Winners All Around

There were several entries for my giveaway to win a signed copy of the Cross Stitch Collection magazine which featured the interview with Yours Truly.  It was very intesting to see which designs you chose as your favourites from the magazine.  There were six different designs which people liked with the birds being the leader with five votes.

NB if you want to win one of my giveaways it does help to read the instructions!  I always make people earn their prize by asking a question of some sort LOL.

Anyway, I allocated each entrant a playing card and then picked one at random.  Ewa was the Ace of Diamonds and has won the magazine.  That's great because she is getting married soon so now I don't have to buy her a present.  Joking!

The second winner is me.  Yay!  I have been nominated by Margaret to win this award:

Here are the rules for accepting the award:

* Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them in your post.
* Share 7 things about yourself.
* Nominate bloggers you admire.
* Contact your chosen bloggers to let them know.

So, number one has been done; Thanks Margaret!

7 Things - I have been pondering The Seven Ages of Women recently as my Birthday is approaching and I have a special one in two years.

The Seven Ages I decided upon are:
Baby
Child
Teenager
Working Woman
Mother
Prime of Life
Grandmother

Baby - I was an adorable baby, first child, first grandchild, much loved, chubby and happy.  This is my First Birthday Photo:

Child - I continued to be an adorable happy child although I did lose the chubbiness!  My first experience of stitching came in Year 2 at school when I made a binca mat for my mother.

Choir outfit for school!

Teenager - I was an adorable typical teenager who did alot of fundraising for charity:

Our rock club had saved all their half-pennies to raise money.  

That is my pint on the table next to me!!

Working Woman - this was when I rediscovered cross stitch and started the hobby which has been part of my life for 21 years now.  I commuted to work by train every day for 17 years and either read or cross stitched every one of them.  We had a great group of friends on the train, several weddings and a few babies (not on the actual train thankfully!).  I am still in contact with several of them too.

Mother - That landmark occured nearly 12 years ago now.  In fact exactly 12 years ago I was having alot of fun going into shops to buy baby clothes and telling them I was overdue by a week. hahaha.  You get served very quickly.  My stitching has fallen and risen with each child.  Now they are both older I am able to squeeze more stitching in especially when they are both at school.

Prime of Life - I am looking forward to this one!  This will be once my boys are both more independent and I am able to dedicate more time to myself and my hobbies.  At the moment I cannot leave the younger one overnight so retreats are out of the question.  But one day!

Grandmother - I am going to be an awesome Grandma!  I have been reading lots of blogs written by Grandma stitchers and it all sounds like so much fun.  I just hope my son does not make me wait for grandchildren for as long as I made my parents wait.  Or I will be 72!  I am definitely going to be like the Old Woman Who Will Wear Purple and I'm going to join societies, lots of them so I have can coffee and biscuits out every day!  I will probably start de-stashing about this time too, so make sure you are still following me to score some bargains!

So that's seven facts about me.  Now to the next bit which is to nominate somone.  I have done a few of these in the past so I will nominate some different this time.  Someone who is a new but very regular blogger, who is always cheerful and has lots of crafting going on, someone who does have her personal struggles with her own health and her husband's but somehow always has lots of fun whatever she does with her gorgeous daughter in tow.  Whether it's a day out in the city or a trip to Ikea you can be sure there will be photos galore (including some selfies) and plenty of happiness.

Have you guessed yet?

Here's a button from her blog.  Click on it to visit her and say Hi from me!

There ought to be some stitching pictures by now.  I have been stitching two things which are presents so I can't show those.  However I have also been slogging away on the over one portion of Noel Blanc so there is progress there:

And on Sunday I started Kathy's RR piece.  She has chosen some San Man blackwork months for her sampler.  September (my birth month) was already stitched so I went for February (the Small Boy's birth month).  This is a rather quick stitch, it's so addictive!

This is a really poor quality scanned picture, white never comes out well on the scanner but it gives you the idea of how much I did in just one day!

Finally, I am going to keep posting this to make sure everyone sees it!  My Followers are increasing in numbers as a result.  A request to all the people who Follow my blog via Feedly or Bloglovin' -

Please could you also click on the Google Join This Site button just above all the smiling faces to the right of my blog?  This button is how I count my Followers and return the following if they have a blog.

Margie brought this to my attention, she follows me via Feedly and said she hoped I had a way of verifying that.  Unfortunately Feedly doesn't have any way of finding out who your lovely followers are.

So please show yourselves by using the button!  It means I can find your blog and also, another 7 followers will trigger a 500 Followers Giveaway.  Only people listed under my Followers will be eligible for the Giveaway.