liebster award

Last week the lovely Michele from quilts from my crayon box was so sweet to give me a Liebster Award - this award is given to favorite blogs with under 200 followers - I'm touched that Michele considers my blog as one of her favourites :)

The Liebster Award rules are:

• Post about your "win" on your blog (check)
• Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award (check)
• Copy and paste the award to your blog (check)
• Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognised (check)
• Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog (check)

When Michele told me about the award I wasn't quite sure what it was but I'm thinking its a nice way of spreading the word about fabulous blogs that you like ... although having to pick just five makes it a bit extremely hard !

so here are my five that I'm passing the award onto :)

Nicky at mrs sew and sow - Nicky and I met through the wonky house block swap on flickr - Nicky has some great quilts and is a fabulous blogger

Linda at flourishing palms - I found Linda's blog while searching for tutorials on scrappy strip blocks - as well as that great tutorial she has some fabulous quilts and just finished a fantastic friendship medallion quilt

Karen at listen to the birds sing - Karen and I are in the same care at do.good stitches flickr group - Karen has a great blog and apart from quilting I've learnt she is also a talented seamstress

Amanda at baby burrito quilts - I discovered Amanda's blog after seeing some fabulous wonky basket blocks on flickr - Amanda uses such gorgeous fabrics and we've done a few of the same quiltalongs

Helen at archie the wonderdog - when I saw Helen's blog name in a comment I just had to go and check out her blog - which is fabulous and Archie is such a cutie - Helen has made a cushion (pillow) with miniature log cabin blocks that you just have to see to believe

so that's my liebster award list - hope you can go and visit them - they're all fabulous quilters and bloggers :)

jumping on the bandwagon

ok - so I've decided to jump on the anti-word verification bandwagon as I just tried to leave a comment on a blog and had to try three times to get the words right - why do they make them so hard to read!

My friend Nicky from Mrs Sew and Sow asked me the other day to turn the word verification off on my blog - I didn't even realise it was on - so I very happily turned it off and have since discovered there's a whole movement to rid blogs of this feature!

Lucy over at Charm About You has even made a blog button for the cause :)

there are easy instructions over at Stupid Blog Tricks on how to turn this feature off.

and while I'm on the subject, I'd like to add two more things to the list - the blogger lightbox feature and no-reply bloggers.

the lightbox feature on blogger puts your photos in a slideshow when you click on an image - I have disabled this feature on my blog so when you click on one of my images it opens a new page with a larger image - sometimes I like to view a larger image as it shows more detail but when the lightbox feature is on you can't increase the image size.

to turn this feature off ...

• in your blog, go into design
• then select settings and formatting
• you will find a heading - Showcase images with Lightbox - change the option to no

lastly, it makes me sad that people go to the effort of leaving a comment and I find that I can't respond to them because they are no-reply bloggers - so - if you are leaving comments and find that you aren't getting any response - it could be that you are a no-reply blogger so you might want to check it out - this is REALLY important if you're leaving a comment for a giveaway:)

Madame Samm at Sew I Quilt has kindly provided instructions on how to fix this issue


If you have the correct settings in your Blogger profile, your email address comes with it, allowing me to reply directly to you via email. If your settings aren't correct, you are a no-reply blogger, and I have no way of contacting you.  To fix this follow the instructions below... 

• in blogger.com, click on Dashboard
• Select Edit Profile
• Check the box for "Show my Email Address"
• Save changes

so hope this helps in some way ... getting off my soapbox now :)

a few of my favourite tools

hi there - today I'm guest posting over at Karen's blog - Listen to the Birds Sing - talking about a few of my favourite tools and I'd love you to join me - you could even win a copy of Emily Cier's fabulous book Scrap Republic!

I'll see you there - the giveaway is open until 29 February (got to love a leap year) and Karen will draw a winner on 1 March - I wish you all good luck in the giveaway :)

yes, I have a moment to spare...

I guess if you had a moment to spare you might want to hop on over to my blog sometime today ...
http://lilysquilts.blogspot.com/
Lynne x

that was the message I received in an email this morning - such a sweet, sweet message ...

I'd entered a giveaway at Lynne's blog for an Oakshott colourbox (along with a zillion other people - well heaps anyway) and you've probably guessed by now - yes, I WON !

out of 1555 comments, the random generator picked my comment - I'm actually a bit speechless about it so I'm just doing a huge happy dance instead !

photo "borrowed" from Oakshott Fabrics

gee wizz - 100 fat eighths of gorgeous shot cottons - and look at all those colours - oh the possibilities, the possibilities :)

as I said - speechless !

second blogiversary and a win !

its my second blogiversary today and although I only started regular posting last year, its now two years since that first post and what an amazing two years in blogger land its been !

and the best part? I now get to eat the cupcake to celebrate :) no, really, the best part is how amazing it has been to connect with so many lovely people who visit me and leave such positive comments and its been so great to be able to visit so many talented and wonderful bloggers out in the world wide web!

I was going to have a giveaway today to celebrate my blogiversary but I've decided to combine it with my guest post at Listen to the Birds Sing on Friday so you'll have to come back on Friday for all the details :) but I will give you a hint on the giveaway ...

Karen from Listen to the Birds Sing has been hosting series of {friendship} february guest posts and I'm honoured to be asked to join in.

and the win ?  well, last week I posted about linking photos of my very messy sewing room to the Quilting Gallery's Learning Centre where Pat Sloan is doing a month of posts about studio organisation - and yesterday I received an email telling me I'd won the book Organizing Solutions for Every Quilter: An Illustrated Guide to the Space of Your Dreams - which will come in very handy while I'm trying to tidy up my little sewing space :)  thank you very much Quilting Gallery, Pat Sloan, and C&T Publishing - what a fabulous blogiversary present !

image from Quilting Gallery

and after winning some fabric in the fugly fabric giveway last week I can't believe I've won again - the stars must be aligned !

So I hope you can join me on Friday for my first guest post and maybe you too can win :)