I hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend! Between feasting with friends and raking leaves, I managed to find time to play with some fabric. Stay tuned.....

Sneak Peak + Giveaway.
Take a look at some of the fabric goodness coming to the shop over the next few months!

fresh cut 2011.  heather bailey.  February

modern whimsy.  laurie wisbrun.  january

echo.  lotta Jansdotter.  january.

flea market fancy.  denyse schmidt.  february.

And for a little giveaway.
A bit of swag from the AQMS (after-quilt-market-show):
A Fat-Eighth Bundle of Quilt Blocks by Ellen Luckett Baker for Moda fabrics.
Salt Air mini-charm pack. Cosmo Cricket for Moda.
And charm squares of Garden Party. Jane Dixon for Andover Fabrics.

Leave a comment by Wednesday November 16th to be entered to win!

Hey! It's my birthday!

To celebrate, I'm taking the day off work, meeting up with some friends for dinner, and having a little giveaway! (Oh, and going to DMV to renew my driver's license. How's that for waiting 'til the last minute?)

For the giveaway.... how about this sweet little stack of 10 fat quarters from Sandi Henderson's latest collection Secret Garden? To enter, leave a comment (by Sept 1 at noon) wishing me happy birthday, of course, and sharing a silly birthday story of your own.

Here's mine:
A few years back, my good friend Kristina, who was going to Grad School in Iowa at the time, called to wish me a happy birthday. (It was early morning, but not THAT early.) I quickly interrupted her to say that it wasn't my birthday, my birthday wasn't until the next day. She replied that it was indeed my birthday - her phone had told her so, and after thinking about it for a minute, I realized she was right! And it wasn't just that I had the day's date confused, I actually had my birthday wrong. Unbelievable! I guess that's what happens when my standard reply to "when's your birthday?" was "at the end of August." for so long. Never again, though.

Today's the day!

An itty bitty pile o' scraps. That's my loot from last night's PMQG meeting's scrap swap. I have to say I'm very pleased I came home with MUCH less than I took. Although, in the spirit of full disclosure, I did steal one of my own scraps back. What can I say? I just wasn't ready to let it go after all. For as little as they are, I've got BIG plans for these scraps. Stay tuned....

Oh...and here's a little kitty cuteness for you:

Seriously, this is typical. This cat is unbelievably cute.

Fabric love.

I couldn't help but copy my sister when she told me about her new method of storing fabric on "mini-bolts."   I love 'em!  All the fabrics are so much more visible and neatly stored.  I also like it because there end up being fewer hard crease lines to iron out and I don't have to dig through a whole pile to find what I'm looking for.  They're super easy to make too.  Here's how I made mine:

Using my quilting rulers and an x-acto knife, I cut 12"x 8 1/2" rectangles out of foam core.  The size is entirely up to you, but these dimensions worked well for me because a) I happen to have two rulers to those exact measurements  b) they fit on my shelves nicely, and c) I can fit 44/45" wide fabric folded 4x height-wise, and each fold width-wise is approximately 1/4 yd, so i can easily figure out how much fabric I have.

I found it easiest to fold the fabric selvage to selvage and again fold to selvage and lay it flat on the table with the "loose" end towards me.   I placed the foam core on top of the fabric about four inches from the end,  folded the fabric over the foam core and then flipped the whole thing towards me until all the fabric was wrapped.  The loose end is held in place with a stick pin.  So simple!  Thanks Jess!  Now if I would only spend as much time sewing as I do organizing!

One week into the new year and I'm already behind schedule, so I'm going skip over the boring resolutions like exercise more or eat healthier and get right to point:

New Year's Resolutions:  (in no particular order)

1.  sew more.

2.  sew more creatively.

3.  use up my fabric scraps. (in creative ways).
4.  eat leftovers before they go bad.
5.  finish the treehouse.
6.  buy more fabric / buy less fabric.  
I haven't made up my mind on this one yet.  I guess it depends on how well resolution no. 1 goes.  But I'm off to a good start on the first option - picked up some Nicey Jane and more at the depot yesterday.  Can you tell I like the color green?  These might just find their way into a few pea pods.
7.  crochet a scarf

Five days in, and I'm still machine-less, so I've spent some time sorting through my "current" scrap pile. These will now go into bins with other scraps that I couldn't bear to throw out and wait patiently for a new life. Ideally, I'd have two scrap bins for each color family - one called "quarter-yard minus", the other "too small for anything practical"; but I'm short on bins and shelving space.....which leads me to an early new year's resolution to use up my scraps at the same rate I produce them!

Yay! New shelves for my growing collection of fabric bolts. Ikea comes through again. One week old and they're already filled.....yikes!

bella

my new baby....isn't she beautiful?