Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Land of Hope and Glory (and the SMS Giveaway Winners!)

I'm feeling rather misty this evening.  My mum left this afternoon, taking the beautiful weather with her, and, as I type, is being buffeted a bit by the jetstream as she flies west to her home in Alberta.  Sniff.  The west winds buh-LEW hard today, as a cold front blew in.  Just what IS with this anyhow?  Please Mama Nature, blow gentle spring breezes my way, warmth that stays.  I am sitting on a quilt, another one on my lap, slippers on...come ON, enough already!

So I just sat and finally read through all 114 comments and I must say, this contributed to my general state of mistiness, as many of them made me choke up.  Many made me smile.  A few I read aloud to my husband, such as "meeting" another WSU mum whose daughter graduated the same day as mine, hearing from another who grew up in Kingsville and taught at the high school in town, or another whose own mother also lives in Alberta, 2000 miles from where she is now... Thank you for writing personal comments, thank you for sharing your fun ways to spend time with your mums, thank you for writing such nice things about my blog and my quilts, and thank you to those of you who are now following me, even one on Feedly!  Who knew.

Here is the reason for the first half of the title of this post:

I got the breakfast tray mat done in time for Mother's Day!  Okay, confession: I gave it to my mum sans binding; but I bound it that night.
The back - so glad I found this fabric at Hawthorne Threads!
My mum's favourite colour is green.  I had hoped to do the turn-the-backing-to the front for a self-binding technique I've used in the past, most recently on my dot to dot placemats as well as on hotmats. Unfortunately I didn't have enough fabric.  I had this green left over from Shamrock, and it was perfect.  Speaking of leftover fabric, the red and the navy are scraps from several years ago, and the white is Kona cotton that I already had, both in my stash and in my scraps.

I didn't do (okay, I forgot to do) a label, so I wrote right on the fabric to document the little quilt.
You can see that I machine-stitched the binding down, not my preferred method, as I prefer the hand-stitched look, but this is quick and durable too.  And I'm getting better at stitching in the ditch on the front and catching the edge on the back with one pass!

This morning I washed the placemat, and then set the stage for the crinkly look photo shoot:
I happened to have a fair number of quite quintessentially English "props" if you will!  The tea cosy on the teapot was made by my great-auntie Ruth, my nana's sister.  She, like a few quilting people I know, couldn't follow a pattern, so she just made it up as she went.  Talent.  Capital T.  I didn't realize how well her cosy went with the scene until I set the teapot down (oh yes there was tea in it; my mum's from breakfast!).  My mum bought me the Lancashire Eccles cakes (my mum's home county) from the British shop in Edmonton, as she also did the Smiths Chipsticks.  Both have been sampled, of course!  We also found Blimey's, a new British shop in Harrow, a mere 13 km from me!  They, too, carry these very same Eccles cakes (dangerous) as well as Dolly Mixtures, Vimto, and many other British foods and items, including Downton Abbey, Coronation Street, and Dr. Who swag.  Another "who knew" that I found thanks to my mother.

Then I remembered the Lancashire cheese she'd also brought me, and that she found at Fred's in Windsor!  So previous photo: tea cosy on..... next photo: tea cosy off!
The 2-cup teapot is a gift from my eldest daughter, Brianne.  Keep Calm and...
 Drink Tea.  Of course!

Okay, that was too much fun.  Here you can see the mat, nice and crinkly.  The binding was perfect too I think, a nice frame to finish it off.

And, for those of you fit and proper, "Britannia rule the waves" souls such as my mum, this Union Jack is true to the actual flag, as per this British site.  The narrow white stripes are in their proper places, as are the wider white ones and the white-red-white stripes in each of the four quadrants are not on the diagonal.   I got this tutorial, which is very well written, from Molli Sparkles.

This completes one of the goals on my list for the second quarter of 2015.  I am linking up with several of the buttons on my sidebar, including Oh Scrap! Let's Bee Social, TGIFF and Finish It Up Friday.

Gosh! Nearly forgot!  Bahaha.  Here are the three winners of the giveaway so kindly sponsored by Cheryl, of Meadow Mist Designs.  I started counting comments last night around 9:30-9:45 when I did the random number generator, and well, I was TOO TIRED!!  This morning I tried to figure out how to change the HTML code with a great link to a tutorial (thanks Judy) so that my comments are automatically numbered, but I am at sea (on the waves, get it).....so I have had to count by hand after all... and if you are like my sister, Linda, who studies each photo, you will notice I drew the third winner this morning.  That's because apparently I really was tired last night: the third number I put into the random number generator I inserted 11 instead of 1 as the lower limit!  So I redrew this am to be fair.  ;-)

The winner of the Peanut Butter Quilt pattern
is
Kathy H. (her second comment was #104)



The winner of the Charming Quilt pattern
is
kupton52



And finally, the winner of the Pike's Peak Quilt pattern
is

Mindy


Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for entering and for leaving such wonderful comments. I read every single one.  :-) I will be contacting these three lovely ladies by email today.

9 comments:

  1. We are freezing our behinds on the porch drinking coffee in Ga this morning

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  2. Isn't is just the best to have so many commenters who do so much more than just say "I'd like a chance to win." Sounds like you got to meet a whole bunch of great people Sandra. Congratulations to the winners!

    Love that Union Jack! You did a great job with the pattern. Your Mum must have been so pleased. So glad you had a great visit together!

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  3. PS... I think I can help you with that comment numbering thing. I had trouble getting mine to work at first too. Now let me see if I can find the tutorial that finally did the trick.

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    1. Urgh! I couldn't find it Sandra. Will this help? http://aturntolearn.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-number-your-blog-comments.html

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  4. Isn't it wonderful having a mother who appreciates handmade gifts? I know of several things my mom would like me to make for her.

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  5. I think your mat is just loverly! I'm off to find that MS tute, and hunt through my stash. Love it!

    Julie

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  6. I can't believe Mum gave you one of the Chipsticks - omg I could LIVE on those!! No fair you get one!!! >:(
    Love the tray mat, can't wait to whip over to Mum's over the next couple of days and see it myself in person, it's beautiful!!
    I found many of the 114 comments to be particularly moving. We are so fortunate, no, blessed, to still have our lovely Mum <3 <3 <3

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  7. Lurve that Union Jack!! It turned out fabulously!! I bet your mum was SO excited to be on the receiving end of that beauty!

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