Tree Bird Blog Hop with a special giveaway

Welcome to our stop of the Tree Bird Blog Hop! First of all we would like to thank three very special Ladies: Madame Samm, the wonderful author of Sew we Stitch and the Queen of Blog Hops; Lana at It Seams To Be Sew..., our super efficient Cheerleader and Pat at Life in the Scrapatch. Thanks to Pat's generosity we had the chance to sew with the lovely "Beautiful Birds" collection by Tracy Lizotte for Elizabeth Studio. Not only did Pat send us the Potrait Panels we won with her giveaway, she also included an extra Tree Panel. We are paying forward her generosity with our own special giveaway. A hint: it has to do with birds!

Birdwatching is a bit of a tradition in our family. Most of the birdwatching takes place from the house, looking out the window at the fig tree where, during the winter, food for the birds is never missing. It's a full time job to keep the birds happy in the winter and they repay us by returning every year. This jolly crowd is great company!

We're often checking reference books to see the exact name of our "fine feathered friends" and studying details. So a nice book cover comes in very handy!

To celebrate our little friends we also made a cushion cover using two of the portraits and some wood grain fabric. We liked using the simple linen fabric to set off the detailed drawings of the birds. 

The quilting is also very simple, a couple of "matchsticks" to make the wood grain fabric stand out like a tree. We're definitely thinking of making a set of these cushion covers to give as a present to our bird feeders!

While writing this, we're singing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins... We can't help ourselves... We even have a board on Pinterest where we collect pics of Birdhouses and little houses.

And now for the giveaway! For all you bird lovers, we are giving away a beautiful Bird House Decoration by MIHO Unexpected Things:

To have a chance of winning this pretty Bird House (in mdf, 16x18x14 cm, in a flat pack very easy to put together) all you have to do is leave a comment. For followers, old and new, another chance of winning: leave a second comment telling us how you follow our blog.

The giveaway is open to everyone and we will post the prize anywhere in the world (if the post office lets us!), closing on March 31st. Mr Random will then choose a winner who will be contacted by mail.

Fly on over to visit today's blogs: with so many creative projects, you'll be surprised by how many lovely ways have been found to use this fabric collection:

Tuesday, March 17

Tomorrow's Treasures Today

Childlike Facination

Pig Tales and Quilts

Quiltsmiles

Ella and Nesta's Little Room

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Gracie Oliver Arts

Joining in the March edition of A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber of All Sorts and Sew Bittersweet Designs with our Beautiful Birds book cover (Goal Setting Party entry number 130, via Flickr):

Lucky (and useful) Sunday Stash

I owe my Sunday Stash to the generosity of Pat at Life in the Scrapatch. I was so lucky to win her giveaway which was supposed to be the tree panel by Tracy Lizotte for Elizabeth Studio. Supposed to be because she surprised me by adding an extra panel with Tracy's incredible drawings of birds and nests. Thank you so much Pat!

This fabric is going to come in very handy because I'm joining the Tree Bird Blog Hop in March, organised by Sew We Quilt and with cheerleader Lana at It Seams To Be Sew. The theme fabric is this special Beautiful Bird collection. 

I also have a new sewing accessory! Oh no, not another pin cushion?! Yes, it's a "Wrist Pinny", a magnetic wrist pin caddy. I swear I haven't got one of these. It should be very useful because I sew upstairs in the "Little Room" but when I need space I have to go downstairs to the kitchen. My pins always seem to be in the wrong place when I'm going from one room to the other! This caddy should help solve part of my "going up and down stairs because I'm forgetful" problem!

Linking up with the always sparkling Molli: go and take a look at Molli's shiny posh Sunday stash!