Secret Santa

The fabulous ladies of Brit Bee could not resist a wee Secret Santa this Christmas.  This is what came to me.

Now, I dont know for sure which lovely bee sent me a pressie, but I have a fair idea!  

We're an organised bunch you know.  We all posted by the deadline, we all received with in a few days, and we all agreed to blog what we received today, so we can guess who made what.  If you'd like to join in with the guessing games, the other places to check are here

                                Miss January              Judith         Rags to Bags
                                Miss February            Jennie         Just a little stitch
                                                                 Terri           Mish Mash Mama
                                Miss March               Ceri            Inspired by Felix
                                Miss April                  Jo              A life in lists
                                Miss May                  Trudi          Quilting Prolifically
                                Miss June                  Fiona          Poppy Makes ...
                                Miss July                   Judith         Needles and Lemons
                                Miss August              (me!)
                                Miss September         Susan         Canadian Abroad
                                Miss October             Laura         Needles, Pins and Baking Tins
                                Miss November         Hadley        Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle

So, wanna see what I got? Want to see what actually made me a wee bitty teary eyed it's just so very, very thoughtful and spot on perfect?

I got such a fantastic bundle of lovelies that I could hardly believe it.  Really, truly, absolutely Sofa King Cool...  Look....

Fabulous fabrics, including stripes, skulls, kitschy cartoony print (which I adore!), and some really fab stripy webbing for bags.

Then the even more wonderful bits...  

I love it.  I love it. I love it.

I love Lichtenstein, and this wee zippy pouch has seven, SEVEN of his prints featured.  I'm guessing they've been printed from computer onto fabric, so that makes this even more special to me.  Never mind the pouch, the fabric has been made for me!  

And lets not forget the MONKEY...  (impossible, its freakin awesome)

So to the inspired, talented, kind and bloody lovely bee that made me these, 

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!  XXX 

(If you want to know what I made and for who, go looking and guess cos I'm not telling... lol)

Still playing catch up

First of all, sorry, still no Christmas tree block tutorial.  Must do it this weekend or no one will make it cos it'll be too late...  

I've been trying to catch up with all the things I'm really behind on all week.  I got a couple of presents made, but unfortunately nothing I can show you.  What I can show you is the monster block I got done (eventually..) for Madam November (yeah, just a little late...)...  Although I am obviously a little ashamed of how incredibly late it is, I must say I am also rather chuffed with myself about the number of missing points on this HST block.   To clarify, I'm referring to the unusually SMALL number of missed points on this HST block!

Look at my HST's!  Mmmmm Pointy....  

Yay!  Whaddya reckon, finally improving a bit?  Hope so.  

In other news...  Mum is coming to visit in January!  She came to visit back at the beginning of the year, and we had such a fantastic time in the sewing cupboard - this time she's coming for twice as long!   It'll be so good to have some company, and even better to have someone I can talk fabric with!  

And talking of sharing fabric obsessions, I've got something else to look forward to next year...

Well, a lot of you will probably have seen it on every other quilty blog going, but I'm going to post it too cos its exciting and I want to.... 

I got my Golden Ticket...

I'm going!  I still cant quite believe it...  Its happening in London, which is a fair old trek for me.  It'll involve 2 nights away, and thats just to attend for one day, so its a huge deal for me.  Just in case anyone has forgotten, I mean, its not like I go on about it all the time or anything, but... I cant really do things on my own.  I dont trust myself to go to the supermarket on my own never mind travel.

  

So, when this came up, I looked on the Brit Bee flickr group and sure enough, there was already a thread about maybe going.  I told my Brit Bee Ladies quite simply, "I really want to go, but there's no way I can do it unless someone actually met me at the airport and took me to the hotel, shared a room with me, went with me, then took me back to the airport."  Not much to ask at all really....    

Well, as it happens, not too much at all for my bee!  Not only is someone teaming up with me, the entire bee is going and half of us are booked in the same hotel!  

I really cant wait, not only will I get to meet all my lovely bee friends in person, we're all going to The Fat Quarterly Retreat!  (click on it if you want to find out more)  So many more people to meet!  Its going to be so much fun.  

In the meantime, I'd better get back to trying to catch up with my sewing, only three more days to sew stuff that has to be posted...  (oops, and the christmas tree block... I'll try not to forget again).

I love it when a plan comes together...

I can show you what I made for the Modern Christmas Table Runner Swap now, it has been received!

I got to make for Swap Mama, Susan @ a broad Canadian and it was tougher than I expected.  Not that she's  a particularly tricky customer or anything.  Not at all!  No, but as a good Swap Mama she was leaving lovely comments all over the shop.  Not hard to imagine, the swap really did have a massive amount of talent in it.  However, normally you stalk your recipient, see what they seem to like from the comments they leave...  so in my case I got a bit well, confused...

That, and well, if you read regularly you'll know I've been a bit crappy for the last couple of months so I was just ultra critical of everything I tried and so I think I ended up with about 5 different plans...  Every time I got started I just kept thinking, nah, not good enough, try harder.  So.  She did end up getting a two sided runner and a hot pad.  I could go upstairs tomorrow and get a few table mats and coasters out of all the other discarded plan bits...  but I wont!

Oooh, she's Canadian, do a bear!  ...  aren't bears in caves hibernating over Christmas?

Christmas.  Ultra Modern.  oh but doesn't she like stars and hand stitching?

The hot pad matches the modern side...

Now, here's a rarity... I actually LOVE my Christmas tree block.  So much so that I'm going to make another next week.  Does anyone want another "this is what happened when I made" ( tutorial of sorts ) ?

Now you know what I was up to last week!  Susan received it all today, and wrote the loveliest of blog posts that had me laughing and weeping and blushing all at once...  she likes....  YAY!  So, that's my happy pill sorted for the next week or so!  (I'm still grinning like a loon)

Now to cross it off my list, and start panicking about something else... like Novembers bee block?  (Sorry Hads x)

p.s.  Laura, Helen and Tanya, you have not been forgotten, each giveaway prize will be quite different, so I'm just posting as I get done :-)

from one sort of Holiday to another...

I'd announce my return, but I've not actually been anywhere...  I've managed a week off from the laptop, more or less.  I've really really missed everybody!  I've been blog reading all day today, sorry for the lack of comments but there's been so many posts to catch up on.
I did get a bit of sewing done, but nothing I can show off in a "yay! I got something finished!" happy dance.... not yet anyway.   A little sneak peak will have to do for now.

I did, however, get some really lovely post through the week that I can brag about though!  I received my runner in the Modern Christmas Table Runner Swap, from the very talented Kat @ mummas time to create.  Sincere apologies to Kat that my photos are very poor and do it such little justice.  It really is fabulous.

Beautiful MODERN Christmas!  All the trees a girl could want, and no Santas or Poinsettias anywhere ;-)

Lovely tree decoration, and the glorious DS fabric...

Kat did a great job, I must have been a right pain in the backside to make for...  I was pretty rigid in my "requests" for trees, and my scrooge-y insistence on no Christmas fabric... Sorry Kat!  But wow, it sure is absolutely perfect and I love it.  And, AND she sent me a Fat Quarter of some Denyse Schmidt Picnic and Fairgrounds.....my first, and I am smitten...

And talking of being smitten, I also received a really wonderful pressie from another lovely lady, Agniezska @ a quilt maybe.   She's a great quilter, but she is also a very talented illustrator too.   I'd spotted this on her blog and just fell for it right away - and now I have one!  Please do visit her, I promise you'll fall for the kitties and corduroy mice...

An adorable Sleepy Kitty!

So, a massive thank you to two talented, generous, thoughtful and kind ladies who really cheered me up this week!

The horrible weather has remained all week.  The barometer, usually stuck at "change" (like I really need a barometer to be told that our weather is constantly changeable...) has been stuck like this for days...

Stormy weather....since my man and I aint together...

So we've been stuck like this a lot...

my other sleepy kitty...

Sorry for the blurry pic but she kept making me laugh so it was hard enough not to collapse never mind hold a camera steady!




p.s.  Proof (as requested) that my brother can safely wield a needle!

brother kindly hiding the thread ends I forgot about...