And the winner is...

Thank you to everybody who took part in this give away. What an amazing amount of participants.
To draw the winning number I used a number generator on my phone.

And the winner is Carissa !!!!

Congratulations :)

Where my Heart Blooms :)

It's finished!!! Having here a major happy dance and can't wait to go to Melbourne and choose a frame for it.
That was an addictive piece to stitch and I loved every moment we spent together. Tomorrow the chart will start it's travel back to it's rightful home. I'm still so very grateful that Carol allowed me to stitch this beautiful chart. Some stitching friends are really generous.

 Stitched on 32ct Belfast

hand dyed over existing Light Mocha color

using the recommended fibers

I did made couple of changes though.
The Shaker White didn't show off as well as I hoped on the fabric. After playing around with some options I found one that worked well for me. For the flowers I used a single strand of WDW Confederate Grey and did a half cross stitch over the existing one.
The house is stitched as charted but back stitched  with 2 strands of Sage and the roof with 2 strands of Gingersnap.
And I mirrored some of the birds.

Hopefully you're having a great time where ever in the world you are :)

Let's have a give away to celebrate my blogoversary

It's almost my blogoversary!!!  And lets celebrate that shall we?

Because it's party time I'm giving away a gift voucher of $100 to spend at Anita's Little Stitches!!!

Actually of these $100 only $50 will come from myself. The rest is sponsored by Anita herself. How cool is that?

Anita's Little Stitches is one of my favorite online shops.  She has a great assortment of charts, fibers, fabrics, scissors, embellishments and more for pretty good prices. Add to that a great customer service. If you don't know her have a look at her shop here

Here are the rules:
1. Be a follower and comment on this post gives you one entry.
2. Post about it on your blog or website  for a second entry and tell me in a second comment about it. :)
3. Make sure that I have a way to contact you. :)

That's all that there is to it. Good luck and I'm getting out the party hats and bake the cake meanwhile.

The drawing itself will find placeon the 29th of July. Which happens to be the blogoversary itself. :)

Birds of a Feather Part 2 and other things

Here is part 2 of this Mystery sampler all finished up. Although I did change the eyes of the birds a bit. They were meant to be a straight stitch, but somehow that didn't do it for me After frogging and replacing them with French Knots I was happy again. Can't wait for the last part to be released.

For the rest I did mainly stitch on Amsterdam

Lisa stitched for me a gorgeous snowman ornament for an exchange at "Hooked on Exchanging". It's lovely stitched and finished. Lisa stitched a design by SanMan Originals on Summer Sky Jobelan. I love it.

And look at the backside. Isn't that a darling embellishment?

 2 GIVE AWAY'S

Deb is holding a fantastic give away for a Go! Baby. Which is a device I'm drooling about since I first time saw it in action. It is SO fantastic to cut out shapes. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. . If you want to have a chance of winning it, then hop over to Deb's blog, which is a great blog anyway to visit, no matter if you're after the Go! Baby or not.

If you're a scissor addict or sampler lover like I am, then you should visit Jennifer's blog as well. She's giving a way a fantastic pair of Gingher scissors and also a sampler she designed herself. And her samplers are all looking gorgeous. This give away is dedicated to a little girl, Caylee Anthony.

And lastly I would like to announce that I'm holding soon a give away on my own to celebrate my blogoversary. But details about that another time :)

Wishing everybody a great time :)