Stash Avalanche

SMS Giveaway Winner

Thank you for all your comments! I'm glad I'm not the only one who really needs a piece of cake right now! There seems to be a chocolate cake bias going in the comments so here's one I made earlier which should satisy your eyes if not your cake gland. The icing didn't turn out exactly how I'd imagined but hey ho, it tasted pretty ok.

Now on to more urgent matters...

The SMS Giveaway winner was picked by random.org ...

...who was Theresa...

Congratulations, Theresa! Cherry cheesecake most certainly counts. Look out for an email from me very soon.

SMS Giveaway Day

It's here, I'm totally unprepared, I'm not entirely sure I understand how Sew, Mama, Sew's new rules work but I have a giveaway for you. Just a little one. But first...

Hello! Welcome to StashAvalanche if you haven't been here before, welcome back if you have! It's been a bit quiet round here lately but that's no reason not to have a nosey about and come back again some time to see what I'm up to.

My giveaway is a little pink bead necklace. Pink and white swirly Venetian-style beads strung on a linen cord. It's about 70cm long so just right for wearing with a shirt or v-neck top.

I have several of these in different colours which get worn quite regularly when there isn't a small wriggle monster to pull at them and cover them in hummus. This one has been made specially for the giveaway and has not been subjected to wriggles or hummus, so no need to worry!

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment telling me what kind of cake you would really like a slice of (I'm suffering from serious Austrian Coffee Cake lust right now) and leave your email address in the comment too. You can use a format like stashavalanche[at]gmail{dot}com for security if you want but please leave it somehow! I'm sorry but I don't have time to go charging round Blogger or Ravelry in order to message you.

I'm happy to ship internationally and the giveaway will be open until Friday (that's the 16th December) closing at as near to 9pm UK/Irish time as I can make it. Winner to be announced on Saturday.

And if you want to have a go at some more giveaways, just clike over to SMS's Giveaway Day post for a miriad of lovely stuff.

The winner was Theresa. Click here to find out more...

Giveaway winner

Well, there wasn't one, because no-one commented! Does that mean there are no beaders out there?! Ah well, let's see what the next sunny day brings...

Giveaway reminder

Seeing as nobody (NOBODY!) has left a comment, here's a quick reminder about the book giveaway which is closing tomorrow evening.

Random sunny day giveaway #1

I owe you several sewing posts but I never seem to get anything done these days, what with the wee Stashlet suddenly deciding that he could manage 3 hours awake at a time, and needing much more supervision now because he  tries to spend as much time as possible practicing his walking (which requires hand holding) and when he's not doing that he's crawling at the speed of light, generally off to somewhere he shouldn't be.

So we are trying to baby-proof the house. This has also turned in to a general shift around and tidy up (also in hopeful preparation of moving, but nothing to report on that at the moment) and I am having a bit of a clearout.

Sunny days and blue skies - especially in November - make me a happier person, so I thought I would  share my blue sky happiness with you lot out there in Blogland with some books to rehome.

My idea is that when we get blue skies and sunny days, and I'm feeling generally uplifted, I'll do a giveaway. I haven't really done giveaways before, except fot the SMS May Giveaway Days, so make the most of them before I run out of books!

Anyway. The giveaway.

Top of the pile is a beading book, Findings and Finishings by Sharon Bateman, which has all sorts of ideas for clasps and fastenings for bead necklaces and bracelets.

I'm happy to post this anywhere so all you need to do is leave me a comment with your email address, and I'll ask Random.org to pick a winner. My plan is to leave this giveaway open until 5pm next Sunday night (that's UK/Irish time), but it may be a bit before or a bit after depending on what Stashlet is up to, so don't leave it til the last minute to comment! The only rule is no email address, no book, so if I can't contact you, you won't go into the virtual Random.org hat.

Happy Sunday!

The wrap - finally!

Firstly, apologies for the absence of my Knitting To-Do list. We're having a small household trauma here at Stash Terrace so I just haven't had time - maybe tomorrow.

What I have had time for - mostly because it was 99% finished last Monday - is the wrap. I don't know why I found it such a potential drama to shorten because in the end it only took me about half an hour and most of the ends had already been darned in so really it was a non-event.

I say 99% done because having finished it and done lots of flinging it casually over my shoulder, I decided that it could probably do with some kind of fastening to keep it in place. So Mr G and I had a little expedition to Bray this afternoon (I enticed him with promises of tea and bike shops) and I had a visit to BDI Jewellery on Florence Street.

My original idea had been to do something with beads and a kilt pin, then I thought of getting a big button and doing a button/popper combo, but the selection of large buttons wasn't great (or really as large (in diameter) as I had imagined) so I went back to the kilt pin idea, and got a big 4cm round bead (I think it's amazonite), which I wired onto a kilt pin. And the finished article looks like this...

 

Pretty, huh? (The pin is actually a silver colour rather than the gold impression it's doing in the photo.)

So, with Mr G obligingly taking the photos, here's the finished article...

 

It's surprisingly warm although I suspect that is because it's not that windy today, and the garter stitch makes the fabric a bit stretchy so it kind of moulds round my shoulders, which I like. The only down-ish side is that I have to pin it towards the back, rather than the front, in order to keep the flung-over bit flung over...

 

So the only thing left to do now is give it a wash because it still smells a bit too sheepy for my liking! And no more excuses about my To-Do list anymore.

Happy Monday!

Nearly Spring

Hello! I've been making vegetable soup and there is something about chopped leeks that always make me feel very Springy - it's all those different colour greens. They do it for me every time.



So I thought I would share some other things that are green and make me feel Springy, despite the fact that it is FREEZING here today.

Two bracelets that I made a while ago. This one ...
...


and this one...



Sorry about the background. I had to photograph them on one of the cat tree steps - it was the only place with enough sunshine.

One of my very new hellebore seedlings...


Not a great photo, but very Springy none the less.

And my spring garden from the wonderful but tiny cottage I lived in in Suffolk...
 


What make you feel Springy?