Friday, May 25, 2012

A winner and a travelling turtle pincushion

Wonderful turtle pincushion from Jan (JanBran)

This adorable turtle pincushion arrived at my house about 3 hours before I was due to leave for the airport. He was made especially for me by Jan (JanBran on flickr) who was my secret partner in the Fab Little Pincushion Swap. Since this turtle was clearly a cosmopolitan world traveller type - he had just come all the way to Canada from Australia after all - I invited him along for the trip to London.  There will quilters to meet and pins to cushion at the Fat Quarterly Retreat next weekend.

Wonderful pincushion and package for me from Jan (JanBran)

Here is the whole lovely package from Jan. My turtle needs a name, any help on that would be appreciated - I am going to ask the flickr group too. Names are funny for me, sometimes I have a name for a project before it barely starts, for other things, I have no clear ideas at all.

And we are in London, jet lagged and not falling asleep at 1:00 a.m. Tomorrow will be a sightseeing and lazy day, I will take some photos for you.

Summersville by Lucie Summers

The Sew Mama Sew give away day/week is over and I have drawn the winner for the Summerville Fat Eighth Bundle. I just love looking at my picture of the charms, this fabric is so wonderful. I have checked the comments and removed the duplicates which might have changed your comment number a bit. Mr. Random Number generator says the winner is:



Congratulations Susan! I have sent you an email to get your information. (p.s. the comment numbers start at 1 after every 200 - Susan was in fact commenter 234 - an interesting number to draw.)

Thank you to everyone who entered, the response was wonderful! I have to say that reading all the comments has been fun (you might want to go back and check them out). Clearly many people love watermelon, tomatoes, fruit in general, lemonade and iced tea - all wonderful summer choices and now I have many new ideas for using them too. And I learned some things that should have been obvious, thank you - for example, taking frozen grapes to the beach and add ice cream to your coffee - excellent ideas! There are many suggestions for salads and other dishes and drinks that I am going to try out too - I am inspired to broaden my summer kitchen plans.

DSC_0414
I leave you with what entertained me on the airplane and over dinner this evening. I am going to knit some socks (that is just my gauge swatch) as my favourite knitter, Rebecca from Doilies are Stylish has published two new patterns in Knitscene and one is for Clandestine Socks. Her other pattern is featured on the cover of the magazine, Knitscene, I am very  proud of her.

I will tell you all about my trip to London this week and did I mention that I am going to ride the Eurostar to Paris for a day on Monday? I cajoled my friend Shevvy from Quilting in London to come along. Also, there is probably a post or two coming about the FQ Retreat.

Best,

Leanne

15 comments:

Mary said...

Yay!!! Susan!!!! The turtle is adorable :) Have a wonderful time - I can't wait to hear about it!

Susan said...

Thanks Leanne! I am so happy to be the lucky winner of this wonderful fabric! Mr Turtle is so cute! Were you ever a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- perhaps you could called him Leonardo!? (Leanne/Leonardo!) Have a wonderful time in London AND Paris!

Debbie said...

congrats to Susan! and hope you have a fantastic time in London, Leanne!!

MariQuilts said...

Glad you made it safely and look forward to upcoming posts.

Canadian Abroad said...

Yay to Susan! And yay to you being in London. The only name I can think of for your turtle is Shelly.

Nicky said...

Congrats !

Ooh Paris - have fun! But do come back to FQ London too!

I though he looked like a Frank!

Dawn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dawn said...

I adore turtles! My youngest son had box turtles when he was a teenager. They are lusty little critters. They were always doing the "Tango". lol Henry was the male and Maggie was his girlfriend. They had wonderful personalities. We had them for many years. Maggie laid eggs several times but she wasn't a very good mama and unfortunately they were crushed before I found them. I was always sad because I was really hoping for baby turtles. They loved worms, garden snails, strawberries, raw ground beef, sunshine and loud music. It was the late 80's and House of the Rising Sun was popular for the second time around. When that song came on the radio Maggie and Henry would wake up, stretch their necks to the max and swing their heads from side to side as if keeping time to the music. They acted as if that song was the best thing they'd ever heard....and evidently it was their aphrodesiac because they usually ended the song by doing the "Tango"! lmbo Sorry about the long winded comment, but wanted to share the fun memory. Henry and Maggie are pretty common names but they have a lot of fun attached to them for our family. Have a terrific time on your trip! Can't wait to hear about it.

Mrs Flying Blind... said...

Get you, international jet-setter!
Have fun en France!
I'm thinking Terry, as in terrapin (Terry-pin) ;)

Rafael's Mum said...

Ha ha ha Terry-pin Hadley, great idea! It'll be great to meet you Leanne, can't wait!

Rhonda the Rambler said...

Hadley is good but I am thinking something along the lines of Tacky Turtle. That is not to say the turtle is tacky ... ok maybe Hadley is better at this lol

Remember I am living vicariously through you!! so...have fun!!!

www.randomthoughtsdoordi.com said...

So happy Susan won, she is a sweetheart! Our turtle is named Zak...just saying, you don't have to copy me!

Katy Cameron said...

Yay, welcome to the UK, you and Fred :oD

Marg said...

Myrtle the Turtle!
Congratulations to Susan, that's a lovely win.
Hope you are having lots of fun in the UK and say hi to Shevvy for me.

Marci Girl said...

I think you should name your little turtle Mervin! He is so cute, and he is a "he!"