More Giveaway Fun

The fun and excitement in quilting blogland just goes on and on.  SewCalGirl is having an amazing Hawaiian-themed giveaway on her blog and I'm getting an extra chance to win some of the goodies on offer by posting about it here.  There are three wonderful selections of items which include fabrics and patterns (but not the basket and cutting mat they are displayed on!!)

There are lots of ways to get an entry or eight in this great giveaway, from the straightforward "leave a comment" to posting about it like I'm doing or visiting the websites of the lovely people who are sponsoring the giveaway.  I'll stop now, you'll want to get over there (click on the link above or the logo on the right of my blog), please mention Lis sent you :)

Temari and Thimbles

I had this very exciting package all the way from Japan on Friday - excellent service too as I only placed the order from Chloe Patricia  on Sunday 16 May.

Lovely Nat had given me the information about these wonderful Japanese thimbles and also a link to making the bases myself

Making A Thimble Base
and this is what I ordered:

I'm going to make a Japanese silk thimble and a pin cushion.  I'm a little bit nervous about it - it looks very fiddley - but the instructions are good and clear.  I'll keep you informed with my progress.
In the meantime, if you want to see some gorgeous examples of woven thimbles, go to Temari Train, Debi's work is absolutely stunning.   

Temari balls are an folk art form that originated in China and were introduced to Japan five or six hundred years ago. The balls were originally made by mothers and grandmothers for the children to play with ...http://www.temarikai.com/

 The photos of temari above are from the fantastic website http://www.temarikai.com/ which has a wealth of information, illustrations, tutorials and links and is well worth a serious browse.

Friday Night Sew-In: Saturday Morning Report, May

I had a lovely evening yesterday, the house all to myself, Nutella on toast for tea, feet up on the sofa and a few hours of handsewing my Storm at Sea miniature before watching the final ever episode of Ashes to Ashes - not sure what I think of the ending yet, I shall miss the series though.  I hope everybody else joining the Friday Night Sew-In also had a relaxing and productive time in one way or another.

Here's how I'm getting on:

This was what I brought home from New Zealand after the workshop at the Timaru mini-symposium and

this is what it looks like now:

 Not too much more to do!!

For those of you who like cute photos, here's one of my gorgeous Sam choosing the winner of the Sewmamasew Giveaway Day prize on my Sashiko Started It blog, isn't he brilliant?

Thank you to Heidi and Bobbi for organising another great Friday Night Sew-In, I'm looking forward to the next one already.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

"On the Broads in May, Stalham"

This wallhanging is my contribution to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival which is being organised by Amy. 
I made this wallhanging, "On the Broads in May, Stalham",  to be a reminder of a lovely day out on a boat in Norfolk and I did share it on this blog in it's early stages back in  February this year.

We sailed from Stalham Staithe and I wanted to capture the lovely bright greens of spring, the flashes of the electric blue kingfishers glimpsed along the banks and the yellow water buttercups. To capture the gentle movement of the water through the reeds I have used sashiko stitching and I machined the quilt together using a decorative stitch reminiscent of a wading bird's footprint.

I added some little butterfly and dragonfly buttons (I would rather have used the diamond and enamel brooch I saw, unpriced, in one of those antique shops where you have to ring the bell to be let in but I imagine it would have cost a great amount of 'fabric-money') and some Swarovski crystal beads and gold stitching to represent the glinting sun on the water.

I am pleased with this quiltlet, it looks the way I imagined it - I was not after a landscape quilt or a picture, but a representation of a time and place.  I suppose the appliqued, bias-tape "reeds" and, of course, the buttons, are the closest aspect of the design that is pictorial.  It will hang on the wall in our holiday 'bach' in Mundesley, Norfolk.

Thank you for visiting, please go over to Amy's site and you'll see where you can find other blogs displaying quilts this week.

Added 26 May 2010:

Some lovely visitors to BQF have left comments or emailed me asking to see some more detail of my wallhanging so here are a few more photographs and thank you loads for your interest and your encouraging remarks, I really appreciate it.

Here you can see the wooden dragonfly button, the sashiko style hand stitiching that was done with a Valdini hand dyed variegated 35wt cotton thread.

This picture shows the Swarovski crystals and the overstitching on the seams which I did on my Silver 9000E machine.

This is the best photo I could get of the handquilting in gold thread along the bias tape "reeds".  I used a Mettler Metallic thread for that.

Finally, the butterfly wooden button and some more of the sashiko style stitching.  I'm going to do a little sashiko tutorial on my Japanese textiles blog soon but there are plenty on the web if you are interested, it's very therapeutic to do.

And the winner is...

Many, many thanks to everybody who visited during the SMS Giveaway Day.  I really enjoyed reading all 158 of your comments and I was delighted that so many people signed up to follow Sashiko Started It.
I know some people became followers to gain an additional entry in the giveaway and that's fine but I hope most of you will stay around and enjoy what I've got to share about my journey with Japanese textiles, sewing techniques and the whole of the country of Japan itself.
I would love to hear from you about your knowledge and experiences in those areas too, maybe you'd like to feature as a "Guest Blogger" on here?

Anyway, enough words and on to the results.  I asked my scrumptious grandson, Sam, to pick a winner out of my magic sashiko bag

 and the name he pulled out is, "Look, Nanny, look...

 ...it's  BEE  DAMON!"

Bee Damon said...

Why I'd like to visit Japan? Well, if I had to count all the reasons, we'd still be sitting here without getting any sleep 8D No, really. I've been interested in most Asian cultures since I was a little lad. Among the things I like most about Japan would be the food - as a vegetarian in Germany (Where meat is like... daily food) I found some Japanese dishes to be fresh and tasty for me. So when I finally get to visit Japan, I will eat out and enjoy it. =) And I absolutely love your giveaway! I'm not letting my thumbs go until the 20th! 8D

Congratulations Bee Damon,  please get in touch by email and let me have your postal address and I'll get your goodie parcel in the post immediately.
And very many thanks again to everybody who took part, I hope you had a lot of fun even if you didn't win, I know I did.  A big thank you too to Sewmamasew too for organising the whole thing so well.

A Difficult Choice

It's that time again, a lovely evening to be spent in poddy clothing and comfy slippers, with our favourite foods (don't get the chocolate on the sewing though) and the whole evening to devote to our lovely passion
BUT
there is a problem for us stitchers in England that Heidi  probably didn't foresee.
Tonight is also THE night.
Yes, at 9.00 p.m. on the good old BBC is the final ever episode of

ASHES  TO  ASHES

What's a girl to do?
This is my plan.  An evening of sewing until just before 9, then a quick trip to the kitchen to stock up with a consoling drink and some fruit cake.  Then an hour in front of the television - with some hand sewing on my lap but probably not being touched.  Then, at 10, if I am not too distraught, (or weary), back to the quilting,  I'll be working on my miniature Storm at Sea, watch this space.

And yes, I do know about i-player and recording television programmes but it just wouldn't be the same would it?

AccuQuilt Go! Fabric Cutter Giveaway

Wow, what a lot of wonderful things there are going on in blogland at the moment.  I have just come from  Kelly Jackson's blog, I Have A Notion and she has a great giveaway of an IHAN GO! Fabric Cutter by Accuquilt. 
You can take the straightforward 'make a comment' path for one entry or there are loads of more challenging options to gain extra entries. This is my entry and you should shoot over there too.  I know that reduces my odds of winning but quilters are kind like that :) 
The giveaway ends at on 28 May at 9.00 pm CMT so you've plenty of time.

AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter 

This is what you can win so I reckon that's worth a bit of effort but, not being on texting terms with Oprah I decided against anything in the Ten Entries section.  Nor am I prepared to share photos of my sewing room with you as it is currently stacked with my darling son's worldly goods so that leaves me with trying for three entries by

"Writing a story, on your blog, about  My most embarrassing moment quilting or not."

Well, it's got to be my most embarrassing quilting moment as I couldn't possibly share my most embarrassing ever in my whole life moment.  Although if I win the AccuQuilt GO! Fabric Cutter I promise I will - how about that for an incentive to choose me Kelly?
 
Okay, I've only been quilting for about four years so I've obviously got a lot to learn but I tend to be a "let's just give it a go" sort of person rather than a "let's read the instructions carefully and then get started" sort of person.  I had gathered a good selection of quilting magazines and one or two books but hadn't really read them particularly carefully.  No, untrue, I hadn't read them at all. 
So, I get started on my third ever quilt which is also my first quilt which will have traditional blocks in it.  My first quilt was an attempt at stained glass and my second a bargello for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary (it came out okay, a lot of love and not much skill in it). 
I'm cutting fabric into little pieces and sewing them back together and it's taking a long time.  Hmm, I reckon what I could do is sew one after another together in a long strip without removing them from the machine and then I could snip them apart.  This would save time and thread.  It's a good idea, it works really well and I'm feeling pleased with myself. 
So smug and pleased with myself in fact that I decide it would be a good idea to share my wonderful technique with the quilting world at large and later that day I sit down at my computer to type an email to British Patchwork & Quilting Magazine. 
I am eternally grateful to the God of Red Faces that while looking for the email address of P&Q magazine I came upon their regular "In a Nutshell" page and noticed a little section headed, "CHAIN  PIECING".

I didn't send the email and this is the finished quilt!

Thank You To Everybody Who Visited Me Here

Note from Lis added 21 May:  Please note that my SMS Giveaway (please scroll down or click here  to have a look) is now closed and I will be announcing the winner this morning, Friday 21 May. 

Thank you to everyone who visited here, left lovely comments and signed up as followers.  I have been absolutely blown away with the number of comments I have received, it makes me feel really good inside.  I hope I managed to email you all individually to say thank you but I have been amazed at how many visitors I've had and might have missed somebody out or not been able to find an email for you (although I tried even if you were a 'no-reply blogger').  It has been wonderful to read all your ideas about Japan and to read your compliments about my blog, thank you.
I hope you enjoy the things I'll be adding in the future, including more information about my recent visit to Tokyo, the projects I have for the fabric I bought there and something about the traditions and culture of the wonderful country of Japan.  Of course I'll also be announcing the winner of my giveaway on 21st May, here on this blog.

Sewmamasew's giveaway day was a lot of fun and if, like me, you've spent a lot of time rushing around the web signing up for all the gorgeous giveaways I hope you'll come back and browse through Sashiko Started It at leisure.

You may be interested to know that I have another blog where I share my non-Japanese quilty work and my musings on life in Lincolnshire, it's Online Quilting.  The next big event happening there is the Blogger's Quilt Festival which starts on Friday (which is also Friday Night Sew-In so it'll be a fun and quilty day).  A lot of the blogs I've visited during Giveaway Day were fairly new ones so I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage those new bloggers to carry on blogging, it is amazing where it can lead.

Beautiful Flowers

I have just picked a small bunch of the beautiful Lily of the Valley flowers that are blooming in my garden at the moment. I have seven stems in a small vase and they are perfuming the whole house. Isn't nature brilliant?

Giveaway Day - 17th May

I'm taking part in Sewmamasew's giveaway day on my Japanese blog, Sashiko Started It if you'd like to pop over there for the chance to win a goodie parcel.  Lots of other giveaways are listed on the Sewmamasew blog - you could spend all day having a good look around and entering all the ones you like.  Good luck.