You can do it if you want to

That's a bit of my version of one of my mothers standard answers to most of my requests: "You can have it if you can do it" ... hang up a picture frame, a green wall, butterfly curtains, a bar in my doorframe to play with,  a wooden custom fitted rack ... 

Well I always liked the geometric appliquée things - not so much the Baltimore Album Style stuff (much too chaotic for me), but more the Hawaiian quilt things ... So yes - I can have one if I can do one, so I decided to sit down and give myself a pep talk. And decided to go for somethign small ... and thought about using the thing for a panel for a bag. I guess I should still have used some sort of backing fabric .. though of course the bag will be lined - maybe I should have waited with the quitling ... well yeah you grow with your mistakes

  Well that thing was no good for a first timer ... absolutley stupid thing to do of me - but at least it's not too ugly. But I decided to have a go at the basics and asked around a little - the answer was essentiall: "Just do it!"

So I thought I would take some gemetric shapes as I like geometry ... and ended up circles of different sizes and parts of circles.

Again stupid stupid insane me - circles are not easy to get round doing needle turn ... and those tips of the green leaf-ish things - and absolute nightmare ... well they are all differentlly shaped ...

Löni

the holidays are over giveaway

I'm joining in for the - well I find it a rather dpressing reason - back to school give away blog hop that Michelle from the Quilting Gallery is hosting.

I laways enjoy entering give aways but I do feel a bit guilty doing so wihtout offering a chance in return.

So I still have holidays, sort of, officially, in a way ...  which means at the moment having even less time to do the things I wanto to do. So I didn't make anythign myself for this one.

Anyway - what do I have on offer - nothign special really, it's an embroider your own shopping bag kit. It's still in it's original wrapping, so all the parts are still together. I'm not much of an embroiderer myself, I only go as far as to stitch my lables by hand. Ohh and some chocolate if you want, I was home recently and I couldn't resist a trip to "Ritter Sport" and now the fridge is full of chocolate .. dark mousse au chocolate, winter crisp, crisp flakes, white nut ... molten chocolate still tastes like chocolate - for all those in still warm parts of the earth.

the white wrapping means try out chocolate varieties for the winter season

The rules etc  (I really enjoy making up rules)
* the one loop you have to jump through I would like to know a traditional dish for the area you come from (I think that is fair)

* and as usual a second entry if you can give me a convincing reason (sorry following me on FB doesn't count I don't have a page there)

* international entries are welcome

* the give away runs from post publishing date (I can't be bothere to find out what time noon EDT is in my time zone) until September 2nd late evening (I'm leaving for a trip on the 3rd and I wouldn't want you to hang in the dry for days not knowing who made the draw)


Leo


For more give aways head back to the Quilting Gallery:

the holidays came and went

My holidays didn't go as I planned .. I sort of wanted to do nothing and ended up working in the garden nearly every day. I did spend a few minutes every evening to work on the give away (is it bad behaviour to not have it ready when the commenting starts?) I think I intentionally forgot how time consuming it is to sew on all those beads - but it's worth the work. All that's left is stiching the flap secure (the little thingy covering the zipper on the top? is there a name for that?) and of course close it at the sides and maybe add another row of beads at the bottom.

After the holidays is always there is always the big stash of post, there were some quitling books I ordered (I need to limit my time on amazon) and a block from a swap and my Doll Quilt for this month and a shoe box full of sraps from a friend and my leaving gift from my collegues (I have been waiting for that for almost 4 months)

My little Doll Quilt, or rather Sharon's as she made it was nominated for the "Bloggers Quilt Festival" on Amy's Creative Side it's pretty much at the bottom of the page, there are a lot of beautiful quilts to marvel at ... I shouldn't spend too much time there it makes me feel like a bad sewer for not turning out a new quilt every second month and producing tons of cushions, aprons, swap blocks in between ..

Leo

PS: I think I will start my baking adventure with a red velvet cake it did sound most interessting - I'm hunting for a recipe now, if you know one leave a link! 

[Edit:] Now I really forgot something Beth at Plum and June started a blog hop tour for new blogs and the first contributions are online so have a look at the list and visit them.

 

Sew Mama Sew Give Away

Welcome friend or stranger, I know you will be very busy entering give aways right now so I will make it easy for you.

That's what you can win:

 a litte pouch somewhat like that:

in red

and I will include whatever I come up with during my holidays

How to:

• to enter the give away just tell me your favourite cake. (That's for my sanity so I don't only get to read: I would like to win)
• if you are a follower (old or new) please feel free to enter a second time

rules and regulations:

• I will ship internationally
• The give away is open until 5p.m. PST on May 25 (I will have a whole week to figure out what that is in local time)
• I will draw a random winner
• I will announce the winner latest on May 28 my time as I will be on the train all sunday without internet

to enter more give aways click on the button and pick the next link




Leo

ink bag

This morning I found out I had run out of ink, my ink bottle was empty, my emergency ink cartridge in my fountain pen wouldn't last for more than a page. So I headed out to buy some ink  - no luck on an ink bottle, but I finally found some cartridges, of course the smallest bag was 50 of them. As they come in a rather ugly plastic bag, I decided to use up the seam of the pillow case I've been taking apart for my hexagons and hand sew a bag for them.

greenbaglady

I finally managed to put the bag I got from greenbaglady to good use, as I only did a little shoping and decided to go without my backpack. 

I probably shouldn't have chosen those pictures, the contents look a bit unhealthy, toast and crisps - but I promise there are some apples, oranges and yoghurt, mik and chees burried at the bottom. But I didn't want them to squash my lovely crisps.

PS: The bag came with a lovely little yellow bag, but I'm using that to store my dried apples and didn't want to take them out of their place to make a picture out of fear I couldn't stop myself from eating half of them ... yummmm.

wonders of the postal services

As I was the lucky one to win Dinna Jessie's giveaway I was even more fortunate that the postal service managed to deliver the package to my doorstep on the morning of the 24th.

And this was inside: