Aren't Giveaways Just Great?

In October last year I won Jo's giveaway of a packet of Mini Munch cucumber seeds. Jo writes The Good Life blog where she has recently shown us the start of her mini munch cucumber harvest. We planted our seeds in the greenhouse and are now starting to harvest the cucumbers. Thanks again Jo for having the giveaway.

Yesterday I received a lovely parcel of goodies from Una. I was the winner of Una's recent birthday giveaway on her Great Balls of Wool blog; something I never expected! There's a 50g ball of Jaeger Spiral-spun pure wool in a gorgeous heather shade, a Cath Kidston notebook, buttons covered with Fair Trade fabric, a cute owl keyring from Oxfam (supporting independent artisans in India) and a very useful button tin. It came in this lovely cotton bag, too. I can think of lots of ways to use it! Thank you very much Una and I hope you have (or possibly already have had) a great 60th birthday.

I should think about having another giveaway, I suppose. Just not sure what to offer as a prize! Here's a picture of one of the flower beds that I snapped very quickly at the weekend. Even though we haven't had good weather this summer, it's still possible to tell that the season is moving on and heading, eventually, into Autumn.

Bye for now.

Socks Giveaway Draw

You thought I'd forgotten about the socks, didn't you? We had the three draws on Saturday last but I am only getting round to letting you know about it now.

It goes without saying that we had to be sustained for three draws by coffee and scone. We headed to our favourite coffee shop in Banbridge; the Greenbean.

Just looking at the photo is making me hungry and wishing I was back there!

The first draw was for the small socks with the strawberry red toes and heels.

The names were put in a plastic cup - there weren't many for the small socks - and the husband picked out a piece of paper.

Oh look! Jackie of Button Tree Crafts has won the small socks.

Now for the medium socks with the mid brown heels and toes.

There were more names in this category, as you would expect. You can see the husband is taking this really seriously and hasn't even started his coffee.

And the winner of the medium socks is Suzy of Rustic Vintage Country.

That leaves the large socks; the ones with the lime green heels and toes.

The names were put in the plastic cup and one drawn out.

Amy of Love Made My Home has won the large socks.

Just in case you missed what socks I'm talking about then look here.

Congratulations to the three winners. I'll get contact details from you as soon as I can. I really hope you like your socks and enjoy wearing them.

Here are all the socks and all the names once again.

I have a confession to make. Once the draw had been made I felt so sorry that I couldn't let everyone who had entered have a pair!

All the best for now. I've finished a blanket and as soon as I can get photos I'll let you see it. The weather is so changeable here but we're still making our way into Spring. There are lots of lovely flowers appearing all over the garden and I really must get out there and take some photos.

As always, I've enjoyed all your comments so please keep leaving them.

Simply Crochet-ed Socks Giveaway

Hello again. How are you all keeping? I hope you are all well. Thank you for your great comments that I have really enjoyed reading. I'd also like to welcome a few more followers.

Remember I crocheted the socks from Simply Crochet issue 26? I loved making them and I have loved wearing them. I made a pair for my sister too but that still hadn't got the sock making bug out of my system. Who could I crochet socks for? Who else would want a pair? Ah! I could crochet some socks for a giveaway. And that is what I did. I had some yarn left over from my own socks but I needed more. Not a problem as I just needed to visit my lovely local yarn shop. The problem was resisting buying lots of other yarn too!

Anyway, I set to crocheting three pairs of socks, one in each of the sizes given in the pattern.They are all done using the same colours but in different combinations. I tried to work out a way of knowing the size by the colour of the heels and toes. This is what I came up with:

• Strawberry red - small
• Mid brown - medium
• Lime green - large

Do you see what I did? S for strawberry and S for small. M for mid and M for medium (I know - not great but couldn't think of anything else!). L for lime and L for large. The yarn is roughly 50% wool and 50% acrylic. Most of the colours are Jarol Heritage and the rest are Stylecarft Luxury.

Would you like to see all the socks? Well here you are.

Small

Medium

Large

And here they are all together. A triumvirate of Simply Crochet-ed pairs of socks.

Now I mentioned a giveaway, didn't I? If you would like to win a pair of the socks then please leave a comment stating the size you'd like to win. Make sure you also leave a way for me to contact you should you be a winner. The names will be put in a hat and a winner drawn. Actually there will be three hats; a small socks hat, a medium socks hat and a large socks hat. So that means there will be three winners.

Here they are again in all their colourfulness.

By the way, here are the approximate measurements in case you aren't sure what size you would need. This is the length of the foot from heel to toe though they are quite stretchy.

• Small              8.5" or 21cm
• Medium          9"    or 22.5cm
• Large             9.5" or 24cm

The draw will be on Saturday the 28th of February 2015 so get commenting.

Armchair Cushion

Remember the armchair throw? Judging by your lovely comments you all seemed to really like it. You also seemed to like the armchair too so I'll tell you the story!

First of all, have a look at the cushion I made to match the throw.

It's made using Granny squares in each of the colours used for the throw (Stylecraft Special DK in Claret, Burgundy, Petrol and Mocha). Back and front are the same. I made the cushion filler using an old t-shirt belonging to the husband. He never liked it nor wore it so now it has a new life!

Here are the throw and cushion together on the armchair.

Now the armchair story. We got this, another the same and a leather sofa from Next about this time last year. Our old leather suite had seen much better days and had to go. Actually, calling it a leather suite was a bit of a liberty. It was bonded leather. Something I didn't know anything about until our suite started to shed the very thin layer of leather it was covered in. It looked really awful. I covered it with a tartan quilt for a while but eventually we could bear it no longer.

Our son was living in a rented house in which the landlord had left a suite that was arguably worse than ours. So son contacted landlord and agreed that the leather suite could come to live in his rented house. We hitched up the trailer and delivered the leather suite, where it lived happily until the landlord happened to call one day a few months later. He thought it looked so bad that he got it removed and supplied another suite which, although it certainly isn't new, is a lot better than either of the other two suites!

Would you like to meet Priscilla? Priscilla is the beautiful pink rabbit I won in Suzy's giveaway. She arrived a few days ago with a card from Suzy and a little bag of tiny hearts.

Thank you so much Suzy; I don't know how you could bring yourself to part with this gorgeous bunny!

Isn't she just the cutest rabbit you've ever seen?

Welcome to my new followers and thanks for all the comments you leave. All the best for now.