What a wonderful tea party it has been! All your comments have been such great entertainment, so before announcing the winner of the tea cosy, thank you to everybody who took part, and it is time for a few special mentions:-
Esther for being so sporting. Even though she opted out of the draw (it just wasn't going to fit her teapot) she left a comment in Dutch. Thanks to Esther and Translate Google my daughter and I no longer say "on the settee" but "op de bank."
Leo in Germany for her little snippet of German followed by her unrestrained enthusiasm for tea.
Mystica from Ceylon (I'm far too old to say Sri Lanka), who gave the cosy a chance to go and live where tea is grown and cricket is played.
Reb Thack for telling me you can get PG Tips in San Francisco.
Pippirose for making me want to try Formosa Oolong.
Melissa for her rather esoteric taste - eggnog chai latte.
Tina A. likewise, for Read My Lips - black tea with vanilla, mint, chocolate, peppercorns and little red candy lips. It will never catch on in transport caffs.
Anyway, no prizes for spotting that our regular everyday and all day tea is Yorkshire tea, blended by Taylor's of Harrogate. Available in our local supermarkets, and occasionally it comes with a caddy with Yorkshire scenes on it.
I particularly love this side of the caddy - dry stone walls, sheep, cricket. All very Yorkshire.
Now, on to the prize draw...
... and because we have a spare caddy, all 72 names went in, carefully folded and all mixed together. Entrants near to home (Gloucester and Nottingham), from all corners of the USA and Canada, one each from Spain, Norway, Germany, Israel, Ceylon, the Philippines and Malaysia, and from as far away as Australia. And some from I didn't know where.
It was all too exciting for me. I needed help from my totally detached coffee-drinking son.
So in the interests of cricket, tea and fair play, here is the video of the draw. It's gripping stuff.
We are thrilled to announce that the winner of the tea cosy is Carla!
Update - Carla is in Holland! I now have her address so I can post the tea cosy to her, and she sends everybody her greetings... see her comment at the end of the tea party.
Of course after the draw I was so exhausted I needed a big mug of tea.
Welcome to the latest followers, Prairie Stitcher and Nicole Sender - thank you for joining!
If you saw the post last week showing a free motion quilting practice piece, this little tea cosy will look familiar. The sewing project I had in mind all went to plan, and I am pleased to be joining in the Quilting Gallery Quilters' Blog Hop Party by giving away this tea cosy, made entirely on two of my favourite machines. All the free motion quilting was done on the 1945 Singer 15K treadle, and all the rest of the stitching, including the straight line quilting, was done on the 1949 Singer 15K hand machine.
The cosy fits a small teapot. The photos show a one pint teapot.
Here it is with a large mug, strictly for serious tea drinkers, as it holds three quarters of a pint.
More genteel tea drinkers will prefer a cup and saucer. In this photo the teapot is out of sight hiding under the tea cosy.
So, if you love tea and would like the chance to win this little cosy to brighten up your tea time, all you have to do is leave a comment before midnight GMT Tuesday 26th November. The winner's name will be announced on Wednesday 27th. I will post to anywhere in the world...!
If English isn't your first language, feel free to leave your comment in your own language. Let's make this truly an international tea party!
When you leave your comment, tell me how you like your tea, how many gallons a day, with biscuits or sandwiches... or, if you don't like tea, who you would give this tea cosy to as a present.
And there is a bonus...
... if you are already a follower of this blog, or if you join as a follower before leaving your comment, you qualify for an extra little present. Although I recognise many followers' names straight away, just help me out please by mentioning that you are a follower.
These three scraps and two strips of bonus triangles will be yours to use in any project you want. So if you think the tea cosy needs a matching table mat, you have a head start.
Because this blog hop is called Giving Thanks something tells me it might have something to do with Thanksgiving. Well, even though we don't have Thanksgiving here, it doesn't mean we don't say thank you, so here goes...
A big thank you everyone who visits, follows, and comments on this blog. I am truly grateful to you all!
And another big thank you to Michele for hosting this blog hop. I will have to hop around and enter a give away myself!
To give you even more blogs to visit, this post is being linked with:-
Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday
Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
Leah Day's blog for Free Motion Friday
This was a surprise present from a friend a while ago. He had found a couple of magazines at a car boot sale. This was one of the them, the May 1937 issue of The Needlewoman.
On page 3 I found Mrs. Simpson in her corsets.
The shock was so much I needed a cup of hot sweet tea, but we were clean out of Mazawattee.
There is an awful lot of treadling going on here, getting through the quilted sandwiches and gallons of tea. Sooner or later, in haste and thirst, you end up ripping a tea bag. No need to throw it away, mustn't waste tea - just grab a clothes peg.
Of course, you could just take it to the sewing machine to sew it back up, end up ripping it a bit more and watching the tea leaves spill down into the bobbin area. How do I know?
Every serious sewing session includes a tea break. Five minutes in the kitchen for a breather, dreaming up marvellous projects and scoffing biscuits, back to the sewing machine with the second mug of tea, put it on the table, start stitching again from where you left off... aagh... oh horrors...
The moral of this story applies mainly to right handers using a hand machine.
Don't put your tea on the table too close to the sewing machine. As soon as you start sewing again the tea goes flying.
How do I know? Bitter experience, many years ago when I was young and foolish. Such an awful waste of tea. I just want to spare you all the same agony.
