightning picking the winning name - and this was the best I could do).

And, the winner is....

A very big CONGRATULATIONS to Louise (if you can email your address please Louise).

Thank you to everyone who entered.

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Number 100

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Well today is my 100 blog-post. 

Yippee!!!

In celebration of this fact, I'm going to hold a giveaway.

Yay - we all love a giveaway and the chance to win a pile of lovely stuff don't we?

So, what can you win?

Well, I'm actually gonna let that remain a complete surprise, but you can be sure that a parcel full of loveliness will be delivered by the postman, if you're the winner.

All you need do, is leave me a comment at the bottom of today's post and I'll let Violet pick the winner on Sunday 15th August.

For those of you who are unable to leave a comment on this blog for whatever reason, then just send me an email telling me that you'd like to enter, and your name will go into the draw too.

My email address can be found on the sidebar.

Good luck to everyone.

Jill x

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