Stitch, Stitchin Away

I may have been away from my blog for a week or so

but not my stitching.

Far from it.

My hexagon quilt has taken over.

Every spare moment is taken up with hand sewing

the hexagons together.

The diamonds are all stitched together

as can be seen from the photo above.

I held it while Mike took the photo

just to show you that they are indeed all stitched together.

The photo was taken last week

and a dark green border of hexagons completely surround the diamonds now.

Next I will start filling in the gaps with rosettes.

It keeps me occupied while Mike is away.

He's been away in the UK for a week now.

So I am the sole looker afterer

of the Hounds!

In return for keeping me company.

In fact we have just come back from a walk.

We went by car first of all out of the village.

But everywhere is a bit muddy

and when they got back in the car

it was with muddy paws.

Oooops!

I then decided to have a short drive along the river.

Once again the river has flooded over it's banks.

It's done this a few times already this winter.

The photos below were taken on Boxing Day.

It's similiar to that now but without the sunshine.

Yesterday, I got a lovely surprise when I visited the Quilt Along blog of which I'm a member.

I discovered that I was the winner of a giveaway

a lovely book

on quilting of course.

So I am anticipating it's arrival.

Something to look forward to.

With a bit of luck

I may be as lucky with Noelle's giveaway.

She makes the loveliest of felt houses.

Do take a look.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Fun, Fun, Fun.

Whoops,
oh dear!
Full of good intentions.
I had fully intended
to post the winner of my giveaway
yesterday.

But you know how it is
when you have a new camera.
You just have to
get friendly with it.
Find out what makes it tick.
More importantly
find out how it works.
So that's what I was doing yesterday.
The sun was shining,
the flowers were blooming,
the buds were budding.
So I got clicking.
But I'll keep those for another day,
maybe tomorrow.

This is what was on offer.
See,
I've been using the new camera
for important things too.
A little felt picture.
Embroidered flowers and trees
on handmade felt.
I made the felt on a workshop in Cumbria last year.
I had in mind when I embroidered the felt
that it resembled
an English garden in a Swedish forest!



I've been busy making hexagons too.
And turned some of them into a pincushion.
The front.

The back.
As it is it's a pincushion,
or add a ribbon,
and it's an ornament.


It was lovely reading all your comments,
much appreciated.
Thank you.

All the names went into a hat.

I mean a basket!

Mike was honoured to do the honours.

And Sandi's name was pulled out of the basket!

Sandi over at: http://embroideroo.blogspot.com/

Sorry to be long winded about that but the link button doesn't work!

So this little group of goodies

will be travelling

half way across the world to Australia.

Just as soon

as I pop them in the post tomorrow!

So congratulations Sandi,

I hope you enjoy them.

And thank you to everyone else for joining in.

I've enjoyed it so much

I will have to think of another one!
Sometime

Soon.

Of course I should have said

that I really wanted to send you all a little something.

But apart from it taking me ages to make the 'little somethings,'

I think the cost of sending all the 'little somethings' would have been a bit too much for my little purse!

100th post and Giveaway!

It's my 100th post

so in great blog tradition

I will have a giveaway.

My first post was in January 2007.
It's taken a while to get here!
Initially I had set up the blog to keep in touch with family and friends.

I thought it was a good way of showing them our new life here in Sweden.

Except I didn't tell anyone about it!

People asked us

'Why Sweden?'

This blog I suppose

aims to answer that question.

It's really a photo journal

of our day to day living.

I often wonder whether to publish a post

because each day is much like the one that went before.

We live in a forest,

Our nearest neighbour is 200 hundred yards up the track.

Some days we feel that we could be the last people on earth
because we haven't seen anyone for days,

literally.

When we sit outside on our terrace,

it is very quiet.

There is only the sound of the birds,

or sometimes the sound of the wind in the trees.

Hardly any aircraft travel overhead,

and traffic noise is only heard

occasionally.

Perhaps when the wind is blowing in the right, (wrong) direction.

Mike has told lots of our friends about my blog now.

And I know they call in to see what we're up to

or maybe it's just to see what the weather is up to in Sweden!

My daughter told me last week that she looks at my blog,

which I'm very pleased about.

I enjoy my trips into Blogworld.
I have made a lot of friends here.

Important when so far away from

family and friends at home.

So still without my camera

I will show what I have on offer for my giveaway.

I think I can manage with photos that I took before I dropped the camera.

I have been making some ATC's (artist trading cards),

from some felt I made last year,

which I embroidered.

I titled them

'English Garden in a Swedish Forest'.

I had some felt left so keeping the same size as an ATC

(two and a half inches by three and a half inches),

I have one to giveaway,

similiar to the ones shown here.

a heart,

you can just see one here

peeking out

but there's more in my side bar.

a hexagonal pincushion,

similiar to the one here, but smaller, and dottier.

some ribbons I bought-

one of a Dalarna horse,

and one blue and yellow (symbolising the Swedish flag).

All that that you need to do if you want to enter the giveaway
is to leave a comment here.
I will leave it open for a week,
until Monday 28th April 9am CET time

when I will pick one winner.

Please leave a link so I can contact you if I pick your name out of the hat.

Now I'll just go and find a hat!

Oh, and a Happy Birthday to my son.
Twenty three years old today!

Well that should be Sunday.

It has taken me that long to post this!

Best of luck!

Edited to add that the giveaway is international.