We have a winner!!!!

Firstly I like to thank everyone who visited my blog and entered my giveaway. I was overwhelmed with the number of comments - 374!! I always like to reply to all your comments but I just couldn't this time round. Also a big welcome to all my new followers! I hope you enjoy seeing what I create and also some snippets of my life in small town New Zealand. I'll do my best to keep you entertained and inspired :)
Okay so I guess you want to know who the winner is. With so many comments I went with the Random Generator which came up with the number 184 who is:

Dawn who said:

 I'm currently obsessed with quilting, but my true passion is knitting. I could definitely use a roll for my needles!

 Congratulations Dawn! I have just sent you an email so look forward to hearing from you soon.

So because of all the lovely comments I received  regarding the knitting roll I have been busy making 2 more which I will be listing in my shop later on today. 

The above knitting roll is made with 2 fabrics designed by Valeri Wells on the inside and a Sandi Henderson print on the outside.

And this knitting roll is made up of a pretty pink and white polka dot fabric and a black and pink floral with a bold pink print on the outside. I'm really pleased with how they both came out and I hope they get to go to a good home:)

I also thought of making up a PDF pattern for those who'd like to have a go at making their own. What do you think??

Okay I have a busy weekend ahead of me, a quilt top to whip up, a sleepover, and a birthday to prepare for as our eldest daughter, Amelia, turns 14 on Monday!! Where did those years go!

Update: Both knitting rolls have been sold :) So I guess I'll have to make another couple!

It's Giveaway time!!

Welcome to my loyal readers and to all those first time visitors who have come over from the "Sew Mama Sew" blog. I love hosting giveaways and making connections with fellow crafters so I if you are new here I hope you can stay a while and have a good look around my blog and find out a little about me.

For my giveaway I have whipped up a knitting roll for knitting on the go plus some quilting fabrics and buttons. I also like to pop in some surprise goodies before I post it off :)

This knitting roll is inspired by my Mother who actually does all the knitting in our family and has provided us with some lovely warm hand knits over the years. I haven't made her one of these rolls yet but a while ago she asked for a knitting roll to put her knitting in for travelling so this is what I've come up with. It has room for 10 pairs of needles and then a generous size pocket on the left side for your current knitting project. I can knit myself but just don't have the time to fit it in at the moment.

For the supplies part of my giveaway I have 4 pieces of quilters cotton and a handful of buttons just because I love buttons. The fabrics are all fat quarters except one that is cut across the fabric width. 

This is the outside of the knitting roll It is padded with batting and quilted with straight line quilting.

So if you'd like to win this knitting roll plus the fabrics and buttons all you have to do is leave me a comment and tell me what your current crafting passion is at the moment. My main passion is sewing quilts, cushions and other home decor but I also like to find time to crochet and scrapbook.

This giveaway is open until 9pm May 25, and international visitors are most welcome! The winner will be drawn by random and will be notified by email so please make sure I can access your email address! Good luck!!!!!

Bliss quilt top reveal!

So here it is, my quilt top made up of Bonnie & Camille's Bliss fabric. I know I promised pictures of it finished earlier last week but I got called into work for 3 full-time days, plus I'm busy being a solo parent at the moment while my husband roams around the States looking for the perfect car to give away at next years Beach hop festival. Somehow I found some small pockets of time to finish this quilt top. I sewed on the last of the yoyo's yesterday morning...that's 114 yoyo's...yes I underestimated the time it would take me to make them let alone sew each one on but I do love how it turned out which is pretty much exactly what I envisaged when I drew the initial sketch.

Little clusters of yoyo flowers on the vine...

....and  a plain yoyo in the centre of each 'pinwheel'

As usual I'm undecided as to how to quilt it. I had thought of some simple hand quilting in some bold Perle cotton but the colours I want are just not available in our little craft shop here so plan 'B' might be to hand quilt it in normal quilting cotton or plan 'C' to have a combination of both machine and hand quilting. So what do you think??? Your thoughts are most welcome!! I still have some bliss fabric and yoyo's leftover to play with so stay tuned for some coordinating decor to go with this quilt.

Oh and the month of May just happens to be my blogiversary of 2 years which nicely coordinates with "Sew Mama sew's"  Mayday giveaway happening on Monday 23rd so be sure to come back to help me celebrate with some goodies to giveaway!!

Fit for a princess!

This post has been a long time coming but finally I can share some photos of  my daughter Amelia's newly decorated room. Her old room was upstairs on the top floor of our house but we decided to redecorate what  used to be our spare room and move her in there which pleased her greatly. We painted the window frames white and Amelia chose the turquoise blue wallpaper, the charcoal curtains. and the new light fittings herself. I'm really pleased with how this room turned out. It is nice and bright and perfectly stylish for a nearly 14 year old girl and she now has way more storage space than she used to.  

 She has a wardrobe with shelving which she never had in her old room and a door to slam shut if she feels the need :) In her old room she just had curtains across the entrance.

The dressing table used to be mine when I was her age and hanging next to it is the wall hanging I made her to match this quilt.

A garland of hearts made in a crazy patchwork style with scraps from the frock quilt.

She now has room and a place to display all those essential girl things.

Her cushions I made her here and here are now nicely displayed on her bed.

Above her bed is a new light fitting and her dream catcher plus you can see the pretty swirls at the ends of the new curtain rails which match the swirls in the curtains.

The wreath I made her here also hangs above her bed.

Some favourite things on her bedside table.

Her new desk with a pink Swiss ball as her chair and the memo board I made for her last Christmas. The turquoise blue in the Heather Bailey fabric used on the memo board was the inspiration for the bedrooms wall colour.

And finally this little bird house and bird has been hers since she was about 2 and now hangs above her desk. Moving into her new room also meant being able to have a good clean out and deciding what she did and didn't want to keep. A lot of stuff was thrown out or passed onto her sister but I'm so glad she wanted to keep this birdhouse which was the starting point to decorating her first room with a garden theme.

I hope you enjoyed seeing Amelia's newly decorated room. I'm still working away on my Bliss quilt top but hoping to finish it within the next 2 days!

Happy Monday!

Brooch swap mosaic

1. folded flower bookshelf decoration, 2. Martini brooch, 3. DSC_0009, 4. recent brooches, 5. Making use of the new felt rope., 6. Vintage Brooches On Dressmaker's Form., 7. Heart mobile up close, 8.green, 9. Little Pink House, 10. flickr.com/photos/74067014@N00/4976499711/, 11. main 006, 12.Mixed Media, 13. 'Strawberry Sundae' wall art, 14. susans flowers, 15. Embroidery from our workshop at Ballarat Patchwork, 16. little garden pin cushion

This is my first ever mosaic made for the Brooch swap. I hope it gives my partner some idea of what I like. Making a mosaic is really easy and fun. I followed Jo's instructions here using the Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker. I think I might be making more mosaics in the near future :) 

Making Yoyo's

The eating kind! Delicious even if the first batch were in the oven maybe a minute too long:)

And the embellishing kind! These yoyo's are going on my bliss quilt and I still have quite a few to make so I guess that's what I'll be doing in my spare time this weekend. I say spare time because Amelia's new bedroom is very close to being finished. I've showed small glimpses of her room here and here so it's been a work in progress for a few months now. It's looking really pretty and elegant so this weekend is moving in time. I'll give you a little photo tour soon.

Celebrating with cupcakes....

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway on Renee's blog Nays Place. Renee is a kiwi living in Australia and often blogs about her sweet little girl who seems to provide endless entertain. Anyway Renee had been given some natural food colourings to try and then generously put them up as a giveaway. In the above photo you can see them on the right in that very small little box and that is all I was expecting to receive but as you can see Renee  sent me a parcel of goodies to share with my family, yummy mini Easter eggs and a box of cupcake mix so we had the perfect excuse to try out the food colourings.

I was going to keep them for the following weekend to make up with the girls but with the Royal wedding on last Friday we decided they would be the perfect royal treat to have while watching Kate and Wills tie the knot. The above photo was taken at night so is a bit on the yellow side but we iced them in 3 different colours of lime green, apricot and pink. The mix included the icing mix and the cute little polka dot cupcake cases.

The girls had fun decorating them with what I had on hand and in the above photo is one that Caitlin decorated with 2 cute tiny hearts which I thought was very appropriate for the occasion. Oh and if you haven't had enough of looking at the Royal wedding they have their own Flickr page here!

Thanks Renee for the extra goodies!!

A new swap!

While reading through my blog list last night (which is way too long) I came across this new swap on Susie's blog Flowerpress who is organising a brooch swap to celebrate her 500th post.  I've been wanting to join in  on a swap for a long time but really couldn't commit the time but this swap seems perfect for me. I love to make and wear pretty brooches and since Susie's given us 7 weeks to make one for our partners I'm sure I'll meet this deadline. If you are keen to join in sign ups are open till May 10th over here.