August FNSI sign ups and a winner or two

 I nearly slipped up....who would have thunk that this week was week 3 of the month....already?????

Last month I was early and eager, this month it feels like FNSI was only a week ago!  I'm sure this year has faster skates on than last year!

Anyhoo......we must do some draws, but not before I show you a couple of my 'finishes'!

This will become a cushion and I must admit, I have unpicked the wording stitching as I didn't like the thread colour and have restitched it in a lavender which looks lovely.  Next in line for a finish.

I love this pencil case....I think I'll use it for my sewing bits and bobs!  Added some additional buttons as I can't get my suffolk puffs tight enough to look neat!   A quick cover up!!! 

This one's been on the pile for a long time (as you can see) but I finally pulled it out and finished it to flimsy stage....next job is quilting it!  Really love this one....... it has bunnies!!!

And I could not have done it without my two budding helpers!!!!   Never far away!

Now to the draws..

I promised two as I was a week early, so the first one is for the early birds...... the $30 voucher from our wonderful sponsor Kitty Rose Cottage.  

By the way, have you seen the new Tilda Hibernation Range?????     Delish!  Pop on over and pre-order some for yourself.  You can even put it on Layby! (ie - pay it off.) 

The second draw is for my Christmas in July joiner-innerers??!!?!?! Is that how it's spelt?  Anyway, you know what I mean.  This prize is from my Tilda stash .....my CHRISTMAS Tilda Stash.....so it's very special and I know whoever wins it will love it!  There's some lovely vintage Tilda's in there!

Now without further ado....

our first winner of the $30 voucher from Kitty Rose Cottage is......

Congratulations Dzintra.....I'll be in touch!   lots to choose from!

And our winner for the Christmas in July promo is.....

Congratulations Vicki Kay!   I'll be in touch with you too to  organise posting your prize!  Hope you love it like I do! 

Now don't forget to sign up for this Friday night's stitch in!  I'm sure I've got the right night this time!   I'll be out all day at the Craft Alive Fair in Townsville but will be sure to be stitching with some new goodies Friday night! (without a doubt!)  

Have a great rest of the week and big sugary hugs to you all xox :o)

    

Four lucky winners today for our FNSI/EWSI.....are you one of them?

How was your Easter break?  Did you manage to squeeze in some Easter traditions,....some yummy hot cross buns and of course, chocolate over our stitching weekend?  Did you manage to get away for a well deserved break or like me, did you just relax at home soaking up the peace and reflecting on the reason for Easter?

I love being able to just stop and breathe, without having 'hundreds' of jobs to be done before I start the rat race all over again.  But that would be the same as all of you, wouldn't it?  I do love to be busy;  working gives me purpose and makes me feel satisfied but there's nothing like stopping every now and then for some well deserved calmness just to reset the mind and body.

And that's what our stitching weekend did for me....I hope it had the same effect for you?

Before I show you what I got up to, I have to draw winners for February and March. 

Our wonderful and generous sponsor, Dawn of Kitty Rose Cottage has been waiting patiently for me to get my act into gear so she can post these beautiful prizes out, soooooooo, no mucking about here.......you've waited long enough for these......here goes:

Ta da Ta daaaaaah....

From the 32 stitchers who joined with us in February, either in our Facebook Group page or in  blogs, Our February Winner was drawn and she is..........

    DIANNE MARCHESINI......congratulations lovely!  

I'm sure you'll love the special treat Dawn has in store for you.

Now for our March winner............drumroll please............26 joined with us in March but we could only draw one..........

    congratulations to PINK ROSE!  

 Another fabulous winner who will get to enjoy a lovely prize from our awesome sponsor!

I was keen to put my Birdhouse 'Heartstrings' quilt together but only got as far as handpiecing and stitching the centre panel, but I'm quite happy with that.

I love all things designed by Natalie Bird....she's an amazing Aussie designer and this one really caught my eye.  I've been using my Tilda "Windy Days" fabric range for the EPP and even though I hadn't been organised enough before I started to think of what threads I should use to match the range, it still works beautifully.

I used my Sewline fabric marker to draw the grid lines for placement of my dresdens.  I've never had much luck with the blue water markers...they always seem to  're-appear' for me, but the Sewline markers are made especially for fabric and work a treat, especially when you use the Sewline eraser pen which just makes the lines disappear before your very eyes! 

I did get the inner border stitcheries cut to size and their sashings but haven't yet stitched them together, my 'helper', Mocha was interested to see what I was up to so I never got as much done as I'd planned, sooo...that's a job for the next long weekend which is coming up in .....two days!!  Aren't we lucky here in Australia with all these holidays one weekend after the other?  Although I won't be taking it for granted as it's a very important public holiday, celebrating our Anzacs who fought for our freedom.

Now it's time for our special EWSI draw....I did promise there would be two lucky winners....one who will receive a fantastic prize from Dawn and another who will receive a special gift from 'moi', just to say thank you for putting up with my lacksy-daisy organisation of our get-togethers....I do get there but life often gets in the way! 

I don't know what Dawn has up her sleeve for a first prize but my supplementary prize for someone special is this....

one of Natalie Bird's Birdhouse patterns, the 'Blooming Lovely' pincushion and some scrappy Tilda fabric to make it!  'squeeee'.....The picture is just indicative of what you might get in the way of fabrics but I'll put some together so that you can make the gorgeous pincushion ...and I might even find some threads to throw in too so you can stitch the design without having to wait! Isn't that exciting???

Let's just see who our two lucky winners are....the coveted First prize from Kitty Rose Cottage goes to......

HELEN McCULLOCH........wheeeee! 

 Congratulations Miss Helen!

And the supplementary prize provided by me goes to .....

ANORINA MORRIS.......woohoooo!!! 

Congratulations to you too Miss A!   

And a special thank you to all of you for joining in.....you don't know how much pleasure it gives me being able to stitch along with you all.   Being in a remote-ish, rural area in far North Queensland away from many of my stitching pals, there isn't much opportunity to join in with others so I'm grateful to you all, every single month.....THANK YOU! mwah!  (If only I could give everyone a prize!!!)

have a wonderful week, or what's left of it and from me to you,

Big Sugary Hugs always xox :o)

Who's up for FNSI aka EWSI??

 This week has got away from me again and it's time for our FNSI tomorrow!  It's a long weekend being Easter, so Good Friday is our stitchy day...so I was thinking.....maybe...seeing as it was a long weekend and people are relaxing and enjoying 'me' time, maybe we could have a EWSI aka Easter Weekend Sew in!~ Who's with me?  

  Starting tomorrow, we could stitch all day, part of the day, all weekend, part of the weekend  or any combination of the aforementioned!!!!   AND to make it interesting.....not only will we have a prize draw from our wonderful sponsor, Dawn at Kitty Rose Cottage,

.... we will have a second prize draw courtesy of moi, including chocolate!!! (well, the Easter Bunny needs to be recognised too!)

.....and I haven't forgotten the last two draws....these will be drawn over the weekend and released in our Facebook group.

You can join anytime over the Easter Weekend and either join up below (which is easiest for me!) or pop a photo up including what you're stitching in the Facebook group with your name and your blog name (if you have one).  I sure hope you can join us.  If you haven't joined our Facebook group yet, pop over HERE, that way you can keep up with all the activity over the weekend.

I know it's late so I won't babble too much now as I'll be popping in and out of the Facebook group over the weekend....don't forget to join in if you can...there's always room!

Albeit to say, Happy Easter and may health, happiness and peace be with you always.

Big sugary hugs xox :o)

FNSI here again....

How did that happen??? Honestly the year is flying by so quickly, moreso than last year, I swear!   

A very big shout-out and many numerous thanks to Sheryll who reminded me it was FNSI time!   I think I have too many fingers in too many pies at the moment and I really must learn the 'N' word .

That might make life slow down a bit for me...but in the meantime, I'm so pleased it's time for us to get together again for our Friday night soiree.

IF you need to read more about it, you can, HERE.   Sign ups below and I'll draw winners for both last month's and this over the weekend.  They both will win a beautiful prize from our sponsor, Dawn from Kitty Rose Cottage.

Good luck everyone and I cant wait to be stitching with you,

xox Sugary sweet hugs :o) 

A March Winner

Hi all,

thanks for joining in to our Friday Night Sew In get together last week....I love how social media has made it so easy for us to 'be' together whether we're in the same room, the same state, the same country or in a totally different time zone!      

Ten years ago or so, when I first began blogging and took that tentative step into the big unknown world, being able to 'meet' with others and talk to new people with similar interests was so liberating (and still is!) particularly if you're in a small country town, isolated from groups in the big cities.   Now with the added plus of  social media, it is far more 'instant' and it feels like  you're right there with each other, regardless of where you are!     I've met so many beautiful people who have now become close friends because of both blogging and social media and I feel just so blessed, thanks to you all!!  *mwah*

One of my very closest friends was my very first commenter on my blog and she has now become FNSI's major sponsor.....

Kitty Rose Cottage is a wonderful little online shop......Kitty Rose has a beautiful array of  Kits, Clubs, Stitch-A-Long Packs, Fabrics and Sewing Essentials that she uses and recommends herself. It is the home of the Little Box of Creativity, a monthly surprise ingredient box to make a lovely sewing item and is also a stockist for Tilda.   Check out these gorgeous little bunny purse frames she has.......

aren't they divine!!!!??? But you'll need to be quick.....these bunnies are hopping out the door! 

And don't think that because you live overseas you can't shop with Kitty....not only does she offer $7 Flat Rate Shipping within Australia (Tracked), she welcomes International Buyers and offers competitive International Postage Rates.

Kitty Rose (aka Dawn) is not only a creative and talented designer, she's a truly wonderful person with a heart of gold and will go out of her way to help you, so if you're looking for something special, just pop over to her shop and ask.   She'll be only too happy to help.

Have a look at what she's provided for this month's FNSI prize!

A beautiful English Paper Piecing mini quilt kit complete with pattern, epp shapes, tilda fabrics, background and threads.  I told you she is a generous, kind-hearted soul didn't I?   

Let's jump right in and see who our lucky winner this month is.   We had 33 lovely ladies join with us from all over the world so without further ado.....here we go........well, maybe not!  I've video-ed the draw but for some reason it won't upload and I have been trying for the past two hours!!!!  grrrr. 

It  worked perfectly last month so I don't know what the issue is!  All I know is, I'm not happy with it.

However, them's the breaks and the alternative is a photo of the draw!   So, who is our winner this month?????

CONGRATULATIONS!!!  make sure you drop us a line with your postal address and details and I'll let Kitty know so she can post your parcel off pronto!

Have a wonderful rest of the month.

Big sugary hugs xox :o)

Our February Winner, Compliments of Kitty Rose Cottage

I'm a little late drawing the winner today as I have been looking at and I'm in awe of all the beautiful work everyone has been posting, both here in Blogsville and in the FB world.  Having two areas now has certainly increased our numbers tenfold, but don't despair, bloggers are, and will always be, the foundation of FNSI and I love having you visit Sugarlane, (even though I've been a bit slack over the past couple of years with posting -apart from our monthly get-togethers).  

I've been getting quite a bit of email pleading with me not to change FNSI to a totally FB format, saying it would be tragic for FNSI to move away. You see,  I've been hosting FNSI since 2017 (I think?), and we've built up a loyal group, stitching together over the years via the Blog and I just love what we have so I want to cherish and encourage it.  Blogging will always stay as the main home of FNSI  with the additional holiday venue of FNSI.FB aka Friday Night Sew In FaceBook.  Everyone will be able to pop onto the blog and link up to read what other bloggers have been up to and comment but will not be 'forced' into becoming bloggers.   All the main stuff will go on in this blog and the Facebook page will be for all, showing the highlights of everyone's Friday night.  Here on the blog is where the draws will take place, then they'll be announced over on the FB page, signups will be here, and reminders on the FB page.....do you see what I'm saying?

So please understand, the blog will be the mainstay of FNSI and if you choose to blog, you know where to come and everyone is ALWAYS welcome, but if you're definitely not into blogging, that's ok too...you can get the highlights and still join in on FNSI.FB.   

Now, the prize this month provided by our lovely sponsor Kitty of Kitty Rose Cottage is just wonderful.

you can read all about it in the previous post HERE.

So let's see who our lucky winner is for February.......drumroll please........

Congratulations!!!!!   \o/ \o/ \o/ pop an email to me with your postal address and I'll have your prize sent to you direct from our fabulous sponsor, Kitty Rose from Kitty Rose Cottage.  A big thanks to Kitty! 

Have a fabulous week and big sugary hugs :o) xox