1 day to go!

To all the lovely people that stop by and read {Pink Stitches} and friends that I have met through my little old blog - Wishing you all a lovely Christmas and Happy 2011!
And remember .....

* Letter stickers *

Hi everyone no excuse for the lack of blogging lately and this may be the last visit before the New Year so hope everyone is well, enjoying the snow and getting ready for a wonderful Christmas!

On a recent Christmas shopping trip it had been a while since I've visited TK Maxx and I was pleasantly surprised with my visit.
If you don't mind rummaging through the shelves with all the lovely books and stationary you may just come across these:

Now I didn't mind rummaging like a mad woman literally crawling on the floor and re positioning everything on the bottom shelf but it was well and truly worth it as these were a steal!
As it is the start of the Christmas hols here and I am ready for Christmas this year (that's what I'm telling myself anyway!) I have a bit of time to start lots of projects that have been floating around in mind. I have an idea for the vinyl pink ones which hopefully I can share in the New Year until then here was a quick one for my Quilting ideas book:

 

Still here!

Moleskin goes to ........

{Kakihara} 

Congratulations! The random number generator thingy was on your side!
For those of you that sadly missed out this time, keep your eyes open there may be another giveaway sometime soon.
In the meantime here is a little glimpse of something I have been meaning to talk about for ages. Sorry the photo quality is not that great. Will try and get some better shots!

 

November giveaway!

So you've had a sneak peek for a few days, did you guess?
Well if you didn't here is the giveaway:

 

For your chance to win the moleskin address book and handmade key fob just leave a comment!

That's it! No questions, no answering what Christmas preparations you are doing, as that will just freak me out and let me know how behind I am!!

As long as I can contact you in some way you are counted in!

Giveaway is open to everyone from all sides of the world, one entry only and the closing date is Friday 12th November. I will then find the usual random generator thingy on the net and choose the lucky winner!

Fingers crossed and good luck!

Sneak peek ....

of a forthcoming giveaway!

{Keep your eyes open}

Red and aqua everywhere!

Over the summer holidays - yes the SUMMER holidays, it takes me a while, OK several months to post about things - I spent some time in lovely Brussels. This was my first visit and hopefully one day will visit again.
One of the places we visited was the unique structure known as the Atomium. Built for the Expo '58 it has these amazing spheres that are breathtaking from a distance and even more amazing close up.
What got me even more excited was the fab colour combinations inside - red and aqua!
I got more than one strange look when I was there snapping away at the floor and the stair railings! Is that not a normal tourist photo to take!?

Looking up!

Uh oh - looking down!

Up close the spheres were amazing!

Pattern inspiration everywhere!

Red and Aqua stairs! (You don't even know how long it took me to get a decent shot without too many people in it!)

Cool patterned flooring!

Red and aqua stair railings!

How cool would it be to sleep in here!?

Even more of them!

Stunning views ....

and just one more picture of the stairs for the holiday album!

 

It's been far too long!

Leave my blog alone for a short while (well OK a couple of months) come back and it's all a change!Rather than doing work, work playing around and re designing the blog is just far too tempting, plus I never know I'm doing so it's always interesting when the preview appears!

Lots to catch up on including a visit here:

 Being tempted by too much of this:

 and a little bit more of this!

Playing around with this:

Getting inspiration from this:

Until next time ....

Quilting Bee update

Blimey I can't quite believe how quick time passes in a quilting bee!
Bee Europa is the first Bee that I have joined and although a little hesitant at first partly due to two reasons:
1. Not knowing a lot about quilting!
2. Wondering whether I will have the time to take part ...
I am really pleased that I accepted the invitation.
July was my month to send out fabric and all the lovely blocks are making their way home to me and they are so lovely. This was my practice block I made before putting together an instruction sheet and sending out the fabric. I just now need to work out how I am going to join these all together.

Janet Clare workshop

Another great thing that I discovered about the Festival of Quilts were all the amazing work shops and lectures on offer. Unfortunately I missed out on the lecture "Inspirations with Amy Butler" but I managed to get myself a place on a workshop called "Drawing with your sewing machine" with the lovely and talented Janet Clare.
This was sooo much fun! I was a little hesitant a first because we were using Pfaff machines and sorry to Pfaff but I'm a Bernina girl at heart, but after a little practice it was a lovely machine to use and then I realised how basic (but still lovely!) my little machine is!

Janet demonstrated all her amazing skills and techniques and showed us her lovely little houses cushion and then off I went. Everyone was lovely and friendly and the talent and skill in the room was so inspiring.
At the end of the 3 hour twilight workshop I was really pleased with my interpretation of the little houses cushion and was chuffed that I had a finished item to take home!

 

Anyway until next time - which may be a few days, start of school term here tomorrow which means back to work for me! Goodbye summer hols!

A girl's got to shop!

I need to start saving now for my visit to the Festival of Quilts next year as there were so many goodies that were calling my name but sadly had to be left behind!
However I did come home with these goodies:
Lovely new fabrics. These were all too cute to pass up!

The Coats Cotton / Cotton Patch stand was amazing with far too many goodies on display. I was a lucky girl to come home with a copy of Amy Butler's new book, met her as well and even get my book signed! It was also a little freaky as she was staying in the same hotel as me as well - seeing Amy Butler at breakfast is a little surreal!

I did luckily enough get my photo taken with her however that won't be going on here, after looking at it realise how badly I need my hair cut!
I wanted to go home with one of these:

Photo from http://www.accuquilt.com

An AccuQuilt Go! Fabric cutter. These are fab and the lovely lady must have seen me drooling over it as I had a little go and was even further hooked! So many possibilities with this little baby.
Also saw lots of lovely shiny new sewing machines - so until next year I better start filling that moneybox!!

FOQ

Amazing quilts ~ beautiful fabrics ~ fab inspiration ~ great workshops ~ and soooooo much shopping!!

That sums up a lovely couple of days away recently visiting the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.
I had never been to this festival before as last year I was a newbie to quilting and the main Textiles show I always try to visit is the Knit and Stitch, but I was hooked and will definitely be visiting again!
There was so much to see, try and also buy! I was also lucky enough to get a place on a great workshop with the lovely and talented Janet Clare and meet another amazing talented woman (more about that this week), but for today here are just some of the many photos that I took.

Happy computer!

A post at last!

It's been very quiet on the Pink Stitches front lately, partly because it's my summer hols and I've been here, there and everywhere and mainly because I've had a poor computer since the start of the summer.
So with a bit of TLC and what I wish for on a daily basis - a bit more memory, it's up and running and flying at super fast speed. What this means is that writing a post or attempting to do anything on the computer will not take forever and I mean forever that whilst trying to do something I could literally clean the house, make the tea you get the idea.
My postie has also been a busy boy this summer delivering lots of lovely parcels containing all my Bee Europa blocks that have been lovingly stitched and returned with amazing results! These are the first batch to arrive, look at all the loveliness.

Just need to add to my To Do list - learn how to stitch these all together and actually make them into a quilt! Should be (it will be) fun!
Until next time ~