Friday, 17 September 2010

Counting My Blessings

Today I received my prize from Rae Ann at Cutie Pinwheel. You may remember I won it as a prize giveaway. The pattern is by Lori Holt and is called Count Your Blessings. It is lovely, I know I shall enjoy stitching it. Hopefully I will be able to do both Rae Ann and Lori proud. Rae Ann also sent me a beautiful pattern that I had admired on her blog. The real prize of course and the real reason for feeling so blessed is making the acquaintance of Rae Ann. I do hope we get to meet one day.



I also had a phone call this week telling me that I had won a bag in a raffle at a quilt show. Last weekend My husband took me to Weston Super Mare to see Weston Quilter's Exhibition. Now this is a great show and well worth a visit, once you have negotiated the traffic along the sea front and followed the diversion which brings you out at exactly the same spot you started!!!! There is a lot of regeneration going on along the sea front which hopefully will be a good thing. It needs smartening up. The raffle was a good idea. Buy a ticket for £1 and put the ticket in the bag that you want to win. Ta da! It is made of wool felt, has a lovely novelty lining of sewing items and is beautifully made. A fabulous prize I think you will agree. Can a girl ever have too many bags? Guess who forgot her camera?



Union flags are everywhere at the minute and this is my version of a pattern downloaded from JustHands on TV. The pattern is by Anne Baxter. I have adapted it slightly as Anne has made her cushion square and I want mine oblong. It is for my niece Meg. The brief was to use her colours for her new bedroom. Now I haven't seen the new bedroom yet but I have got a wallpaper sample. Hope you will like it Meg. I am informed that you can only call our flag the Union Jack if it is hoisted on a ship, otherwise it is the Union Flag. Didn't know that before till after. I found a few threads from my stash that will do for some big stitch quilting.



Now, please feel free to have a good laugh. I did. I have permission to show you this. Wednesday was my youngest daughter's birthday, she was 25. Olly, her beloved decided that he would make her a cake. I offered to buy one!!! Time was really short and off we went to the supermarket to get the ingredients as he was also cooking tea for 6 of us. Sarah was picking me up on her way from work and Olly phoned to say could I delay her for 20 minutes. When we arrived at their house. Rachel and Olly were in hysterics. He made the cake but forgot that it needed time to cool down and hastily slapped all this lemon icing on that promptly melted. If you click on it you will see that he also put cocktail sticks in it to stop the layers from sliding off. It was funny. The icing actually was quite nice. Tea was delicious and we had a great time. Thanks Ol. I also bought balloons which were put up. I did take photo's but I think Blogger may take me off air if I show them as they looked a little rude. They are in actual fact animals but in the semi darkness - well, what can I say. Take my word for it.



Roses most definitely are my favourite and these were cheap and cheerful from Tesco. They really brightened up the room this week and cheered me no end. I even hope to have a quilting design drawn up from them.



Happy stitching

Love Shirley.x

9 comments:

  1. What a lovely post. Super wins, do make sure that you get your lottery ticket for the third one! The colours for the Union flag are so relaxing an I just love Caron threads. I am running very low so need a trip to Bakewell to replenish I think. Thanks for showing the cake - I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of trying to stop it with cocktail sticks - shades of Canute I think. It was a really nice gesture though. Can't wait to see what you are going to do from the roses inspiration.

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  2. What a great post Shirley..yes I did have a chuckle at that cake...so did it get eaten, looks good enough to eat, melted icing and all!
    Gorgeous roses, my fav flowers.
    have a nice day.
    Julia ♥

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  3. Lucky you, two wins in a week! I love your Union Flag, I've seen a couple in blogland made up as cushions and they look great. What a sweetie Ollie is to cook dinner AND a cake for you all - love his creative flair with the icing and Happy Birthday to your baby girl. Those roses look absolutely beautiful.

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  4. What a lovely post! Congratulations on the wins!! I enjoyed the story about the cake too - I'm sure it was perfectly edible though - sure you all enjoyed your dinner. Those roses sure are beautiful and very inspirational.

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  5. :)
    What a week!, Shirley! I love your pink bag, and your other gifts. And the cake! How lovely: and congrats to your daughter!
    And since we are 'counting our blessings' : thanks my friend!
    I am still feeling renewed by your love and care. :)

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  6. The saying is that the test is in the taste so never mind, I think it was a wonderful thing for Olly to go to all the trouble. Congratulations on your wins, must be your lucky week. Thanks for the flowers.

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  7. Lovely wins and what a great bag. I had a really good laugh when I saw the cake as I have seen quite a few like that come out of Peter's kitchen as he is often too impatient to wait for the cake to cool before adding the icing. However, the important thing is the thought and I am sure you all enjoyed Ollie's efforts. Wouldn't life be boring if everything was perfect!

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  8. How great to have a couple of wins- Hope you did the lottery as well this week. I love anything to do with pumpkins so would covert you Count Your Blessing pattern. The union flag is a really nice idea to give to young people-Very trendy at the moment and what can I say about the cake- I hope Gordon Ramsay doesn't see it It might get the F word.

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  9. Congrats on the wins :o)

    Love the cake too...you can pass on the message that even the best bakers make that mistake. I did it once to a Christmas cake...still tasted good, but looked weird! :o)

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