Wishing all my friends ....

Chatterbox, The Professor and Little Person

would like to wish you all

a very Happy Christmas

and a wonderful 2011

and so would I.

So what did the Piggy say?

You know how there's always a wonderful "moment" in any child's school play?  Well, this is what happened at Little Person's play last week.

Narrator: "... and the Piggy said ...."
Piggy: " ... ermm....Moo?  Baa?   No, OINKK"

I do so love these plays and performances.

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

......... to Mary at Quilt Hollow, who sent me this:

 I love these snappy bags, they are so useful, and Mary also included a lovely pattern for a quilt which I absolutely must make soon.  This package arrived some days ago, and I have been very slow to show everyone how generous she was.

Then yesterday I got another package which I was not expecting, from Amy at Mamie's Quilts.

4 gorgeous fat quarters, which will be made into a table topper soon.  Aren't the colours lovely and soft and "spring"-like?  Amy also included a lovely handmade card.  I think she made it herself, and if I'm right, she should give up the day job, as they say, and go into making cards professionally.

 Aren't blog friends just wonderful?  Thank you both so much.

So now I'll never know ....

.... why there is a scientist in the nativity play!

Today and tomorrow Chatterbox's school were performing their nativity play, and  Chatterbox was playing the part of a scientist, complete with white coat and safety gobbles (as he used to call goggles when he was little).  Sadly he has managed to develop a really awful cold over the weekend, and didn't go to school today.

I'm also due to go down south on Wednesday for Little Person's first school play, but listening to the weather forecast for the last half of the week, there is a serious risk that if I go I might get snowed in, so I am paying far more attention to the forecasts than I usually do.

We have a winner ...

... of the fabulous calendar.  That person is

and who is number 123?  Well, it's me of course.  Aren't I the lucky one?  It is a great calendar with 12 wonderful projects in it.

No, OK, I'm only kidding, I am not the winner, I am going to be posting this off to Janice at Searchfamilies.  Please contact me with your address Janice so I can get this in the post to you in plenty of time for Christmas.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  I wish I could have sent a calendar to every single one of you.

On her 30th birthday ....

... Abbe from CopperPatch had a giveaway to celebrate, and I was the lucky winner.  The prize was to choose something for myself that I really wanted, and she would pay for it.  Well, I can tell you, it took me about 2 weeks of window-shopping to choose, but I finally made a decision, and yesterday this is what arrived in the post. 

 The template is one which will let me make quilts with tesselated windmills, and there is a beautiful charm pack and some yardage of Bliss, which I think is a gorgeous fabric range.  Now I can hardly wait to start playing, but I MUST finish off one or two other things first.

So thank you Ab for a wonderful prize.

Don't forget, you've still got a few hours to enter my giveaway, here.

First it looked like this

and now it looks like this

 BRRRR!!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway, here by Tuesday 7 December.

I'm giving away .....

This giveaway has now closed.  Thanks to everyone who entered.  You can see the winner here.
 
... a calendar. (It's the first day of December today, so does that make it an advent calendar?)

Anyway, thanks to the wonderful people at Martingale (well, I have to say that don't I?  Guess who's publishing my book?)  I have got this fantastic calendar to give away to one of you.

Every month there is a picture of a great quilt, like this,

or this,

or this,

but the really cool part is that you also get instructions to make each quilt.  So now you could be organised, you have something wonderful to look at each month and you have loads of new projects to work on.  There are applique projects, there are piecing projects, and for those of you who can't make up your mind which method you prefer, there are even projects with both piecing and applique in!  As well as the instructions for each quilt, there is a useful section on general techniques such as making bias strips, preparing pieces for applique, etc.

The other thing I think is really good about this calendar is that the quilts are photographed so beautifully that you can even see how they have been quilted.

So, what do you have to do to win this?  Simply leave me a comment on this post. Yep, that's all.   You do not have to be a follower (although new followers are always welcome), but if you are, leave me a second comment telling me that you are and you will have a second entry.  If you are a no-reply person, please leave me an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.  You are welcome to enter wherever you live in this world or in any other universe!  This giveaway will be open until Tuesday 7 December at midnight (GMT) and the winner will be announced the following day.  That way I will have time to post it to the winner so you receive it in time for Christmas.