last minute sewing

Tomorrow is the deadline for mailing for the Doll Quilt Swap. Nothing like waiting til the last minute! Truth be told, I couldn't make up my mind and actually started 2 other quilts before settling on this.

I started it last night and worked on it a little bit this afternoon. Hopefully with another hour or two to myself I'll be able to pull it off. Oh, and that messy sewing room? It's been getting a very nice cleaning. See the improvement already?

The craft fair

So the craft fair turned out to be kind of a bust. It was hot and sunny and not nearly as many people came out as they had advertised would. Luckily I split the booth (and the fee) so I did make a little bit of money, but not nearly enough to make it worth my time. Of course I forgot my camera, so I am borrowing this picture from my boothmate Katie. I'm so glad I shared a booth with her because even though the fair was slow, at least I had someone fun to hang out with! You should check out her etsy shop. She makes some of the coolest books, especially the lego books! I have lots of things to add to my etsy shop now, and this is just a sampling.

I'll probably be adding all week long, so feel free to check it out.

Today my goal is to get my sewing room cleaned up. Right now my things from the craft fair are sitting in the living room and taking up a lot of room! And since I'm cleaning out my sewing room, I'll probably be adding more to my vintage shop as well. I found a whole stack of vintage quilting magazines I forgot I had bought!

Oh, and if you haven't entered already, Katie at Philigry is giving away some great Amy Butler fabric! Plus you don't read her already, you should. She makes some great things and is an impressive and quick knitter!

And the winners are..

I just wanted to say Thank You again to all who have donated items. This was so fun to host such a big giveaway. Without further ado, the winners are :

1. Sew Create It - Jane said... Happy Birthday! What a generous bunch of people. Such wonderful things!!

2. Kelley said... Wow! Everyone is so generous. I can't wait to check out those links.

3. Meg said... Happy birthday! I will be blogging about this today!

4. Barbara said... What an awesome giveaway! Happy Birthday!!

5. Heather said... I'd be thrilled to win any of those prizes. Thanks for doing this.

6. Maggie said... Happy Birthday! Such great prizes. I'd have to say my favourites are the 5 inch squares and the package from Secretcake.Thank you for hosting this great giveaway and I'll be posting about it on my blog.

7. Snug N Luv said... Oh Ya!!! What a great idea! Enter me to win.This is a fun idea for a Friday. Happy birthday!!!!

8. diana said... how wonderful!!!

9. Aimee said... Holy moly, what a birthday celebration! Happy birthday!

10. kdkmpalmer said... Wow! What a generous giveaway! Hope you have a fantastic birthday.

11.Casey said... oh wow!! what a great list! enter me please :)

12. Colleen said... Happy Happy Birthday Miss Katie!! What a wonderful celebration you are having. I mentioned it on my blog today : )

13. Digital Misfit said... Happy Birthday!What a wonderful way to celebrate with your bloggy friends! There are so many fabulous goodies being given away.hugs,Heidi

14. Harley Dee said... Very awesome giveaway :) Thanks so much for the chance to win, and Happy Birthday!! :) I blogged about it too!

15.Frogdancer said... I so admire the friendship that you must have with so many people to be able to pull something like this together. I've included a link from my blog too, by the way. A giveaway like this deserves recognition!

16.Shannon said... What an awesome birthday giveaway! Happy birthday, I hope your day is wonderful! :)

17.tammiemarie said... Happy birthday! What a fantastic giveaway! Enter me twice, you're up on my blog craftytammie.blogspot.com. Thanks!

18.Sam said... I would love to win any of the items. Awesome prizes. Happy Birthday!

19.Amy said... Oh my goodness, those are some incredible prizes. You must have worked hard to put all that together!

20. sarabclever said... Happy Birthday!

I'll be contacting each of you individually so that you may choose your prize. Thanks to everyone who commented!

A Birthday Giveaway

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING. WINNERS WILL BE CHOSEN SHORTLY.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm going to celebrate with you with a HUGE giveaway. You know that old saying "ask you and shall receive"? Well, there were many great people who answered and I am happy to be able to give away so many great items!

Here's how this will work. To be entered, simply leave a comment. Please make sure to leave a way to contact you. Oftentimes when people leave comments, there is no contact information from them, so if you want to win, make sure you leave me your e-mail. To gain an extra entry into the contest you can blog about it and let me know about the post in your comment. Please do not comment more than once on this post as it'll make counting very difficult for me! There will be around 20 winners, so the first winner will have their choice of prize and each subsequent winner will get to choose from the remaining list. You'll have from today (Friday) until Monday April 27th to enter.

Here are the prizes that have been generously donated. Please take the time to click through their shops and/or blogs since they were kind enough to participate in this giveaway.

1. Secretcake

About secret cake:
Buying and selling handmade, sustainable products has never been more pervasive. secret cake supports this movement by offering an eclectic mix of “rescued” textiles and notions for your unique, up-cycled creations. Please visit secret cake at www.secretcake.etsy.com and www.secretcake.blogspot.com

About the giveaway:
secret cake offers a colorful, spring-inspired grab bag of vintage fabric scraps and buttons. This grab bag includes cotton or cotton/poly blend fabric from upcycled bed linens in four different but coordinating patterns. Great for patchwork, pouches, covered buttons and other smaller projects. The grab bag also includes a half-dozen whimsical vintage buttons in pinks, yellows and greens. Enjoy!

2. Fortheloveofproducts at etsy is offering a $10 gift certificate to her store. "For The Love Of… products celebrate life's intimate moments by providing high-quality bath and body products dedicated to making even the smallest of daily activities pleasurable."

3.Mary offering bookmarks. She sells original artwork in her etsy store, which includes bookmarks, cards, and wallart.

4. Bitofwhimsy sells her original patterns for dolls and other stuffed animals. There are even cute boy dolls which makes this mama of a boy very happy! She is offering 3 PDF patterns to 3 different winners. Each winner will get their choice of pattern.



5. Mary of confessionsofacraftaddict is offering up 1 yard of this cute mermaid fabric. She tells me Joann's sold of out it 2 years ago and it is very hard to find! If you don't already read her blog, you should. Trust me. She makes the cutest things ever!

6. Rosalyn Scent is offering a body butter of your choice of scent. The mango sounds great to me! They carry a variety of bath, body, and fragrance products and there is a $10 off coupon on the home page.

7. MyHeartandSew is offering a $10 gift certificate to her etsy shop. Cassie carries the cutest fabrics and is a delight to work with. She is more than willing to set up custom listings for you, so don't be afraid to ask! She also accepts RME payments, just in case you have a little extra money sitting around in your account (wish I did!).

8. Shelly from Joyful Girl Natural is giving away a 2oz bottle of her Organic Shea Mango Lotion. She says her mom works with a lot of fibers and she loves the way it feels on her hands. She makes products when they are ordered for freshness and effectiveness. Also she can customize products to meet each customers skin care needs. She will work with her customers to assist in healing severe skin concerns, taking time to formulate a skin care regimen that will be healing for them.

9. Katie from Moonlight Bindery is giving away this very cute Moleskin with a Goccoed Snail on it. She will also be my booth-mate at the craft fair tomorrow!

10. Snugluv at etsy is offering a $10 gift certificate to her store. She stocks quilt kits, patterns, and handmade goods. She also blogs at snug-n-luv.blogspot.com.

11. Kiva from farmstandlady is offering these very chic "Little Black Dress" earrings. Visit her etsy shop for other great jewelry items.

12.Precious Patterns offer many different patterns which include but are not limited to baby items, toys, and shoes. If you need to make a gift for a baby shower, you should definitely check them out. Mary and Sara will be offering 1 PDF pattern from their store. The winner can choose the pattern of their liking. They are also having a giveaway this week. They are giving away their new Monkey Crayon Holder pattern to everyone who purchases two patterns or one combo pattern. All of their patterns are e-patterns sent to their email address within 24 hours, and they are always working on new pattern designs.



13. Gulfcoastcottagepdf is another great etsy shop. She has some of the cutest patterns for felt, everything from a robot to a doctor's kit. There is something for everyone there! Jen will be giving away 1 PDF pattern of the winner's choice. She's running a special buy any 4 patterns get a 5th one for free (just in case you can't wait to see if you're a winner).



14. Tara from tarabu is giving away a pair of surprise coffee cuddlers from this collection. Tara has many great things in her etsy shop. One of my favorites are her shawls, which I have seen in person and are fabulous!

15. Raesha is giving away a bunch of vintage sewing goodies. Raesha also writes a lovely blog, so if you're not a reader already, check her out!

16. jmilliesjustforyou In her etsy store you will find cute Japanese fabrics as well as other fabrics and patterns. She also runs a fabric co-op on yahoo which can be found by following this link. For the giveaway, Judy will be sending the lucky winner 12 strips 2 1/2" x 44. 5 of fabric by Tina Givens and one Phillip Jacobs print. This is perfect for getting started on a quilt or any patchwork project.



17. "Life in your Years" Earrings (Retail Value $14) by Sweet Tarragon

Danielle says "Celebrate life, the universe, and everything in it for Katie's
birthday or your own special day with these sterling silver earrings.
Ocean and brecciated jaspers offer depth and warmth, while tiny brown
goldstone beads offer a hint of copper shimmer. Approximately 1-1/2"
in length, including earwire. "And in the end, it's not the years in
your life that count. It's the life in your years." (Abraham Lincoln)

Your readers can enter "Birthday" in the notes to seller at checkout
for a 10% discount on their entire order through the end of the month
at sweettarragon.etsy.com."

18. And last but not least, I'm giving away a pack of 5" squares of fabrics from each of the Flea Market Fancy fabrics I own. I have more than this photo shows, but you get the idea.

So there you have it! Thanks for celebrating with me. And a big THANK YOU to all those who have donated their times. I'll be back on Monday with winner and an update about the craft fair. Have a great week!

attack of the messy house

Thanks for all the love on my tree quilt and a big hello to some new readers! Have you guys been following along all the beautiful quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival? There are some seriously beautiful quilts in there!

This week is turning out to be a crazy one. I have a craft fair on Saturday that I am feverishly preparing for. Sewing production line style is not the most fun, but it sure does work. Unfortunately my house is really suffering from neglect! Just a little glimpse into what my house is looking right now.

To begin, I'm a messy sewer. I go through all my fabrics, cut everything and then leave it out. Lest we not forget that I sew in my "dining room".

I can assure you that no dining has been going on in this room at all. Oh, can you see that little bit of green stuff on the table? Yeah, Moon Sand given to Isaiah for his birthday. He loves it. I can't say I share his affinity for it. And last but not least, our kitchen. Dirty dishes piled high.

This is when a dishwasher would really be useful! I'm just hoping to have the Merry Maids come knocking on my door saying that someone sent them to me as a gift! haha.

John also has a PET scan tomorrow, so that is adding a little bit of stress too. It's late in the day, so I'm sure I'll be thinking about it all day long. So any extra prayers our way would be much appreciated.

And if all this isn't enough, my birthday is on Saturday (same day as the craft fair). I am really looking forward to celebrating after this crazy week is over. I have something very exciting coming up for you all on Friday, so make sure you stop by to check it out!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Have you heard about the Blogger's Quilt Festival? Amy at Park City Girl started this online Quilt Festival for those of us that aren't lucky enough to attend Quilt Market. I'll have to admit that I have more unfinished quilts than finished. In fact, I think I've made more actual quilt blocks for other people (between my two quilting bees) than I have made for myself. That being said, I do have a few favorite finished quilts, both of which live somewhere else than here.

One is a quilt I made for the Doll Quilt Swap and the either is a baby quilt which I sold on etsy (and like to imagine a sweet baby being wrapped up in!!).

So, go head over to Amy's blog and check out the list of participants. If you have some favorite quilts, you should join too. There's lots of cool giveaways!

soon to be quilt

February was my month for the Pieced Together Quilting Bee. I sent out an assortment of Flea Market Fancy fabrics and the solid white, blue, and red and instructed the participants to make an improvisational style block. It was so fun to get each block back and see what each person came up with. This will eventually be a quilt for Isaiah. I was originally thinking that I'd sash each block with white, but now I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

Hello again

Hi there friends! I didn't mean to disappear like that, but life has just been busy. Last week my sister was going home to NY and suggested that I come with her since I hadn't been home in almost 2 years. I was really starting to get homesick (well, have been homesick) so I decided to go. Isaiah came with me, but John stayed home since he had a doctor's appointment. We had a great time and it was so nice to just relax and enjoy being there again. Not to mention eating the best bagels and pizza, something Maryland is seriously lacking. I drove back with my mom on Friday night and my parents stayed the weekend for Easter. Now I'm trying to catch up on a messy house, which really needs a spring cleaning.

Of course, I am also stressing about my upcoming craft fair, which is now only a week and a half away. I have a lot of things "in progress" but nothing really finished. I just can't get into a groove. So to distract myself I finished up my April blocks for the Pieced Together Quilting Bee. Stephanie requested log cabins and this is what I came up with.

Erin is making a quilt she's calling "Squares and Rectangles" and I made these two blocks for her.

Now that I've crossed those off my list, maybe I can force myself to get something else done!

pencil pouches

It's been gray and rainy here the past few days and it had left me completely unmotivated. Add to the stress that my upcoming craft fair is only a few weeks away and I've lost my sewing mojo. Perfect timing. Today the sun finally came out and I made these 3 pencil pouches. I used the tiniest of scraps and some linen from a thrifted skirt. Simple enough, but I figure baby steps will get me going.

This year I finally joined a slow pitch softball team and tomorrow is our first practice. I can't even tell you how excited I am to be playing again, albeit a little nervous that I'll completely suck! Plus, I've only ever played fastpitch softball, so I'm sure I'll have a lot to learn about waiting to hit the ball. In any case it'll be fun. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Thrift Finds

I wanted to share some of my recent finds. I've had some luck recently, but I just keep forgetting to photograph them! First are these two adorable aprons. Normally I never find cute aprons, but lately there have been so many good ones at the thrift store! This pink gingham one is headed to my new etsy store, but I'm hanging on to this sheer one. I planning on using it as a curtain in my kitchen. Isn't it great? It was very hard to take a picture of though!

Next is this contact paper. It's still in its original packaging and I just love the print on it. I really don't need it, but I figured someone else might really love it. So that too will be on etsy.

Finally, one of my favorite finds ever is this "Kotton Kutie" paper doll set. There are 3 dolls, Kitty, Kathy, and Kris. I just love that they included a boy! The best part is that the clothing is made out of cotton. You cut out the outfits and "stick" them to the doll. On the back it even says to use your old scraps of fabric to create new outfits. How cool! As much as I love this, I really don't have the room it keep it, so you can find that on etsy too.

Also, today is John's birthday. It is so fitting that he was born on April Fool's. He really is a jokester (even though there's been no pranks today). I'm just happy that he is feeling so good and will be able to celebrate his birthday!