At last ..........

........... here it is ......

..........what you've all been waiting for.......... 

..........the pattern I said I would post for anyone who wants to use it. 

I have called this design "Chocolate for Christmas", which I thought was quite clever, since I used chocolate coloured fabric, and it's a very suitable project for a Christmas Quiltalong Day. Yeah OK, well I thought it was a clever name anyway.

"So where is it?" you're wondering.  Well, that's why it took so long.  I've been waging war against Blogger, so I could put the pattern on a separate page.  Well I managed that OK, but Blogger took an instant dislike to my diagrams and wouldn't let me put them on.  I got there in the end though and now if you look at the top of my blog, just under the header, you will see the name of the pattern, and if you click on that, you will go to the page where the instructions are.

Please be kind though and respect my copyright.  If you do make the quilt, I would love to see a picture of it.  Thanks.

I may be a bit quiet ......

...... for a day or so.  My EQ7 arrived yesterday and I've been playing trying to learn it.  It is very, very different from QuiltPro, which is the software I've been using for years.  I know that software inside out, and can make it do almost everything I want, BUT it didn't like working on Windows 7, which is what is on the laptop I now have.    I thought I'd try and draw up the pattern some of you want, and work out all the fabric quantities and cutting requirements in EQ7 and then compare it to the answers from QuiltPro.

I've also been having a go at paper piecing, which is not something I've ever done much of.  It makes a lot of mess, doesn't it?  The jury's out on whether I will carry on with it.  Tomorrow I am intending to have a serious go at machine applique, which again is not something I've really done before.

  I'm getting quite adventurous in my old age aren't I?

Freebie anyone?

You know the quilt I finished the other day?  The one I made using a jelly roll which I won?  The one I talked about here.  Would anyone like the pattern for it?  I promise to only give instructions for nice, simple, well behaved borders, not for troublesome, pieced borders with bias edges.  This top could be made in one day, as long as you can cut strips of fabric and know what a sewing machine looks like.  It occurred to me that it would make a wonderful project for one of the Christmas Quiltalong days, so, if anyone wants it, let me know, and I'll post the instructions on here for you.

I've been doing my bit for the economy ..........

......... in other words, I've been shopping.

 I've taken the plunge and ordered EQ7.  Whoohoo.

I've ordered some fabric ready for the next Christmas Quiltalong.  Woohoo.

We're going on a short holiday next week.  Woohoo.

Well, it's only right isn't it that I help support the economy?

Just call me stubborn .............

.......... Remember a few weeks ago I won a jelly roll and some yardage through SewCalGal?  Well, I've used it.

I came up with this design, which was very quick and easy to make.  Then came the borders.  Well, I had quite a lot of odd pieces of fabric left, so I had a bright idea (I was going to do "arty" and  "scrappy") - or so it seemed last Friday morning.  Well what followed was almost farcical.  I did some piecing, cut some background fabric, then cut some more, this time to the right size.  Made 2 borders, pieced a bit more, cut some more background fabric, needed to cut some more to the correct size this time and realised I hadn't got enough.  Rethought the background for the piecing, made up all four borders and sewed them on. (All of this piecing for the borders by the way involved bias edges, so I was trying to be very careful.) Stood back and looked, and realised I did not like the border!  Aaaargh.  This had taken me Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons to get to this point.  I spent Sunday evening with a stitch ripper in hand, and then went back to non-arty, non-scrappy traditional borders, and this is the result.

Here, just to satisy your curiosity, is the top with the troublesome borders.

So now you see why my middle name is Stubborn.

Win a Go! cutter

Pssst .....  

Want to win a new toy?  

My friend Paulette over at Sweet P Quilting and Creations is having the most fantastic giveaway on her blog.  She is giving a Go! cutter to one lucky person, courtesy of AccuQuilt.

 As you know, I already have this wonderful toy, and wouldn't be without it, so I won't be entering which gives you lot more of a chance to win.  I can promise you that if you do win you'll be blown away by how quick and easy it is to cut strips, squares, triangles, circles, all sorts of applique shapes, etc. So, if you fancy winning a fantastic new toy tool go on over and enter here and good luck.

and while I was at it ......

.... I went to the Quilting Gallery site, and entered this small quilt in their current weekly contest.

  The theme for this week's contest is Flowers, so I entered this small quilt of Irises which I made in about 2006.  You can see all the quilts and vote for your choice in this contest, between tomorrow and Sunday, by clicking on the button to the right of this post.

Pets on Quilts ..........

.....   really, I do worry about me sometimes.  I knew that SewCalGal was hosting another of her great virtual quilt shows - well, you all knew that I knew, cos I talked about it in a post a couple of days ago, but I hadn't entered a quilt cos I hadn't got any.
Well, today, I was looking through some photos on the computer, and what do I find?  Dogs on quilts, AND cats on quilts, so I'm entering these two.

This quilt is called Dottie Scotties.  Bet you can't guess why.  I designed and made it in 2006.  It is about 36" square, I think.  I can't be certain as I don't even know where it is now.  I wish I did.

This is called Cats in the Belfry.  The feature fabric all has cats on.  Why "In the Belfry"?  I can't be sure, but I think it was cos I decided I was batty to have designed this as it is not as easy as it looks at first sight.

If you go over to SewCalGal's site here, you'll find she's always got the coffee on,  and you can look at some really great quilts and get to vote for your favourites.

Now you see why I said I worry about me sometimes?

I've finished ...........

........... the top I was making during the Christmas Quiltalong day last Saturday.
  I used a jelly roll plus some white tone-on-tone fabric that I already had.

Just out of interest, I thought I'd show you just how much I had left from the jelly roll.  Pheww, that was a bit close wasn't it?

I'd like to thank ............

.... Betty from Betty's Love of Quilting, my parents, all my teachers, the school dinner ladies, my first pet and of course my family and the doctor and the .........

What am I on about?  Betty has given me this award because she thinks I'm funny.  (I think she means funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar?)  I've never received any sort of award before, not even the "Best Speller in the Class" when I was 4, even though I was best, but Johnny cheated so he won! 

I feel very flattered to receive this and now I need to nominate someone to receive this from me.  I have been thinking and thinking and it was impossible to nominate any one person, so................ I'm nominating each and every one of you!

Bartering at it's best ..........

........ is how my bloggy friend Paulette describes what we've been up to. She has recently made me the most gorgeous penny rug, and in return I am going to quilt her latest quilt top for her.  So, this morning, there I was, up to my elbows in potato peelings when the doorbell rang, and there was postie, clutching this.

I forgot all about potatoes as I was so excited to open the box, and when I did, just look at what I found inside.

I have always loved Paulette's wool work and am totally in awe of the penny rug she had made for me.  It's even got a sunflower on, which is probably my favourite flower in the world.  On their journey, the chickens had even laid some eggs, well, OK they hadn't, they were cute little egg-shaped pebbles from the beach near her and they brought me some Canadian chocolate and as if that wasn't enough, there was a lovely little scissor fob of turquoise with my initial on, so no-one can pinch my scissors again.

Also in the box was the quilt top I am going to let Bertha play with.  I think it is gorgeous, and just hope we can do it justice.  It looks good on my sofa though, so perhaps I'll keep it and tell her it got lost in the post when I sent it back.  She'll believe that, won't she?

So now you see why the title of this post is "Bartering at it's Best"

Walkies ..............

........... yes, it's time we all went walkies.  My friend Quilthaze, over at Cotton Cocktails has entered a wonderful quilt, which you can see here  in SewCalGal's latest quilt show, Pets on Quilts.  The voting has now opened here for the Viewers choice in all the different categories.  Now, I'm not telling you all to go and vote for Quilthaze's puppies, but I know where I'm off to now.

Oh and I should have asked the winners from the Christmas Quiltalong to email me with their addresses so I can put their little prizes in the post.

and the winners are ................

................. randomly generatedby www.random.org, although I still can't work out how to show the results on here, so please trust me. 

There were 8 entries in the quiz, and the winner was the 3rd entry I received, Joanna of Needle, Thread, Happiness.

The winner of my "door prize" was no 6, Elizabeth fromSand and Sunshine.  This prize was generously donated by Quilters Haven, when I was placing another order and happened to mention the Christmas Quiltalong.  Wasn't that lovely of them?  Do pop over and have a look at their website, they have some great stuff there, and they are sooo quick.  I placed an online order at about 11 am one morning, had an email at 2 pm to say it had been despatched, and received it the next day.

Then, just because it was my party, so I can do these sort of things, I picked another winner too, who was no 14, Midge from Soggibottom.

Later on today I will do another post as I want to tell you about my friend's entry in SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts Show.

I also have to show you a MOST exciting parcel that arrived just now from Canada. 

Christmas Stars .............

........... this is what I was working on yesterday.  The pattern is in Kim's fabulous book, Scrapbasket Surprises where it's called Summer Breeze.  It certainly went together like a breeze.  Although it's scrappy, in that I used a jelly roll, I did have to exercise some control over it, so I kept all my stars the same colour rather than random and in the other blocks I put the 2 light colours next to each other in the middle.  I have still got to add the borders, and, they are pieced and scrappy, so that is going to be a challenge to me to not try and match them up too much.  What was that?  Did I hear someone call me a control freak?  No, I knew I was mistaken.

Here are the links ...........

... to all the people who had signed up with Mr Poorly BossyBoots Linky during yesterday, so that we can all go visit each other some more:
I'm VERY sorry, I got the link wrong for 11. Lynn B in AZ.  It is correct now in the list below.

                                       1.  QuiltSue,                         2.  Gina,    
                                       3.  Hazel,                              4.  Trudi,  
                                       5.  Shazy,                             6.  Elizabeth,  
                                       7.  Notjustnat,                   8.  Joanna,  
                                       9.  Reenie,                         10.  Mandycharlie,  
                                     11.  Lynn B in AZ,             12.  Tracey,  
                                     13. Ali,                                  14.  Midge,  
                                     15.  Lynn,                             16.  Paulette Doyle

"They" needn't think "they" can beat me!

By the way, you still have a chance to enter the quiz, as I haven't done the draw yet.  I will do the draw tomorrow morning.

Now I'm off to finish what I was sewing yesterday.  Pictures to follow later, along with the names of the prize winners.

Oops ...........

... some of you may notice that Mr Bossy Boots Linky's disappeared overnight. That's cos his site has crashed, and stopped me getting into any of my posts with him on it. I fixed him. I've deleted him. That should teach him a lesson, shouldn't it? I will put all of the links back in shortly, but it's 9 am and I really should go and have a shower first. I'll be back soon, and hopefully will have found a workaround.

Night Night .................

.......... everybody. It's now almost 9.30 in the evening for me and so I'm stopping for tonight. It's amazing how tiring having fun can be! I will be back in the morning and will show you then what I've been working on. I'll also post the winner of the quiz and of two other prizes. I think I've tamed the random number generator thingy now, so I'll be using that, since my other helpers are now on holiday. Kids, eh, they're never around when you need them.. It would be great if you could all post a picture of what you've been working on before you finish for the day, then we can all go round to every one and have a look.

I do hope you've enjoyed yourselves today, and will be back next month.

Recipe Swap ............

............. OK, I'll show you mine, if you'll show me yours.  I thought it would be fun to all post a Christmas recipe, so I'll tell you how to make my gingerbread men/snowmen/blobs.

Gingerbread Men:

Ingredients

350g plain flour

100g butter

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 egg

4 tbsps Golden Syrup

175 g light, soft brown sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas Mark 4

Put the flour, butter, bicarb and ginger in a bowl and mix to fine breadcrumbs

Add the egg, syrup and sugar and mix to a firm dough

Chill for 30 mins.  (I meant the dough, not you.)

Dust your surface and rolling pin with flour and roll out to about 5 mm thick

Cut out shapes of men, trees, blobs or whatever you want, and put them on a baking tray, leaving room for them to spread, just as I did as I got older

Cook for 10 - 15 mins

Cool them on a wire rack, and decorate as you wish.

This makes about 15 men.

Mr Bossy Boots Linky is 2 posts back now.

No comment .............

Sorry, I should have said that Mr BossBoots Linky is on the previous post.

Take a break ..............

........... and have a go at this quiz.

and when you've done that, why not go and have a look at what everyone else has been doing.

and definitely go and have a look at what Midge has just posted.

Email the answers to me, and I'll have a draw for a little prize and announce the winner tomorrow.

Christmas Quiltalong Quiz

1. What Christmas Ballet is the most famous of all?
o Rudolph’s Surprise
o The Nutcracker
o Frosty Goes to New York

2. Where was Mommy kissing Santa Claus?
o On the Corner
o Under the Mistletoe
o In a Dark Alley

3. Who wrote the song "Here Comes Santa Claus"?
o Michael Jackson
o Gene Autry
o Percy Douglas

4. What does Alvin want for Christmas?
o An iPod
o A Bottle of Rum
o A Hula Hoop

5. What should little children leave out for Santa on Christmas Eve?
o Milk and a Biscuit
o Chewing Gum
o Cheese

6. What is Frosty the Snowman's nose made of?
o A Carrot
o A Potato
o A Button

7. Who is Ebenezer?
o The Milkman
o The President
o Scrooge

9. Which reindeer's name starts with a "B"?
o Bart
o Burt
o Blitzen

10. Which reindeer does not belong below?
o Dancer
o Roger
o Dasher

Would you like a gingerbread man?

I know, they don't look like gingerbread men at all do they?  That's cos I couldn't find the right cutter, so I used a snowman one instead.  Don't anyone tell me they don't look like snowmen either, I know they don't, but they taste very good.

I was going to give you useful(?) Christmas facts here, but blogger isn't playing very nicely at the moment, so I'll try again in a little while.

What the ....................

........... "does she think she's making Christmas decorations?" you're all asking.

Nope.  I'm making these.  Aren't they pretty?

Lunch time ...........

......... so I've just been to see what everyone else is working on.  Nosey?  Yep, that's me.  Don't forget to go and visit everyone else.

Ready .............

I'm going to try and Move Mr BossyBoots Linky every time I write a new post today. Keep your fingers crossed that it works OK.

Decision made ......................

All that's left of a jelly roll ....................

All nice and neatly cut and ready to go ...............







I should also add that I have got a few fun (well I think, anyway) things planned for later.  I'm just trying to give those of you who's time is behind British Summer Time a chance to get stuck in first.

It's Christmas .............

 ............... well actually it isn't, but it is Christmas Quiltalong day.

Mr Linky is going to move each time to the latest post - I hope.  If you put your name and blog address in there, then this clever Mr Linky produces a list of the names for us that we can click on to go visit each other.  How clever is that?
By the way, you don't have to leave a comment if you don't want to, even though Mr Bossy Boots Linky tells you too.

Are you ready ...........

.......... for some fun tomorrow?

I have one or two little surprises as we go through the day, which will require some audience participation.  Of course, you don't have to join in the games, but I'll sulk if you don't.  Oh and I'll keep the prizes, so there.

You'll all be pleased to hear that I have decided what I am going to make, and I don't even need to go shopping first.  Of course, the same may not be said for next month!

Now I'm off to make sure my camera batteries are charged up.

I hope you will all post during the day and I will put one of those clever Mr Linky things on here tomorrow, so anyone who's taking part can put their blog address, and then we can all visit each other during the course of the day to see what everyone's been up to.

I've got a problem .........

....... yeah, yeah, quiet at the back there those of you muttering "we KNOW you have".  No, my problem is regarding the Christmas Quiltalong. I can't decide what to make. I've got loads of different ideas in my mind, and they're all jumping up and down shouting "pick me, pick me!" and I can't make up my mind.  Most of them aren't "Christmas" quilts, as such, but whatever I make will be a present for my sister.  Has anyone else got this problem, or are you all so well organised that you know just what you're going to do, and have got all the fabrics sorted out and so on?

It's nearly time ....

...... for the Christmas Quiltalong

Helppppp .........

...... as some of you know, my daughter (aka Mrs Nomad) is in Florida on holiday at the moment.  Now I have somehow conned persuaded her that there is nothing she would like more than to go shopping for me.  Fabric shopping, that is.  The thing is, I'm no good at geography (failed it 3 times at O level at school!) so I know she's in Kissimee, but I don't know what quilt shops there are that are fairly near her.  Is there any one out there who could tell me where to tell her to go?

It's nearly Christmas ...............

...... well OK, it isn't actually, but, I wanted to share this with you in plenty of time.

Last year SewCalGal organised a virtual quilt show, which was great fun, with loads of gorgeous Christmas themed quilts for us to look at, and loads of prizes too for entrants and viewers.  I entered a quilt and in the unlikely event that you've forgotten it, you can see my entry again here. 

Anyway, this isn't about me (for once) and my entry, it's about the fact that SewCalGal never learns, so she is planning another show for this Christmas.  The good news for us is that anyone who takes part in the Christmas Quiltalong will get an additional entry into the prize contests.  So come on everyone, lets all get cracking on our Christmas quilts so we can show them off to the whole bloggy world in a show where our quilts won't be juried or judged, just appreciated by like-minded people, and where we might win great prizes too.

It's nearly time for the festivities to begin.

So I spent some time this afternoon getting ready.
Festive fabrics?  Check.
Festive threads?  Check
Festive music?  Check.
Festive candles?  Check.
Festive food?  Not yet.
Festive pattern for the festive fabrics?  Well, yes and no.  I have designed something, but I'm not sure if I'm going to use it yet.  I may well revert to Plan B instead.

Who else is ready for some festive fun at our Christmas Quiltalong next Saturday? 

The benefit ........

......... of having an uncle who is an ice-cream man!

Little Person and his Mummy and Daddy have been here this week.  We've also had The Professor and Chatterbox here as it is school holidays.

Little Person and family went home this morning, and the Nomads went off to Florida for a 3 week holiday today, so it's going to be a bit quiet here for a while.

I might even go and do some sewing today.

I must also start getting my things ready for the Christmas Quiltalong.

Thank you ..........

..... so much to everyone who triedd to help me find the pattern I was wittering on about.  I have now found it.  Whooppee.  I have a lovely little collection of batiks in bronzey-browny-yellowy colours that I just thought would be ideal for this.

Wanted ............

.... I have been trying to find a copy of Quiltmaker Magazine, Sept/Oct 2002, which has a pattern in it called Turning Leaves, which is a positive/negative type of block. I've seen pictures of the block and of quilts using it on google images, but I can't show you cos of copyright, so I've tried to do a picture to give you the idea.

You have to use a bit of imagination here and imagine the central diamond shape is really a leaf!

I have tried the magazine's site, but they don't have it. I've tried googling, but can't find it there. I've tried Ebay, but can't find it there either. So I wonder if anyone out there in blogland has a copy they would be willing to sell?  Please?  Pretty please?