weekend fun and Give away winner

So I've had a fairly productive weekend.  I finished my Louisa Harding jacket, which is very chunky and so has only taken just over a week.  I'm reasonably happy and will definitely wear it ....

I realised that although I have knitted a few garments throughout my life - I didn't actually finish many of them and I find the making up a bit nerve wracking!   I have now discovered matress stitch and things have improved a lot so I did OK with the making-up here, although I really do find that hard and this was very thick wook with an uneven slub cotton running through it which I had to remove to use for sewing up.  The pattern had a very complicated knitted band but I went for a crochet picot edge again using a chain of 3 and extending this to 5 for the button loops.  My knitting confidence has raised a little and I am going to try some fair isle handwarmers and if that goes OK, who knows, maybe a fair isle jumper.

Gemma and I tried to make macarons... and I do say tried.  We didn't get the right texture, not runny enough, and although we were making 14 chocolate ones, after a bit too long in the oven only 3 were edible!  They all tasted OK and we are not downhearted but will try again soon.  It's interesting to have a bit of a technical challenge.

I bought a magazine I have never bought before, Sew Home, mainly because it had some free fabric charm squares and some makes from Helen Phillips whose work I really like.  You may remember when I made my quilt I struggled a bit with making all the edges meet accurately, so I decided to have a go a the little pin cushion in the mag with the free fabrics.  As I was making the 2 pieced sides I thought it wasn't really needed to have two pieced sides, so decided to make 2 and then to have a runner up prize in my giveaway.  It was still quite difficult for me ... don't know why  .... but I tried hard and hope they aren't too bad!  (Quite tiny though).  I do think I would find this level of technique in large quilting items quite challenging!  The magazine said it should take 45 minutes to make ..... I think it took nearly that to sew up the opening and the buttons on!

Winners

So I have drawn the winner of my giveaway which is ..... Trudy and for a runner-up Gillian.  So send me your addresses (try through my profile and if this doesn't work leave a comment and I reply with my email- as I'm not sure how it works).  Hope the items are OK!  I will have more in future.

I seem to be getting into the habit of a photo of Rosie in most blogs .... so here it is, bathtime ....