giveaway winner!

Thanks to all of you who entered my Sew Mama Sew giveaway! The giveaway is now closed. I had so much fun reading all of your dishwashing stories and hearing what you were eating for dinner. Seriously, a couple of the comments made me laugh out loud! I love the blogging community. During this week I hit 100 followers on my blog and nearly reached 100,000 all time hits! Thanks to all of you for reading it.

Now, on to the winner. I had a total of 265 comments on the giveaway! Random Number Generator chose #250 as the winner. 

#250 was Brandi who said.....if by "wash the dishes" you mean load the dishwasher... i do that. however if dishes get washed by hand it is done by my mother in law because she doesn't believe in waiting on a dishwasher load to finish washing before loading the rest of the dishes into the machine! she's old fashioned like that!

I have emailed Brandi & as soon as I hear from her I will pop her package in the mail. Congratulations Brandi!

So many of you said nice things about my dishcloths, I have decided to stock them in my Etsy shop. Check there in the next couple days and you will be able to order some for yourself. Thanks for all the kind comments. 

Have a wonderful long weekend everyone!

family room finish!

I know what you're thinking! "Oh goodie, another picture of Ellyn's  family room! I can't wait to see what else she's added" Right? No? More like "seriously? again? Doesn't she know we're tired of watching her decorate?" Oh well... this is the last one, I promise. For a while anyways.

The ottoman came yesterday! The first time Steve saw a picture of it on Facebook he called it the "Christmas ottoman". I guess I see that. But, you know what? I love it! So there. It's my very favorite thing in the room & it was worth waiting for.

While Leigh Anne was home she helped me find a rug. I'm not gonna lie, it was harder than I thought. Took two tries in fact. The first rug we brought home looked cream colored in the store, but when we got it here it was, umm, gray. Ick! Back it went. This one works much better

 Over the weekend I made a table runner from some of my leftover red & cream swap blocks for the desks behind the loveseat. Makes it look more like a sofa table I think...

 And there you have it! my family room is finished (ok, I admit, I do have paint swatches laying around.... so maybe the gold walls will go away. Don't worry, I'll consult you all first!)

Don't forget, my Sew Mama Sew giveaway is open until Friday. You can find it here....

in my mailbox...

First off, have you entered my giveaway yet? You have until Friday! You can find the giveaway post here...

Now, on to the mailbox post. A couple of weeks ago, I won a giveaway over at Cinderberry Stitches. Natalie agreed to send me a complete set of her The Red Fox embroidery patterns! They are so adorable and well written. Complete with a traceable sheet, an iron on sheet and a color coded sheet. Yesterday they arrived all the way from Australia. I always mean to take a picture of my wonderful packages before I tear into them! Really I do, but then the excitement takes over. You know how that goes, right?

I can't wait to start stitching these adorable patterns! Oh, and the color references she gives are for the COSMO threads, everyone has been talking about these embroidery threads so I think I had better find some and check them out! Don't you think so too?

Giveaway day is here!

update: the giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Brandi, #250, my winner! Thanks to all who played along.

Today is the day we've all been waiting for! It's Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway day!

 If you found your way here from the Sew Mama Sew blog, welcome! I hope you'll come back again soon. If you're a regular ellyn's place visitor/follower/friend, bet you're glad you stopped by today. I'm always happy to have you.

What's that? Get on with it, you say? Oh, right... the giveaway! How's this...

 If you dropped by over the weekend, you saw that I've been crocheting dishcloths. They are yummy 100% cotton yarn, perfect for cheering up your dishwashing duties (and they're green. so if perhaps dishwashing is hubby's job, he won't object to the color, right?). I added in two kitchen towels with a bit of patchwork to make you (or the kids) smile while the dishes are being dried.

I'm pretty sure there will be some other little surprises that will make their way into the package too! And I'll be happy to ship it anywhere in the whole wide world...

All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post by this Friday, May 25. Tell me who does the dishes in your house. Or, what you're cooking for dinner tonight. Or anything you want (you can just say "pick me pick me" no guarantees though). If you want to click "follow" on my sidebar that would be awesome too! It won't help you in the giveaway, but it'll help you find your way back here when the madness is over. I will use the handy dandy random number generator to pick a winner on Saturday... oh, make sure I have a way to contact you. If I pick a no-reply-blogger with no email I'll have to choose someone else. That would be sad!

instead of sewing...

You might have gathered from my last couple of posts that there wasn't much (ok, any) sewing going on at ellyn's place the last 10 days or so. I was so so lucky to have all of my chicks in the nest over Mother's Day! We had so much fun just being a family. This morning we sent this pretty girl back to her home in Arizona.....

 While Leigh Anne was here, she was staying in my sewing room which converts into a guest room. Nope, she doesn't even have her own bedroom here anymore! But it's ok, she has an apartment that she loves all to herself. Don't feel too sorry for her!

During our down time (you know, watching Nate decorate on TV, chatting the day away) I decided to do some crochet...

 Cotton dishcloths! Nine of them to be precise, from this pattern which I spotted on Pinterest.

It whips up very quickly and turns out so cute! I bought one giant cone of white cotton yarn and three small colored skeins and you can see that I still have some leftover! So there may be another dishcloth to come? Maybe a striped one using all four colors! Who knows.

Today I am back in my sewing room, finishing up something splendid for Sew Mama Sew Giveaway day (it's Monday! are you ready?). Bet you can guess one thing that will be a part of my giveaway?

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope your Mother's Day was as happy as mine! These three blessings have had me laughing all weekend long....

fabulous friday... and a giveaway winner!

First thing this morning I popped on my email (like always!) and there was an email from Jenna at Sew Happy Geek letting me know she had featured my giveaway on her blog! Thanks Jenna! Several new folks made their way over here today through her blog. It's always so much fun to welcome new blogging friends. Welcome to all of you!

The next email I read was from Natalie at Cinderberry Stitches telling me that I had won her recent giveaway! It wasn't even 7 AM and already I had 2 bits of wonderful news. You really must go check out both of their awesome blogs.

I have really enjoyed all of your comments on my giveaway post! I wish I had time to make a little bag for each of you, but alas, I do not. So here we go... according to the random number generator, the winner is...

Number 27

Sandra Strickler

Congratulations Sandra! Look for an email from me so I can get your mailing address and pop your prize in the mail.

Don't forget, the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day is coming up on the 21st, so you'll all have another chance to win a prize from me! Have a great weekend!