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 over a thousand 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 !

 

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 :)

weekend sewing

well - first up I've finally finished my wonky house swap blocks - yay - they'll be sent off the USA tomorrow and hope they get there by the deadline of 1 March !

I ended up changing the colour of the portholes on the boathouse block - I'm happier with this one.

and I finished blocks 11 and 12 today

a few weeks ago my mum suggested a crooked chimney so I did that on the last one :)

While I'm really glad they're finally all done its going to be really hard to send them off - I loved doing them and love how they all turned out - and although they were very time consuming I learnt heaps - I've only done improv piecing once before and I'd never done curved piecing so I'm looking forward to finding more projects with those elements.

I also managed to make my December Modern BOM blocks which used paper piecing to give perspective - another great block from Alissa.

and I got the February care at do.good stitches blocks done so I can post those next week as well.

I love star blocks and doing flying geese so I really enjoyed doing these two and the bonus is that I have the scraps from the geese to make into half square triangles so I played around with those as well - I'm still thinking about what I'll do with them but I had fun arranging them in different ways on my design wall :)

so that's my weekend sewing ... back to work tomorrow so I'd better get off to sleep !

hope you got some great sewing in this weekend as well :)

wonkies nearly done !

wonky houses 8, 9, and 10 done - yay !

I have this whale fabric so I had to do a boat house ! had a few issues with the curved piecing which I think was because I tried to do curved piecing over curved piecing but came out ok in the end (after some serious unpicking !!) I've changed the portholes twice and might change them again before I post them off cause I'm not keen on the red after seeing it in the photo !

I also have some ghastlies fabric that I really wanted to use – this one has a ghastly forest behind the house with ghastly bats in the night sky !

this is the roof in the making for block 10 – I kept cutting the roof too small on the boat house so I had these pieces which looked too cute not to use !

and block 10 finished - a castle (kind of!)

so blocks 1 - 10 and also the siggy blocks done - I decided to use a strip of fabric from the top and bottom of each block for the siggy block

 

love seeing them all together - so just the last two to do tonight and into the post on Friday !  yes, I'm hearing you Nicky :)

winner winner chicken dinner :)

I’ve always wanted to say that and I think the double winner is quite appropriate because guess what – I won twice !!!!   yay, I am sooo excited - I won some gorgeous fabric in a fugly fabric giveaway.

Lucy over at charm about you held a fugly fabric link party and I can tell you – a lot of the fabric in the giveaways was not in any way ugly !

I won some gorgeous fabric from susan who blogs at canadian abroad – yes, 8 fat quarters of some 3 sisters by moda fabric – it’s not fugly is it !

 

And fiona over at poppy makes had a huge giveaway and I won this sweet spring panel by Sandy Gervais - again, definitely too cute to be called fugly !

Thanks sooo much to susan and fiona for my gorgeous fabrics – and lucy too for holding the linky party ! oh and go and visit their blogs if you have some time - they are all sooo fabulous :)

my messy sewing space

So here it is – my sewing room as it was yesterday !!  

looking from doorway

 

and yes, there’s a reason I’m showing you all my very messy room – I’m joining the linky party over at the Quilting Gallery's Learning Centre in the hope that things can improve !

for the past few weeks I’ve been thinking that I have to do something about getting this room organised.  I even bought a few more plastic storage containers two weeks ago that are still sitting where I put them (in the way)!!

 

if I get those quilts off to my quilter I'd have way more room !

 

Since I’ve been going from the cutting board on one side of the table to the sewing machine on the other side quite a lot lately while making the wonky house blocks – I’ve really started to notice how my floor space is slowly disappearing so things have to change !

Pat Sloan is hosting The Learning Centre over at Quilting Gallery and the first topic is organising your sewing space/studio – Pat has asked for “before photos” and I figure it can only get better so why not !!

 

this side isn't AS bad !!

 

I know that in a few weeks my “after” photos will make me feel really good about my favourite little room – and you want to know the other reason I’m joining in ?  so I can find where I’ve put my vliesofix and freezer paper – I could have done with both this week and I had to purchase some more vliesofix because I couldn’t find it – its in a box somewhere in that room !!

one of the tips Pat gives  is to take everything out of your space and make up an inventory which I’m thinking is a brilliant idea and a way of finding that missing vliesofix !

so this weekend before I do any sewing I’m putting these tips into action and this room is being organised ! let's hope I can get some sewing time in :)

doll quilt swap ideas

still undecided on my quilt for the doll quilt swap - I'm thinking liberated churn dash blocks but I still like the idea of flying geese as well !

I did one churn dash block on the weekend - my partner likes grey so I thought I'd use grey with a touch of pink for a soft look.

I'll keep thinking about it while I get my last wonky house blocks done - I've decided to do some curved piecing on another wonky block and I'm having trouble - ggrrrr !! I need to send them off on Wednesday at the latest so that's what I'll be doing for the next two nights :)

I didn't get much sewing done this weekend as we had our race day on Saturday which is a big event in the town's social calendar !!

doll quilt swap

Last year I joined the Doll Quilt Swap group - I think this group is how I found out about all the swaps and bees on flickr - I had seen some gorgeous doll quilts around blog land so went to find out more - it must have been just after the start of DQS11 so I decided to join the group so I'd know when they did another swap.

Well, early last week the call came out for DQS12 - I signed up and crossed my fingers and toes that I'd be accepted - I wasn't sure though as I hadn't been in one before - and there are rules and regulations :)

While I was waiting I did an inspiration mosaic (for my partner), added some favourites, and updated my profile so at least my flickr looks a bit better !

 

anyway, finally this morning, just when I was thinking I hadn't made the cut, I got an email that I was in - yay - I was so excited for five minutes then the fear set in !

OMG what had I done - I've only made one doll quilt before and that is on my ufo list still waiting to be quilted and bound !

So to calm down I had a look at my partner’s blog and flickr and amazingly the ideas started flowing – so I think I’m now somewhere between excited and terrified – is there a word for that ?

I’m now in six other bees and swaps which I’m loving but I think the thing that is scary about this one is that your partner is a secret so you can’t ask questions or get any direction.

The quilts aren’t due for a couple of months so hopefully I’ll come up with something that my partner will like – wish me luck :)

blogger's block of the month

Today I finally caught up with my december and january blogger's bom blocks :)

December pattern by (the) Pat Sloan

January pattern by John Adams of Quiltdad

I also cut out the fabrics for my december and january modern bom blocks so hope to have those sewn up soon!

It was chilly here today so good weather for sewing - hope you're also enjoying some Sunday sewing :)

I've been catching up on my google reader subscriptions this week - I had over 2,000 unread posts at the beginning of the week - now that I have a computer at home I'm hoping that won't happen again cause I discovered I've missed some great giveaways and I'm behind on some fabulous blogs :) but thanks to a big reading session last night (and also during the week) I'm down to less than 500 - yay !  there are so many fantastic blogs out there - does anyone else have a big reading list ?

I've sorted my list into my daily reads, my flickr groups, quilting blogs, fabric shops, and other blogs - and I'm hoping that once I catch up I should be able to keep up without having to spend hours on the computer - its starting to cut into my sewing time - eeeekkk!

a couple more wonkys

I'm slowly but surely getting the wonky houses done - I finished two more today so only five to go !  I'm loving doing them but somehow my inspiration has faded a bit !

I did a beach house last weekend and wanted to have wavy water but couldn't work out how to sew it - but last night I happened to see a link for a tutorial on improv and curved piecing on annabella's blog (by diane at from blank pages) - amazing timing ! - so armed with my new knowledge I did another beach house block and it has a wavy water - yay ! thanks so much annabella and diane.  If you're interested in improv and curved piecing diane does a great tutorial - I had issues with angles in my previous blocks but these two blocks don't have half as many seams as the others thanks to diane and her wonderful tutorial.

after finishing the block I thought it was a bit bland - maybe because I'd used brighter colours in the others so I added a little beach ball - it was still missing something so I added a surfboard to the side of the house - I'm happy with this one now :)

I also did a farmer macgregor house cause I had this gorgeous little carrot fabric and immediately thought of peter rabbit :)

so that's it for today - hope your Saturday is going well :)