A Giveaway...with a difference of course.

Right, who's up for a giveaway? Bear with me if you will by reading the following letter which appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this month.

A tarnished visit
I write as the mum of a family of four from The Little Island who have just spent a lovely two-week holiday in San Diego. On one of the days I took my two daughters to The New Children's Museum. While there they coloured in the "draw in a weird masterpiece" prize draw and popped their entrants into the box.
When we got back to The Little Island, one of the emails waiting for us was entitled "Congratulations Daughter No.1 (names changed to protect the innocent) so we let her open it. It was from the museum to say that Daughter No. 1's entry had been selected as the winner for March and not only was it now on display on their blog but that they also had a 'Kids Prize pack' waiting for her to pick up.
I emailed back to explain that we didn't live in San Diego but gave our address and said we would be happy to receive it in the post.
Within the hour came a reply of "Unfortunately, we will not be able to send the prize." No explanation why.
Bearing in mind it costs $10 a person to enter the museum and they got $30 out of me, the experience has somewhat sullied our view of our holiday in San Diego. Surely, they could have handled it better?

Well, my new BFF the Union-Tribune very kindly rang The New Children's Museum: After the newspaper contacted the museum, officials acted immediately to correct the situation. "We want all of our visitors to have a great experience said spokeswoman @&%$$+* $£@*&^"(I'm not that mean ;-)), "especially if they traveled such a great distance to get here."

You'll be pleased to know that the optimistically entitled 'museum' did indeed act 'immediately' and Daughter No.1, who is 10 almost 11 (of which the museum already knew), is now the proud owner of that all-time literary classic Fancy Nancy at the Museum. It's classed as a "Beginning Reading book - simple sentences for eager new readers."

So, if you are as perceptive as Daughter No. 1  was when she opened the envelope, you may have guessed that the book was/is about six years too late. Never mind, our loss will be someone else's gain. (You can see where this is leading can't you?)
So, up in today's fantastic giveaway is Fancy Nancy at the Museum:
(We'll keep the yo-yo and the other book that will be suitable for Daughter No.2 if you don't mind)

 AND...some fabric to go with it because this is after all supposed to be a blog about quilting.


Some fabric with clouds on because  it was cloudy the day we went to the museum and we thought it would be a good way to do an indoor activity:

And then some more clouds with birdies on because they were in the sky (weak link I know but I've had this fabric for ages and don't know what to do with it if truth be told):

 And finally...some fabric with fairies on because whoever sent the prize pack was possibly away with them...

I'm sure you'll agree it all makes for a very attractive giveaway.
No idea what the exact measurements are but that doesn't matter does it?

 

 You're probably chomping at the bit by now wondering how you can be in with a chance of winning these lovelies.
Well...the rules are that you:

DO NOT:

• have to subscribe to my blog. I'm a big believer of quality over quantity and I have nine ten (good grief its just shot up by one more since starting this post) very nice people following my blog. Oh OK I admit it's actually only nine as I know one of them already.
• have to tell anyone else about this giveaway. Let's be frank, with ten people, (well nine because I'm going to have to discount you because you already knew me and that wouldn't be fair on the others) your odds of winning have never been so great. If I was in your shoes I wouldn't tell anyone else.
• have to write anything toe-curlingly gushing about me or my quilts because quite honestly I already know I'm a nice decent person and my quilts (although not award-winning) are just fine and dandy.

So now we've got the DO NOTS out the way, here is the DO:

DO:

• Write just one word that sums up how you feel now you have read this blog post.

That's it.
That's all.
I'm making the closing date sometime on Thursday 29th April just because I can. And no Random Generator to pick the winner...not that I'll need one with nine. Nope, Daughter No. 1 will read through all nine responses and pick a winner.

Good luck ;-)

Applique is nice but...

...it seems to take forever...

 ...and ever...

...to get somewhere...

...but when you do finally get there...

...you realise it wasn't half as bad...

.

...as you thought it was in the beginning.

Bit like giving birth really but without the pain bit ;-)

Pattern was from here and they got it from here.

I altered it slightly - chain stitched with three strands of embroidery thread the feet and beaks of the birds. Originally, I blind stitched by hand each individual leaf but I didn't think they had enough stick-out-ness to them so then I went round each leaf with the sewing machine to get the added definition I was after. Background is a white linen.
As much as it is always nice to dip a toe into the world of applique, suddenly square quilts are looking very attractive once again!

Not quite the quilt I was expecting...

Having seen this quilt I knew I wanted to make my own version and here it is:

What do you mean, it looks nothing like it?

Of course I was going to be different. Not use a grey as the shadow but a nice subtle, muted green (Kona Celery) to contrast with the Kona Cactus.

And therein lies the problem - there is no contrast. But that's fine. I've come to terms with it. Clearly there is a time when less is more is not going to work and this may well be that time.

I do like it. It's just not what I intended and this blog has also just highlighted my one trick ponyness of quilts with squares.
On the plus side I do like Kona Cactus - best likeness is in the first photo and I managed to quilt it without any puckers on the back. Pucker free backs of quilts definitely seem easier to achieve with a walking foot and straight line quilting rather than feed dogs down and free motion meandering.
On the minus side my last blog post was exactly a month ago when I draped the wonky log cabin quilt over half finished kitchen units.
I've still got a half-finished kitchen.
H'mmmmmm.