I WON a doll quilt!

I don't win a lot of stuff, probably because if I see a giveaway that already has 400 people signed up, I don't bother, but sometimes I just have to join in! I got really lucky and won this little beauty, made by Carol, mamacjt, from Flickr. I am so tickled with it, it's just perfect and so cheery. I hung it in the stairwell going up to the craft room. Be sure to go to Carol's blog, she has so much talent and such a great sense of humor, it really shines thru in everything she makes. She is the resident Angel Mama for several swaps, which means she makes quilts and pincushions and all kinds of things to send to people who didn't get what they were supposed to get because their partner "flaked" on them and reneged on the deal. She is priceless and such a dear, kind friend to have and to have a piece of her in my house is a real treat! Thanks so much, Carol! I just love this pinwheel flower quilt, it's incredible!

Here it is hanging next to the placemat that I received from Sudi Laura. Looks good, hey?

I'm in another mini quilt swap, this month's theme is book-related. I can't reveal much yet, but this is a sneak peek of what I'm making for my partner, Rachel. She just happens to love green and purple. :) I should have it finished by tonight but can't show it to you until she's received it. She's supposed to be making me something from the book "Coraline". I've never actually read that book, but I LOVED the creepy movie!

My baby has gotten so big, she doesn't camouflage too well on her quilt anymore!

And this is what Nosey Parker's bite looks like now that it's healed. Temporary (we hope) hair loss. She's feeling great, though. The other day I was on the phone and looked out the laundry room window to see her about 10 feet up in the tulip tree. Next time I looked, there was no sign of her in or under the tree, which was good. I didn't think too much about it after that until an hour later when I went upstairs to find her up on the balcony, in 90º heat! Gleeps, she climbed the tulip tree about 20 feet up and crawled over as far as she could and then she must have jumped the rest of the way to the balcony, I'm so glad that I didn't see that! The branches that get close to the balcony are SMALL! Brittle, even. If she had fallen, it's at least 15 feet down to the ground and part of that is concrete driveway under the balcony. OMG. I hope she never does that again! She's such a daredevil. She does NOT get that from me!

I won a giveaway a while back....

...from Jodie, at RicRac....... And boy, did she send me loot! She sent me a bunch of new patterns which I have been lusting over and waiting for her to come out with, like Ernst and Pebble, the adorable turtles featured in her blog a few months back. And trio of adorable softies with their own carrying case/house, and bag pattern and zipper-mouthed monsters, I can see those coming in REAL handy on a trying day! My mother was always telling me to zip my lip, but I think unzipping it would be much more fun!

Also, Jodie sent me things that I can stitch my own pithy comments on, if I'm feeling really bratty! And 2 adorable pins and some genuine Australian fabric, too, a very sweet rose fabric, I just love it all! It all came with a really sweet note, too, with her superhero monkey on the front, what a hoot! How exciting to come home from vacation and find this huge envelope on the table waiting for me, from Australia! I just love the internet, I'm making the coolest friends. Jodie is super talented and still so very humble, it's just a pleasure to read her blog and see what she's making and sharing.

Thanks, Jodie! You made my day for me, at least twice already! You're super and I hope you keep on doing what you're doing, you're on a roll, lady!

We have a winner! Two, actually, but just BARELY!

And I say that because obviously SOME people's children are too old and too cool to play the old children's game of "Bat the Corks About and Pick a Winner". Noooo. They have to lie there and look overworked, underwhelmed and hot. Pffffft.

It's a lovely pile of corks, is it not? Not that anybody USED them or anything. And don't mind the one showing #48- I'm a doofus and can't count. Didn't matter, though- the corks didn't move.

Look. Corks.

Whoopty Freakin' Doo!

So...... I enlisted the help of a man who drew 2 corks from a corrected pile and pulled out #11 and #21.

Translation- Susan R and Shelley! Congrats, girls and I'll be in touch for addresses so I can mail off your loot! Thanks to everyone for signing up for a chance to win and for all the lovely comments on my little blog and my little Mum and everything this year. It's gone by so fast!

It's my blogiversary! One year.... woohoo!

One year ago today I decided to join the masses and start my own little blog. I've had lots of fun with it, showing off things I'm working on, happenings around our house, light-hearted things, and pet activities. Nothing too heavy, nothing too deep, nothing, I hope, too depressing. I've accumulated just over 100 followers, thankyouverymuch, and to celebrate, I'm having a little giveaway.

You don't have to do any jumping thru hoops or spreading the word, I'm happy having you guys here with me and I want you to have the best chance of winning. So leave me a little comment and be sure that I can reach you should the little white number generator (Nosey Parker will be whining about the child-labor laws shortly) pick you as the winner or runner-up! Because I don't like waiting, the sign-ups close at midnight Sunday and we'll do the actually drawing on Monday.

Up for grabs is a little bit of Moda's Authentic. There's a Dessert Roll, a charm pack and a set of 3 cotton dish clothes that I don't really want to give away, I like them THAT much! But I bought them with you in mind, so off they'll go. That's one lot.

Then, as a runner-up prize, I made a Scrap Sewing Pod for you, using my own Authentic material. Here it is with all the other stuff, but the winner of this is only getting the pod. It might have something inside it, not sure yet, but it's possible. Depends on if I get to the store this weekend!




I just got this pattern yesterday, online- it is an e-pattern, which is very cool and instantly gratifying! I found it, ordered it, paid for it (a whopping $3.29) and downloaded it and printed it out, all in about 5 minutes. No shipping, no waiting, love that! Anyway, I made one for the runner-up. It measures about 8" long and 3" wide and 3" deep. It'll really hold a lot. You can use it for taking supplies to class, jewelry on vacation, make-up, pencils, whatever, it's yours to do with what you please! It's a pretty easy pattern, too and I'll be making more of these. The zipper application is the EASIEST ever, so if you have a fear of zippers, this pattern is for you! I really like the trim (the black printing) at the edge of the zipper, I think that's a nice touch.

The framed photo and the rocks are not included in the giveaway. That is my mother in the photo, with her brother, Ted. She was in the Land Army, in England. I love this photo, that hat just frames her head perfectly and she looks so lovely. She's 89.5 this month! Gotta love the Mumster. She's such a hoot.


This is my other favorite photo of her- she's standing in Trafalgar Square and has a pigeon on her head. No, that's not my father. He might not be anybody's father- his name, according to my mother, is One-Nut Nick. *snork* She SAYS she only knows this because her cousin Joan told her. Um, hmmmm. Sure, Mum, whatever you say! lol Anyway, she didn't date him long, she broke up with him after he asked her to move in with him. This was the late 40's, I think.... scandalous! Mum had principles! And class. Yay for Mum! She's very Authentic. The real deal.

So good luck, people! Leave me a comment if you'd like to be entered into the drawing for a bit of Authentic fabric and towels, or the little pod.

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for signing up!

It's been a good week! OK, a great week!

First, I had to renew my driver's license and since I was driving past the place AND had fixed my hair that morning (something I only do if I going to more than just the post office or grocery store) I decided that it would be a good time to get it over with. Usually it's not a fun experience, the women there are overworked and underloved and never hardly crack a smile, so sitting there grinning like a loon at the "look here" sign is hard to do. Well, I lucked out- the place was nearly empty and they had to time to goof around. Not only did we get a really good photo, we had fun doing it. Turns out, they said, don't come in on Monday or Friday or in the afternoon because the lighting is bad then with the sun ripping in the big window and we'd all look like vampires, all pale and icky. lol So Tuesday mornings- they're perfect! Now I'm set for the next 4 years with a really nice DL photo, yay! How many of you can say that, huh? :)

Then yesterday, I found out that I won a drawing from the lovely and gracious Jodie of RicRac! She's going to put together a show-bag of her patterns and things after her big show is over in Melbourne, Australia. No offense Jodie, but I hope you have a few good things left when all is said and done! I know you, and I know how popular you and your products are and I seriously doubt that you'll have ANYTHING left! Jodie designs THE cutest little dolls/softies/robots/animals, etc and has such a knack with them. And she is a wonderful photographer, too, and has quite the sense of humor. I just am so grateful and excited to be her winner. Woot! The link to her blog that I gave you above is to part 1 of her 5 part story of Ernst, the most wonderful turtle you'd ever hope to meet. Be sure to seek out all the parts, trust me- it's worth it.

And just so you don't think I've been sitting around doing nothing but admiring my DL photo and gloating, I finished up a placemat for my swap partner, Sudi-Laura. We agreed on a beach theme with colors and wonky and wild, so here's just a peek at part of it. It's all done and on it's way to Massachusetts as we speak. After she gets it, I'll show the rest of it.

Ya'll have a great week!

Lila Tueller is having a giveaway...

Of a most glorious quilt, in all my favorite colors!

I just love her patterns, her fabrics and her sense of style. She's incredible and generous to boot!

Thanks, Lila!

Happy New Year! Presents, kittens and quilts, oh my!

New Year's Day- it was a tough night! Nosey Parker needs a little icebag for on top of her noggin. Poor thing partied just a little too hard! And would you look at those MANKY paws? :) They aren't the sweet little pink things that they used to be, not even close.

Giveaway photos! Woo hoo, LOOT!

Recently, I won another giveaway from my quilting friend, Marguerite, at Adventures in Quilting and Sailing. She had a very generous giveaway with lots of prizes and winners and I was lucky enough to be one of them! The package arrived in perfect condition from the UK and just chock full of great loot! The big prize is a notebook with a cover on it made from the most gorgeous Laurel Burch fabric, Dancing Horses. I just love this, Marg! It's so ME, bright colored fabric, wild with lots of action, thank you so much. And the cool green notebook with the holographic green cover- it's almost a shame to hide that inside this cool cover. Also included was the CUTEST little felt kitty! At first I thought- "oh, she made something for Nosey Parker, isn't it adorable?" and then I felt it, it was heavy and kind of hard. *lightbulb moment* I tugged on it's little tail and voila! It's a tape measure! How cute is that????? I just love this and it's going to come in so handy, I'll be putting this in my purse when I go shopping, but the rest of the time it'll be in my sewing room, someplace safe but where I can see it all the time! (I may have to attach it to the ceiling to keep it away from marauders!) It is beautifully made, just perfect and quite inspirational, if you know what I mean! Also, a lovely Christmas card with very kind sentiments inside and some cool labels, too! Loot, I'm tellin' ya! What a fun package to get!

I started a new, small quilt the other day. I had 2 charm packs of Neptune, by Tula Pink, and a nice solid Kona cotton. I had seen a whirlygiggle quilt made up that used a more triangular shape than the usual whirlygiggle quilt, giving it more rotation (at least in my mind) and it also used Neptune, so I thought I would make one too, hoping the original artist didn't mind. I mentioned on her blog, Salt Marsh Designs, that I planned to do this and asked permission and she never said no so I'll assume that's a yes. :)

Here are some of the pieces, this was taken in progress- I used 70 charms and an equal amount of the solid aqua blue. I had to steal a piece from a layer cake to make up the last pair of charms. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the solid color, I'm thinking it's Kona Aqua but I could be wrong. I bought it months and months ago before I realized that I should write this important stuff down. And Hobby Lobby has stopped carrying this color, I made a special trip there to find it Thursday and they don't have any and won't be getting any and they didn't know the name of it, either. Grrr.

Here's the top, nearly finished. I just have to sew my rows together. I had to square up each block as they were quite wonky, so I squared them to 8" and that made a wonderful difference and made the rows go together like a dream. Finished it will be about 37" x 53". Not too big, just right for a snuggly quilt.

I'll get this finished up today and set it aside to finish when I get something for the backing. I love this fabric, though, it's so fun!

I hope you all have a great 2010 and get lots of fun things made and enjoy being creative.

White Christmas, 2009! Giveaway win, birthday, etc

I can't remember the last time we had a white Christmas, but we sure got one this year! Jim took this photo this morning about 8:30, the sun isn't quite up over the hill to the left of the house, we never see a sunrise or set around here because of all the hills. Nosey Parker was out in her very first snow this morning, but we couldn't see her, either! lol Perfect camo, that girl has!

It rained off and on all day yesterday and started turning to sleet last night about 8 PM, when it got cold enough. Then it became flurries and then full-fledged snowflakes. We ended up getting 4-5" of it, enough to keep my parents home today instead of coming over for a prime rib dinner. We decided to postpone that until tomorrow, just to be on the safe side.

And speaking of parents, the Mumster turned 89 on Tuesday, the 22nd. Isn't she cute?


She's happy and feeling pretty good, too, I think the doctors have hit on the right medication combo, finally. We took over a few gifts and a card and she had a nice time. The parents live about 11 miles away, in a patio home at a retirement center. They are completely independent but a small housekeeping crew comes in every 2 weeks and vacuums and mops, etc. Mum freaks out whenever it's time and she spends a whole day cleaning before they come, snork! (Please ignore my gormless hair- I'm in that horrible awkward stage of trying to grow it out a bit, I'm totally frustrated with it right now.)

And my big win came from Scotland! Lynz of DOMESTIC LIGHT and MAGIC made me this sweet little quilt/wall-hanging of laundry on a line. I just love it, can you see how sweet it is? I love everything about it, right down to the little scrap of fabric spilling out of the basket. I thought I'd hang it in the laundry room but I wouldn't see it very much, so I think it's going into the craft room, instead! Also, a wonderful assortment box of Cadbury chocolates, oh, MAN! These are yummy. I'm letting Jim help me with it, but only because it's the season of giving, otherwise, I'd have hidden them away and snarfed 'em all myself! Some of these chocolates are new and unknown to us, so it's kind of an adventure. We share each piece so we can both try them all. You're a real sweetie, Lynz, to send me all this, no matter WHAT everyone else says!

Thank you so much, Lynz, you're a great pal and a terrific sport and I enjoyed your slightly fixed giveaway contest immensely! lol You are such a nut! I'm just so thankful that my name is Susan and I have a ickle white kitten and live in ArKINGsaw with the kitten fishers! Phew, what WERE the odds of meeting all that criteria? Huge, I'm sure! Lucky, LUCKY me!

Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope you're all having a wonderful fun day with friends and family! We're staying home and warm by the woodstove today, it's cozy and quiet and a popcorn kind of day! Perfect. Enjoy!

I'm a lucky duck!

First, this. Lynz does a pity giveaway, just for women who live in Arkansas, have little cute white kittens AND are named Susan. Whew, lucky for ME, I qualified. ;)

And guess WHAT? I won! Can you believe it, I couldn't, I was shocked. And of course, THRILLED! I can't wait to see what Wilson, Lynz and the Chook have come up for me. I know it's going to be something great and that I'll treasure forever! Thank you, Lynz, for taking pity on me. :) You're such a pal. *smooch*

Then as if THAT wasn't enough to send me over the moon, I find out that I won a giveaway at Hawthorne Threads! This is a wonderful new company owned by a married couple who seem to be very sweet together, so it'll be good to help keep them in business and bliss! Their prices seem to be very fair, too, so I'm placing an order today. My win is for an e-pattern and kit to make a Monterey Market Bag using Dolce fabrics. We all know I LOVE to make bags, so this is a perfect win for me! I'm excited.

One reason I've been bloggy-absent is that I've spent about a million hours stocking up my Etsy shop. I've been sewing like crazy- making cell phone purses, condiment wallets, sewing organizers and coffee cup caddies. (I've got almost 60 things in my shop. I think that's my record.)

I thought that the Sew,Mama,Sew Giveaway for the coffee cup caddy would generate some interest in them. Um. I thought wrong! lol I guess I won't be making any anytime soon, now that I have about 9 of 'em made. The giveaway was a lot of fun, though, and I'm really glad I did it. The lady who won seems to be very sweet.

I'm going to make an e-pattern for coffee cup caddy, though, since it seems like most of the people who wanted one were perfectly capable of making one themselves and in fact, would prefer to, rather than to buy one. I'm exactly the same way, so I have no complaint about that. I've spent some time figuring out how to draw up the pattern on the computer so that it looks professional, and then, even trickier- how to save it to a pdf. file so I can email it to anyone who purchases one. I may need to call on one or two of my loyal followers to be my guinea pigs and perhaps even pattern tester for this project. Any volunteers?

*disclaimer- this is not actually Nosey Parker, but it should be* roflmao

We have a drawing winner!

The drawing is over for the coffee mug sewing caddy, I used a random number generator (162 was way too many corks to number and besides, Nosey Parker is outside playing and chasing leaves around) and the winner is ...

...

...

BETHANY! Congrats, Bethany! I'll be in touch for your mailing address. I hope you get lots of use out of your new little caddy.

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in my giveaway. If I ever figure out how to make a PDF pattern, I'll do that and get some into my Etsy shop so you can make your own. In the meantime, though, if you didn't win a caddy and want to get one, I made some up this week and they're in my Etsy shop. And they're pretty darn reasonable too, if I may say so myself!

And thanks so much for ALL the great comments about your unusual pets and the stories that went with them, that was a lot of fun to read and I was laughing out loud more times than I can count. You big bunch of nuts! I'm glad to be associating with such fun, kind-hearted peeps. :)

Sorry if you didn't win, I wish I could make you all winners, but if I did that, I'd have to kill myself! lol

Giveaway Day! Coffee Mug Caddy...

Another GIVEAWAY????? Oh, goodie!

No, not a kitten, she's here to stay. Sorry!

Welcome to my first venture into Sew, Mama, Sew's annual Giveaway Day!

I'm offering up one of my coffee mug caddies, which is a very handy item to keep next to your sewing machine or on your desk. This is handmade by me from my own pattern and with my own little fingers, with a little help from sweet white paws. :)

I'm showing you two here, so you can see it from different sides, but you're only getting one. I used Mary Englebreit's "Recipe for Friendship" cherry fabrics along with a sweet little dotted fabric for the backing and the binding. You can put this caddy on a mug, as you can see, or a heavy goblet, which is how I use mine. It has 6 different sized pockets on the outside. A small hair elastic loops over 2 buttons to keep it securely in place on your mug or goblet. You'll need to provide your own mug or goblet, but everyone has one of those laying around, right?


An overhead shot-

There are 8 loops inside to hold markers, forceps, turners, etc and space in the middle, too, for small things like Fray-Check. It really holds a lot! I didn't overfill it so you could actually see into it, but mine is way loaded and comes in so handy next to the sewing machine.

Some fiberfill and fabric stuffed into the largest pocket makes a really handy pincushion.

This is what it looks like without a mug or goblet.

If you'd like a chance to win one of these, please leave a comment here on my blog. To make it a little more interesting, how about telling me about the strangest pet you've ever had? (We raised a fawn and had her in the house for about 4 months. And we had African Pygmy Dormice, too.)

I'll ship to the winner no matter where she or he lives and I'll do the drawing Dec 6th, Sunday. Depending on the number of entries, I'll either use my little white random number generator (see previous giveaway posts!) or just a regular one. Please make sure you have an email address affiliated with your comment so I can let you know if you've won so you can give me your mailing address.

Nosey Parker says GOOD LUCK! And thanks to Sew, Mama, Sew for making this all possible. Be sure to go there and check out all the fabulous giveaways, starting Wednesday morning!

Wow, what a giveaway!

Penny, at sewtakeahike, is having a wonderful giveway for some Flea Market Fancy fabric and a book and all kinds of great stuff! See the little photo just over there >>>>>>>, to the right!

Get on over there and sign up for YOUR chance to win. But if you do win and I'm the one who told you about it? Don't tell me, 'K? lol

We have a winner!

Nosey Parker has picked a winner. I helped her put a number for each entry on the end of a cork and then we went out into the dreariest, darkest late afternoon light to see just which entrant would be the winner. I apologize in advance for all the bright, cheerful colors that didn't make it into any of these photos!

The pile must have been a little intimidating as she felt the need to watch it from the safety of her toy box.

After she worked up her nerve, she decided to come over and check them all out.

She began to get interested and bapped a few of them around.

Then it hit her! She had a JOB to do! A couple of somersaults, a back-flip and a whole lot of fast action took her and her new favorite toy, the cork, to the very edge of the drive, in about 2.3 seconds!

She had to have a little lie-down to recuperate after all the whirling-dervishing.

I don't know if you can see it, but the lucky cork belongs to comment #14, who is DENA! Congrats, Dena! Send me your address so I can mail this off to you!

Your prize. I hope you like it.

Thank you everyone, for playing and trying to win this, I had fun reading all your comment and I wish I had one for everyone, but since I've been working all week on only 7 of them, I don't think that's going to happen. EVER. lol I had great intentions of making a 2nd place prize, but I never found a spare hour or two to do that, I'm sorry!

We have a drawing winner! Finally....

I'm sorry about the delay, it's a long story but suffice it to say I had no cell phone and no internet for about 36 hours and I hated that! I had so much to do and couldn't do any of it. So I quilted a quilt instead and first thing this morning headed to the big city to get a new phone and new USB modem. A few glitches during set up and finally I'm back in business. Phew.

So, on to the drawing! Thirteen of you signed up for a chance to win the original sewing organizer, thank you all so much!

We set up the rolly-ball thing that Nosey Parker just loves. These are the set-up photos...

Waiting on a kitten....

Oh, good, she's here. She looks a little dozey, though, what did you, Daddy, wake her up? Oh. Yeah, he did!

She wasn't real happy about it, either. I'm pretty sure I heard her complaining about having to do EVERYTHING around this joint. Twerp. Then she thought it would be fun to pull all the numbers off and try to eat them, some of them were pretty yommed by the time this was over. See that 5? It's got a lot of little holes in it and it's not in the right place, a MAN put it back. Did I tell you she was a twerp? It's true. She is.

Finally, she deigned to give it a push and the game was ON!

Man, that was exhausting work! Around and around and around she goes, and where it stops, nobody knows..... until it's stopped. Then it's obvious. lol

And the winner is- NOVA! She was the 9th poster on the giveaway. Nova, I'll contact you for your address, congratulations! Or you can email me at
flossieblossoms at yahoo dot com

Thanks again, everyone and again, I'm sorry about the delay! For Nosey's reward for a job well done, Daddy has taken her outside to run around. Her little tree escapades are giving us nightmares, but she has to learn because it's only a matter of days, probably, before she figures out the cat doors. I'm surprised she didn't figure them out weeks ago, frankly, she's usually quite bright, for a twerp!

Giveaway time! Sewing Organizer- Version 1.0.....

How would you like a chance to win the original sewing organizer I made? I used Kaffe Fassett materials for both the inside and the outside. Since I did actually USE it for a few days, I can't sell it on Etsy, but I can sure give it away! I've just washed it and it's in the dryer right now. It's just like new, you wouldn't ever know it wasn't if I hadn't told you. I mean, it's not like it's half-eaten or anything! rofl

If you'd like a chance to win this, just leave a comment on this post. You don't have to do anything else but you're certainly welcome to spread the word. And if you would like to make your own sewing organizer, I posted a tutorial this morning. http://flossieblossoms.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-first-tutorial-sewing-organizer-part.html

I'll pick a winner on Friday morning using a random generator that I call Nosey Parker. We'll figure out a way to have her pick the winner. :) Good luck!

This is my 4th post today, how odd. At this rate, I'll hit the hundred mark.... oh, tomorrow! lol