Giveaway Day & A Little Snowman Star

There aren't enough days in the weekend.
 ~Rod Schmidt
 I couldn't agree more! Where did the weekend go? Saturday started with the normal run to the Farmer's Market to pick up our weekly supply of fresh produce. On the way home we bought our little Christmas tree, dumpy but cute. Came home in time to make Little Smokies for a potluck our ALS Support Group was having at 1:00. Went to the potluck and had fun sharing with everyone. Then came the running - to a new quilt shop (that had already closed for the day), Costco, Harbor Freight and then we even braved the crowds at Toys Are Us. What a nightmare that was! The store was a mess, the aisles were crowded and kids running everywhere. Home in time to fix dinner and crash. Sunday was washing, sewing, wrapping, cooking, and finally, dinner. Luckily my sweet DH was a major help in the wrapping and card department. So how was your weekend - a mad house too?

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

Four Colly Birds

The verse, four calling birds, is actually a corruption of the English word colly or collie. So, we are referring to "four colly birds" or four collie birds (the words to the song were probably written before the creation of the dictionary, so the spelling of old words tends to be flexible).
What is a colly bird? It is a black bird. In England a coal mine is called a colliery and colly or collie is a derivation of this and means black like coal. For a long time in England, blackbirds have been referred to as both blackbirds (as in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence) and colly birds as in The Twelve Days of Christmas.

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Friday was a mega exasperating day for me.  I was looking for a Christmas block and could only find 12" blocks that I really liked.  So I proceeded to split each cutting dimension by half and went from there.  Well, I could tell with the third set of pieces I tried to assemble that this just wasn't working.  Either I figured wrong in my division of fractions - which is very likely - or my cutting was way off - which was also a good possibility.  After working on this all morning, I decided to head in another direction - a six inch block made out of Christmas fabric.  Oh, I forgot to mention that this is for a gift that I suddenly remembered I hadn't made for a stand that is coming in the mail soon.  Thank goodness for the email telling me the stand was shipping or I would have received it and been under even more pressure.  Here's what I did......

I started with the little snowman fussy cut square and cut a couple of squares and several triangles.

Sewed the triangles together to make bigger triangles......

Put the triangles together to make four squares.....

And ended up with this little 6 inch snowman star.

Now it was time to quilt the block....

I turned it over to see how it was looking and couldn't believe what I had done!  In all my years of quilting this is the very first time I have ever flipped over the corner and sewn it that way!  Once again, my seam ripper and I became best of friends.

Here is the back.  I thought the little bunny snow scene was cute for a backing.  You can see the tiny little hanging sleeve at the top of the block.

Here it is finally finished.  Who knew that making a little 6 inch block would take an entire day!!

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GIVEAWAYS

Lilac Berries is having a one year anniversary celebration.  She is giving away 5 adorable Christmas cards!  Stop by her blog and told her that Stray Stitches sent you by.  Her giveaway is open until tomorrow, Tuesday, December 14th.

Lana over at It Seams To Be Sew is having a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway.  Each day she is giving away a little something different.  Now, you have already missed the first three days but you still have 9 days to enter. 

I'm participating in this great giveaway!!  Here is what you could win.....

What is in this pretty little star?.......

Five Christmas batik fat quarters! 

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

To enter all you need to do is ......

1.  Tell me what your favorite dessert is. 

Easy enough don't you think.  My favorite dessert is Bumbleberry Pie - it's a combination of blueberries, boysenberries, and blackberries!!  MMMMMMM!!!!!  You don't have to be a follower, but I always welcome new followers and appreciate each and every one of you. 

and, if you would like a second chance......

2.  Blog about this giveaway and come back here and leave a separate comment with a link to your blog where you posted about the giveaway.  It must be a separate comment from the first one or it will count as only one entry.

This giveaway is open to everyone - international entries welcome!  You don't have to have a blog to enter.

Remember, if your blog is a no-reply blog, leave me your email in your comment.  If I can't contact you then you can't win!!

This winner will be selected by random.org on December 17th at 9:00 PM.

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FINAL THOUGHT

Too bad we have to sleep.  Sometimes I think sleep is over rated.  I sometimes think about how much more I could accomplish if I didn't have to shut my eyes and get those mandatory 40 winks.  But the down side of not sleeping would be missing all of the wonderful dreams we have.  Some times it's where we get some of our best ideas.  However, I wish I could remember some of those 'wonderful ideas' when I opened my eyes in the morning.  Too bad our dreams can't be recorded on a DVR to be replayed back at a later time!

Leisure time is that five or six hours when you sleep at night.

 ~George Allen

May your Monday be merry!!