Little Person has a special Halloween message for you:

Giveaway...........

..........from my friend Quilthaze.

As you all know, I don't usually post about giveaways, but Quilthaze is a good friend of mine in real life so I am doing this post.  If you go to her blog, here, you can enter her "Triple Treat" giveaway.  Three people will win, but since I would like one of those three to be me, I would prefer it if you ignore this post!

I am now with Mr and Mrs Teacher, and Little Person for a couple of days, and tomorrow we are going to Mr Teacher's (2nd) graduation ceremony.

When I get home again I will tell you about my new toy, the Go! cutter.

My new pets

I would like you all to meet my new pets, the birds:

Aren't they cute?

They were made following a tutorial on Nicole's blog, here.

Oops, I'm sorry, I  got the link to the tutorial wrong, but I have corrected it now and if you click on the link, it will take you straight there.

Am I the only one..........

.. who feels guilty when she hasn't posted anything for a few days?

I was thinking this evening, "I haven't written anything since Saturday, and I feel bad about it."  The reason for the silence is that I haven't really done anything worth talking about it, so why feel guilty?  Hence my question:

Am I the Only One?

I'd be interested to know if it is just me or if other people feel the same when they are quiet for a few days.

Further proof .........

....... if you need it, that I am an idiot.

Today I had a casserole planned for dinner this evening, and was timing it so we could sit down with it and watch the Grand Prix Qualifying session at the same time.  Sounds good on a chilly evening, yes?  Well that's what we thought.  Except.... I managed to lose an hour somehow this afternoon, so dinner was ready at 5 instead of 6 pm.

Oh dear, poor Mr Fixit, I feel very sorry for him having to live with me, I'm such an idiot!

Sneaky peek time...

......... wanna see what I've been doing over the last couple of days?

You can't see the whole thing, but I have been playing.  I've been trying out various blocks that I've always wanted to do either to see how they look, or to try a new technique.

I've been having fun.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Woww, two posts in one day!  I really must stop spending so much time on this computer.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed a new button on the right of my blog.  The Park City Girl, Amy, who's blog is here  is hosting an online quilt show for those of us who can't get to Houston this week.  Actually, she's hosting it for those who can get there too!  It's not a competition, or a juried show.  What you do is choose one of your quilts and show it and tell its story on your blog, put a link on her blog and that's all.  Then you can follow all the links for an amazing on-line quilt show. Oh yes, and there are prizes too, which I think are won in a draw.

 I have called this quilt Raspberries and Cream.  Some of you have seen it before, and those who regularly look at my blog have even lived throught the agonising over quilting designs!  For some reason it is proving almost impossible to get a photo of this that does justice to the colours.  The background is a lovely soft, buttery yellow, the green is a sage green colour and the pink is a gorgeous deep pink.  I started this top in August 2008 at a workshop at the Festival of Quilts, but I didn't finish piecing it for ages.  In fact, although it is from the Quilt In A Day series, by Elinor Burns, mine should be called a quilt in 8 months!

This is a close-up to show some of the quilting.  I used a pattern which was originally meant for the centre of a Double Wedding Ring block in the Snowballs, and some heart type motifs in the stars.  The border has a wavey feathery pattern.
I do love this quilt, and maybe, one day soon, I will get to burying all the ends and sewing the binding down!

Bertha's feeling better.

The day before yesterday we decided it was time to retime Bertha, so Mr Fixit got his screwdrivers out, took her out of the sin-bin and put her on top of a cabinet, all the while muttering dark mutterings to himself about sewing machines that don't sew!  He then went in with his screwdrivers.  There is a hook thingy, attached to a shaft thingy, and the instructions said that he needed to move the hook-y bit a smidgeon or two.  Well, he tried.  He really tried.  The mutterings got louder, and still he tried.  No good.  He could not move it.  So we decided to admit defeat and send her to the sewing machine hospital.  By this time it was quite late on Thursday, so I did not do anything about contacting the repair man.  Friday morning Mr Fixit suggested we ought to try Bertha first, just in case he had moved something an infinitessimally (OK, he didn't use that word, that was my interpretation) small amount.  So we did.  Guess what?  Yep, she sewed beautifully.  Not a skip in sight. So now she is back on the frame waiting for me to give her something to do.  Well, she can wait.  She made me wait after all.

Meanwhile, I'm going back to piecing the blocks I'm piecing.

Thank you.........

....... to everyone who voted for me in the Nature's Best competition.  The winners have now been announced and you can see them here.  All the quilts were wonderful in their own ways, and I was amazed at the variety of different quilts entered. (Leaves Around the Cabins came 5th, by the way, which I was delighted about.)

Are you seeing double?

Bertha decided to be very naughty, so I have sent her to sit in the corner, with her back to the room, to think about her bad behaviour. Meanwhile, Her sister, Ten Ton Tessie, has come to me for a working holiday, so I could finish a couple of quilts. I think Bertha's timing got knocked out when I broke a needle on the second of the 2 raffle quilts I was struggling with, so she kept skipping stitches. I was sure it was not a problem with Mrs PP's fabric or wadding, and the thread was the combination I always use, so my friend brought Tessie over to try, and lo and behold, perfect sewing. So Bertha is in the corner. Tessie coming over for her holiday has meant that I could finish the Pineapple and do my Christmas Braids quilt.

PS Christmas Braids is finished, so I'll probably put a photo up tomorrow.

Dresden Plates

One of my blogland friends, Paulette was talking about how easy this block was to do with a ruler she bought last year. You can read her comments about it here, so I said I would show this quilt I made using the same ruler.

I made this quilt in 2006 with blue and yellow fabrics I collected on my holiday to Pennysylvania. It was made for my sister - well who else would it have been for in those colours?

Have you voted yet?

No, don't worry, you haven't missed a general election, or a local one or anything unimportant like that, but you onlyhave until tomorrow to vote in the Nature's Best virtual quilt show. Currently my Leaves Around the Cabins is in 5th place, but I am a competitive person who wants to be in the top 3, (OK, OK, I'll be honest, I want to be the top one, but there is some pretty stiff competition there) so if you haven't voted, please go and put your mark against Leaves Around the Cabins. You don't have to be a member, or a subscriber, or anything else, just click on the button on the right of this post and then click on the Vote Now bit, and vote for Leaves Around the Cabins. If you have voted, then thank you.

PS  I've just found out that the voting deadline has been extended to Tuesday, so there's still time to vote if you want to do so.

A funny story about homework.....

.... well actually, two funny stories about Chatterbox and his maths homework.

The other day, he had to do mental arithmetic and I had to ask him to tell me the answer if he took a number (given by me) from 100. He was good at it, and I think he got them all right, so then Mr Fixit suddenly said, 100 take away 105? Chatterbox just looked at him and said " -5 Grandad. I do know about minus numbers". Not bad for a boy of 7.

Today we had to do something different. He and I had to write down 3 random numbers on separate sheets of paper. Then we had to take it in turns to choose a number between 1 and 6, and the other person had to subtract it from one of their 3 numbers. With me so far? We had to do this 3 times each. Chatterbox knew it was a game, and a game has to have a winner, right? So, after the first time he asked me how you win. I said the winner was someone with one of their final answers ending in the number 1. Purely by accident he had won the first round. We had to have 3 rounds, so what does he do on the next go. He chose 11 as one of his numbers, and did not subtract anything from it, thereby winning again. Clever I thought.

OK, maybe I am biased, but I thought that both of these stories were really funny.

oh ye of little faith..

I see from the comments left yesterday that one or two of you doubted that I had a stash at all, or that I ever intended to show the pictures, so here, for all of you Doubting Thomases, ........
My Stash

My stash

Judy L has issued a challenge to everyone to show photos of their stash. She's on a mission I think to show how tidy she is (giggle). I wasn't going to show mine until I dropped myself right in it when I told Lynn that if she showed hers, I'd show mine. So here it is folks..............tada........................

My Stash

Hmm, blogger won't let me post my pictures, so I'm off for a coffee in a minute, and I'll come back later.

I have also just taken Mrs PennyPot's Pineapple quilt off the frame, so I wanted to take a photo of that to show you, but the camera is telling me it's batteries are flat. Why do I get the feeling technology is against me this afternoon?

P.S.

I saw this Halloween blog layout on Karen's blog and several others, and loved it, so I thought I'd have it here too. Do you like it? Now I've found out how to do it, I might be changing my background on a regular basis.

Post script: Several people have asked me how to do this, so here are the details: Click on the logo on the top left of my blog, which takes you to a site called Daisy Gray Designs. When you are there you can choose a free background and follow her instructions. It was really very easy, and there are some fun backgrounds there.

Nature's Best competition

Just to let you all know that the voting is now open for the above competition. Just click the link on my sidebar. You can vote once for the large quilt and once for the small quilt of your choice. I wonder if I can vote for my own entries?

I entered Leaves Around the Cabins in the large quilts category (well now, there's a surprise!) and Cherry Blossom in the small quilts category. My friend Lynn entered Braided Batiks and Summer Posies in the large and small categories respectively and Sewing Granny entered The Butterflies Teaching Desmond to Fly in the small quilts.

There really are some lovely quilts shown though, so even if you're not intending to vote, it's well worth going and having a look at them.

It's a bargain....

Well actually, it's a freebie. To be completely precise, it's a giveaway. I don't often join these, on the grounds that I never win anything, lottery, raffle, nothing. In fact, I reckon if I entered something and was the only person who did so, I STILL wouldn't win. There now, don't you feel sorry for me?

Anyway, Paulette who lives in Canada is having a giveaway, for no reason except that she wants to. If you go over to her blog, here, you can see that she is giving away the first issue of a new Canadian quilting magazine and other goodies.

Her blog is well woth visiting as she always has some interesting and amusing posts about her life and her quilting.

A touch of the Reggie Perrins.....

Mr Fixit needs an eye test. He rings the optician. The conversation goes like this:

Mr Fixit: Can I make an appointment please?
Optician: Yes, certainly. Would you prefer a morning or an afternoon appointment?
Mr Fixit: Morning please.
Optician: 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon then.

Triumph of hope over experience

or just plain stupid? I was reading Karendianne's blog this morning and she had referred to watching Wuthering Heights on TV. That led me to thinking about why I don't watch that or read it again, since I've read it several times before. The reason is that every time I saw it I hoped for a happy ending, and never got it. It is the same with some other books like Gone With the Wind. Now, when you've all stopped laughing at me you can decide for yourselves if I am an eternal optimist or just plain stupid.