Christmas Giveaway and Challenge Vote

This week will be a blur of blog hopping and commenting as the huge blog event that is Giveaway Day by Sew Mama Sew has arrived, and I am delighted to be taking part again.

Last year I made these Christmas stockings for my daughter-in-law and son's girlfriend with Christmas linen/cotton mix fabric from my favourite linen shop in Tallinn, Estonia.

This year my giveaway will give you the chance to do the same.

Today's giveaway is 0.5m of the Santa and Reindeer linen/cotton mix fabric. Each fabric length is 150cm wide, which will be enough to make one similar size stocking to these from each length and have enough left over for some small ones too.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is tell me what you would like to find in your stocking on Christmas Day. If you are a follower leave an extra comment telling me for an extra chance to win.

The winner will drawn at random on December 7th at 20.00 UK time. International entries are, of course, welcome!

Giveaway now closed, thanks all for entering!

The entries for Ricochet and Away's Ring your Neck scarf challenge are now complete and you can vote for your favourite here

Here is a quick reminder of my entry ;)

There are lots of wonderful and inventive creations on show in what has been a really great challenge. I can't wait to see what Rikka comes up with for the next challenge.


Linking up to Christmas Stocking Hang Out

Good luck with the giveaway, I shall be hoping for some of that myself too :) Check out all of the giveaways here

Knotted Celtic Neckwear

So remember this sneak peek of my current project? 

Well here it is in all its glory - my contribution to the Ring your Neck Challenge organised by Rikka.

I have wanted to have a go at Celtic-style applique for a long time, so I am delighted to finally have used the technique. Beth Ann Williams' book Celtic Quilts has been on my bookshelf for years, so it wasn't difficult to know where to look when I finally decided that this was the technique that was going to be my challenge.

The background of the scarf is a purple dupion silk and I have backed it with some purple linen that I just happened to have bought on a recent linen shopping trip to Lithuania! The batiks for the applique were some of the first FQ's I ever bought, when I went to a patchwork and quilting evening class many years ago. It feels good to have finally done something with them.

Although the applique is far from perfect, I had trouble with remembering my "unders" and "overs" at times, I am so delighted with how this turned out that I will definitely be tackling some of the gorgeous cushions in the book in the not too-distant future.

This is the first of Rikka's challenges that I have taken part in and it really spurred me on to tackle something different so I will definitely be keeping an eye out for her challenges in the future.

There are some fabulous scarves already posted but there are still a couple of days left until the entry deadline on November 30th, so if you were quick you could still enter :)


Linking up to Make it Wear it and Threading my Way

Cozy clocks and re-purposed shirts

We had a beautiful, sunny, but cold weekend here in Riga so took the opportunity to have a wander around the Old Town centre. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this clock to share with you, obviously the temperature is colder than I thought if the clocks need to have covers.

Laima is a chocolate factory here in Latvia and the Laima clock is a well-known meeting place in the centre of the Old Town. I can't imagine how long it must have taken to produce a knitted cover for the clock and would love to have been around when the clock was being dressed. Knitting is not my forte, unfortunately, despite my mother being an excellent knitter. I have bursts of enthusiasm and buy lovely wool and fancy needles but always end up adding to the basket of UFO's as the finishing off throws me every time. Perhaps I should sign up to a Knitting WIP challenge, but then again maybe not!

My favourite part of the whole knitted outfit was the scarf, how sweet for the clock to have its own scarf! I shall have to try and keep a lookout for when the knitted outfit comes off, as that must mean that the winter is officially over :)

Whilst waiting impatiently for the next blocks of the Sew Happy QAL and the HST BOM due this week I decided to work on another cushion in one of the colours of the rainbow. Having decided that blue would be the colour, I rummaged around in my scrapbag and came up with enough fabric pieces to have a go at a cushion pattern I had seen in the May 2009 issue of British Patchwork and Quilting. (I knew it was worth keeping that magazine!)

The cushion pattern is called Fleur Audrey and is also available online here so I have called my version Fleur Bleu. The cushion front and back are both cut from a discarded business shirt of my husband's, which was the perfect shade of pale blue for the background. He disputes that it was discarded but it truly was! He will be "losing" more shirts in the future as I received, for Christmas, a copy of Juliet Bawden's book "The shirt off his back", which is full of great ideas for re-purposing men's shirts. I was already putting shirts in the laundry and thinking "that would make a great bag lining" so the possibilities have increased with ownership of Juliet's book :)

Finally, if the forthcoming London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee are putting you in the mood for all things British, check out Sam's blog "Cup of tea and a Slice of cake aka UKMUMINUSA, where she is hosting a giveaway for her Union Jack pincushions. Details of the giveaway can be found here