Cotton + Steel Quilt Kit Giveaway and One Lovely Blog Award

Craftsy's Flying Geese Quilt Kit

Last week BuzzinBumble had the honor of being nominated by two wonderful friends for the "One Lovely Blog Award"  

You may have seen these awards, which are just beginning to sweep Quilty Blogland.  The idea behind the award is to introduce your readers to some of your favorite blogs, preferably ones which they might not have visited before.  It is a great opportunity for people to explore and make new friends.    

If you accept an award, then you write a blog post and:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their post.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Choose 10 blogs to nominate for the award. (It is fine to nominate less than ten, just however many you feel comfortable with.) 

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So here I go...

Thank you Kaja (Sew Slowly) and Sandra (Musings of a Menopausal Melon)!  

You made me feel Wonderful by nominating my blog and it means even more coming from you!    

Seven things you might not know about me:

1.  I am a combination of shy and friendly.  Blogging is a leap of faith for me, but it gives me a freedom I do not have in everyday life.  This is because I am very hearing impaired, which makes communicating verbally difficult. 

2.  I am nuts about I love dogs and cannot imagine life without them.

3.  I am always looking for reasons to laugh and love corny jokes.  I married a funny man and raised three funny children, so I don't have far to look.      

4.  I am a good mimic.  I can howl exactly like a black and tan coonhound and have been known to set them off in the distance.  A long time ago I learned to imitate a mother cat calling her little ones and I can make kittens come running to me.  This only works two or three times on each litter, because kittens are smarter than you think.

(My brother Dave is much more talented at mimicry than I am.  He once kept an entire Alaskan cruise ship full of bird watchers running back and forth from starboard to port, as they desperately tried to sight the Bald Eagles they heard screeching. Even the ship's naturalist was fooled for awhile, but once she figured it out, she just watched and laughed.)  

4 1/2.  I get sidetracked easily.    

5.  I love pretty much every quilting style and like to try a little of everything.  Out of necessity, I am a very slow quilter, so projects take a while for me to finish.

6.  I make great homemade soups.  So good, that people have been known to have soup for dessert.

7. I can hypnotize frogs and taught my kids how to do it when they were young.

There.  Now you know that I am a little kooky.  I don't have to hide it anymore.  Mwah ah ah ah ah!   
Somehow that fly buzzing around makes the soups not sound so good.  Heh heh.

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It's time to share my nominations for the "One Lovely Blog Award". 

The problem is that I love a lot of blogs.  You can see that on the BuzzinBumble sidebar, under "Blogs to Love".  This is kind of like picking bridesmaids.  You either have to choose just one and ask your sister, or you have thirty bridesmaids.  

So I tried to choose with an eye toward doing something different.  I've nominated a few quilt bloggers from different areas of the world, blogs that represent a nice variety of quilting styles, and some which might be undiscovered treasures for my readers. And, as you will see if you visit, they all are terrific and fun people. 

Without further ado, here are my ten nominees, in alphabetical order:

Charly & Ben's Crafty Corner - Ruth 
Doodlebugs and Rosebuds - Ramona
Fancy Foot Farm - Colleen
Love to Stitch - Raewyn
Prairie Sewn Studio - Laura & Linda
Quilting Stories - Christine
Susie's Sunroom - Susie
The Cozy Pumpkin - Amanda
Weekend Doings - Martha
Whims and Fancies - Soma

Also, don't forget you can visit Sew Slowly and Musings of a Menopausal Melon too!

Each nomination has a link embedded and you can get there simply by clicking on the blog's name.

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I got to thinking about this and decided to make the award even more fun by adding some extra incentive for my readers to go and visit the Lovely Bloggers in this post:  I'm going to do a giveaway!  And not just any giveaway - a Mambo giveaway!  Craftsy has been having some amazing sales on quilting supplies and I ordered a Cotton + Steel Flying Geese Quilt Kit just for one lucky reader to win.  Here are pictures from the Craftsy website of their Flying Geese Quilt Kit, done up in Kim Knight's Homebody Collection.  It looks like it will be a lot of fun to make!

Craftsy's Flying Geese Quilt Kit - includes all the fabrics for the quit top and binding.

Craftsy's 64" square Flying Geese Quilt - Homebody fabrics

Kim Knight's Homebody Collection for Cotton + Steel

How would you like a chance to win this quilt kit?  If you would, then here is what you need to do to enter the drawing: 

Visit at least one of the blogs I have shared here and leave the blogger some comment love.  For each blog you comment on, you will get 1 chance in the drawing, so technically you could have up to 12 chances.  When you are through, come back here to BuzzinBumble and leave 1 comment (Only one!) and let me know how many of the blogs you visited and commented on.   

We will fill out 1 slip of paper for each one of your chances.  Next we'll fold up all the slips, put them in a big bowl and toss and stir them up super well.  Then I'll have my hubby draw one of the slips.  I'll announce the Winner in my next post on Monday, June 1st.     

The nominees are welcome to participate in this giveaway too!  And I welcome entries from people across borders and don't mind shipping overseas.

Make sure that I have a way to contact you if you win! If you are a no-reply commenter then I will let you know under your comment, so please check back if you aren't sure or just add your email to your comment.

Hello Everyone - Thank you for making this giveaway a great success!  Lots of people had a ball blog hopping and meeting new bloggers!  The lucky winner of the Cotton + Steel quilt kit is Beth, commenter # 39.  Congratulations Beth! 

Jim, drawing for the Giveaway 6/1/15

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