I was really overwhelmed by the number of people who took part in the giveaway and it was great to hear where everyone’s favourite places are. For maybe half of you your favourite place is home – which is a pretty good state of affairs in my book!

I love being at home too….but for a little bit of paradise I’m chosing…

The Maldives (an archipelago of islands in the Indian Ocean)

And guess what? One person said the very same thing…so congratulations to DANIJELA!! You win the Bliss purse!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and took the time to comment – I loved hearing about your favourite places!!

Helen

Firstly, my next Stitch Tease project – a strip for Hadley – which I can only show you snippets of unfortunately. In a year hopefully the finished products of this bee will finally go on show…but until then it’s all hush hush so the quilt tops stay a surprise for the originator/recipient. This was a fun strip to make using all different fabrics and not involving any matching of points. Pure unadulterated enjoyment!

I also did some sneaky seed sewing in the garden…trying to fill all the gaps where things died of cold or got eaten by the supermouse colony that seems to thrive under my flowerbeds. I was going to hit the garden centre and buy lots of bedding plants, but my use up what I have regime seems to be having some effect on my deeper psyche, which stops me heading off on shopping expeditions – so instead I dug out all the remains of last years seeds, cleared out the ones that were past the use by date and got to work with what was left – poppies, antirrhinums and some cornflowers. I don’t have a massive amount of success with seeds, but I’m going to make an effort to water them and mollycoddle them a bit and we’ll see what happens.

I love playing in the garden on a sunnyish afternoon. It does a soul good.

Enjoy your evening!

Helen

I’m sure there can’t be any quilters out there who haven’t come across the latest hottest quilt trend. So do you Zakka? If not, what are you waiting for? – the rest of the quilting world seems to be Zakkaing!! In Japanese Zakka means ‘miscellaneous goods or sundries’, but has come to mean a style that has a simple charm and uniqueness, and where items are handmade and useful, yet pleasing to the eye.

Zakka Style by Rashida Coleman-Hale is a beautiful book. It contains 24 projects by different quilters from all over the world, most of which are made in linen accented with pretty, quirky, modern cottons. The projects vary from easy and suitable for beginner sewers (pencil case, mug rug, block quilt or hand warmers) to much more difficult items where some experience would probably be required (zip organizer, stem messenger bag, sewing kit). The layout is attractive and the instructions are clearly presented. I can imagine that a lot of these projects would be fabulous in linen with accents of Liberty tana lawn.

Zakka is certainly taking the world by storm and these projects really do have a lot of charm. Will I be making a lot of them? Possibly not, but there are one or two that I’ve certainly got my eye on and there are several that children would find do-able and a lot of fun and I could imagine that my teenagers are going to have a go at some of them too. Zakka style is cool!

Now I just need to get my hands on some linen!

Helen

Today I’m taking part in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day.

Here’s what I’ve made to give to one lucky reader…

A Pocket Zip (the pattern is by Atkinson Designs) in Bliss – probably my favourite fabric line EVER! The bag measures about 5″ by 3 1/2″, so it’s small and neat enough to fit into your handbag. It zips closed and has a pocket on each side.

So what do you need to do?

Tell me your favourite place in the whole wide world – and the one that’s closest to mine will win!

Entries are open until 12.00 CET on Friday. I’m closing a little earlier than the other giveaways because I’m leaving for the weekend and won’t have any internet access. I’m very happy to ship internationally.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing from you!!

And now you’ve finished here, maybe you should step by Sew Mama Sew and see what other goodies you can win!

Helen

And the winner is….Danijela!!!! I’ve emailed you Danijela and will get the purse in the mail to you asap!!

We spent yesterday at Lake Constance right in the north of Switzerland. It’s the nearest thing to the sea that we can manage and although you can see Germany in the distance on the other side it always reminds me of being by the seaside…a little bit at least.

We actually managed lunch and a two hour walk along the lake with the entire family without any complaints – maybe because we took our favourite Swiss relative with us….cousin Monica, who is a very spritely, never-married 80 plus, who we all love dearly. Those of you who have teenagers will know how nice she must be if she can get the kids out for a walk without World War 3 taking place!

We went to a part of the lake I hadn’t been to before – not too far from Rorschach – because Monica wanted to show us the bathing huts. She thinks they must all be well over 100 years old; all have been renovated many times and are privately owned…and clearly in regular use and they can only be found along a relatively small stretch of lake frontage. The lake is clean and lovely for swimming in and I can’t think of much nicer than sitting on your own little deck on a warm summer’s day and dipping into the lake every now and again.

The huts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Look at the little figures on the roof of this one!

They certainly give this little area a little bit of a flavour of the north coast of Germany.

Lovely!

Enjoy your Sunday,

Helen