curves class winner

to #26

Two Hippos

who won a spot in Rachel's Curves Class {Premium}.  Thanks to everyone who entered.  Hope you all had a great weekend.

curves class giveaway! [CLOSED]

[Thanks for entering, this giveaway is officially closed.]

It's Friday, right?!  What could be more perfect than to have a little giveaway starting today?  Do you follow Rachel's blog Stitched Color?  She's one ambitious lady creating all sorts of good stuff.  The best part is that she's willing to share her knowledge and skills and that's what I love about blogging.

Well, in case you haven't heard, Rachel has put together a whole class on curves, yep, that's right, so all those fun blocks that leave you scratching your head, you can learn how!  She's got a great line up of projects that are for all sorts of skill levels:

I think my favorite is the scallop quilt, mostly because I love it when things aren't over designed, it's so pretty and perfect.

Want to win a spot in her Premium Curves Class?

• Just leave a nice comment!  One entry per person.  Please leave your email address in your comment. You can leave it in a format like this if you wish: anna [at] gmail [dot] com, it's up to you though, if you have your email listed in your blogger profile, that works too!
• One winner will be chosen.
• Open to international entries.
• Giveaway ends Sunday, January 29th at 10pm (central time).

Don't worry though, if you don't win, you've got plenty of options to pick from to get you started.  Rachel's got three different levels of the class: Curves Class, Curves Class {Premium}, and Curves Camp.  Curves Camp is already sold out, but the winner of Curves Class {Premium} still gets tons of info, access to videos, and even a PDF ebook of the class for you to keep.  Good luck and have a great weekend, I'll announce the winner on Sunday night!  

ps. my little tutorial coming up involves curves, you know how I love a good curve.  :)

more printing

Well, I completed the last handprinted fabric for the swap finally.  I used a tangerine colored solid I had gotten a while back.  I really like how the stamp turned out. And Natalie promptly asked me for the stamp as soon as I was finished, she had been waiting and waiting for me to be done with it so she could stamp away.

I finished my swoon blocks last night, I'm really excited about it.  I'm going to send it out to be quilted, for the first time ever, I'm kind of nervous, but mostly excited to see the finished product and give it away!  I can't wait! I almost want to share a pic of it, but its such a horrible picture taken in the dark of the night that I just can't.

Hey and I have a tutorial coming up next week, I'm a little rusty, it's been a while!

my living/dining room

Hey everybody, since I've been busy plugging away at my swoon quilt, there hasn't been much other sewing going on.  So I thought it would be fun to finally take pictures of my living and dining room area.  I bought a new couch and chair and rug from west elm last summer and have been slowly getting things finished, so I thought it would be fun to share it today.  I still have some colorful pillows to make for the couch and chair, but other than that I think it's pretty much done.  Let me know if you have any questions and I'll answer them in the comments.  We live in a 1 1/2 story house built in 1951, so I feel really lucky because it has tons of character, as well as really drafty windows.  Here we go:

 This is a cool cabinet that I found last fall at an estate sale, perfect for my collection of cathrineholm and kaj franck goodies.

That's all for now, hope you have a great weekend!

a few done

I hopped on my swoon blocks over the weekend.  I think I have four finished now.  The cutting seemed to take forever and so did the first block, but once I got the hang of it, the blocks come together pretty quick.  Although now I think I know why I don't make too many big quilts (even though I love them so much), the time they consume is just amazing.  Kind of makes me crave making garments, somehow they seem more rewarding to me.

I'm liking the way the blocks are looking together the more I make and hopefully I'll have the finished top by the end of the week depending on how motivated I feel after I put the girls to bed.  We'll see!  Are you swooning along?

ps. the background fabric is moda crossweave in gray purchased at Marmalade Fabrics.  I have more of it stashed away, it's so pretty!

stamping and swooning

Sounds kind of crazy, right? Well, let me explain.  I finally mailed out all but one of my handprinted fabric pieces.  I decided to switch it up and try another design, this time with the help of my daughter, Natalie.  Of course I feel like a crazy mom ripping off my children's drawings to make stuff with, but when I saw her sweet little flower drawing I knew it had to be made into a stamp.  Hoping tonight I can test it out on fabric.

And I'm sure you might already know about Katy hosting a swoon-along using Camielle's (of Simplify and fabulous fabric designer for Moda)  Swoon quilt pattern.  I finally feel committed to making it for a very very special person in my life, whom I'm going to keep secret until I finish it and give it away!  Ever since I saw Miscellany by Julia Rothman for Cloud 9 I just kept thinking - this person will love love this fabric, it's so HER.  So anyway, I've been feeling the quilting urge and when I saw Katy's post, I had already been dreaming up using Swoon.

Here's my stack, might need some tweaking here or there, I'm waiting for a few missing fat quarters that I ordered once I realized I 'had' to have them, but maybe I don't need them after all?  The rest came from my very large toppling stash, which I'm thinking might need a little destash one of these days.

Happy friday and hope you have a fun and creative weekend.

zipper top tote

I've been waiting for so long to finish up this zippered tote bag.  It's a gift for a horse lover, couldn't have picked a better fabric than this Heather Ross print.

I used the basic dimensions from my Madras Tote Pattern and added a few extras.  A little star pocket for keys perhaps, and a recessed zip to hide and hold all the rest.  I've only done a recessed zip once before, but I think this is pretty close.  Maybe next time I'll sew the pull end of the zipper into the side seam, but it works pretty darn slick this way.  Love the little hedgehog end zip cover.

The straps are just linen with some handstitching thrown in.  I love the way the lining [1001 peeps by lizzy house] looks with the brown.  I have to admit I must have been channeling my inner Amanda when I was making this bag, seems something right up her (and my) alley.  ♥

Anyway, hope you have a fantastic Monday, thanks for reading!

handprinted fabric swap: my prints

Well, here's what I've got so far.  Definitely think I need a lot of work, although I really did enjoy carving the blocks for printing.  I think I'd like to do a few for stamping on paper, I've got a couple quirky little drawings I think would be fun to stamp up!

I think it would also be amazing to give screen printing a try one of these days, too.  But I think I've got to carve out some space to do some printing, at least somewhere the beagle won't step in what I'm doing.

Printing was pretty fun, but the design part, whew, it was a challenge.  I think 9 out of 10 times something I would sketch up would be similar to some fabric I already know and love.  So these little flowers and half circle crosses is what came out.  I'll print one more fat quarter tonight hopefully and then ship them on their way tomorrow.

white ink on natural colored linen/cotton blend.
read more about the handprinted fabric swap here

have a great weekend everyone!

city girl apron

I made this apron, the pattern is from the very talented friend of mine, Christina of The Sometimes Crafter.  Christina was nice enough to send me a copy of her lovely City Girl Apron pattern a long time ago.  It was the perfect style, and really really flatting as far as the world of aprons go.

I had hoarded this coffee cup print, Coffee Buzz, from Andover for too long (sorry I tried to see if I could find any still available anywhere and I couldn't, leave a comment below if you spot some), saving it for my sister in law.  She loved it.  I was happy.

I love making things - just not for christmas usually.  I don't know what it is really, but I guess I like to take my time instead of feeling rushing into making something in time for Christmas.  And believe me, I am not the plan-ahead type.  I do start thinking of what I'd like to make people, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather just wait and make something without that Christmas hype.  Plus, for me making gifts is something I really love doing and if I feel rushed, it definitely isn't as fun, luckily this one was!