OOPS: Part 1

This will be the first installment of OOPS, aka Outside Oslo Project Status.

Thanks to the fabulous Marmalade Fabrics,  I have one yard each of Jessica Jones' (aka How About Orange) equally fabulous new line of fabric, Outside Oslo.

I love everything about this line: the clean graphics, the colors, the nice weight of home dec fabric. The first sewing project will be Amy Butler's Weekender Travel Bag.

One of my best friends has been working on this project all week so I've gotten lots of valuable advice from her. Have any of you made it? I'll take any hints I can get. I'm so excited that my father has a heavy-duty sewing machine from his former days as a reupholsterer, so I'll be taking advantage of his piping foot and might actually sew the whole thing on his machine.

And here's a sneak peek at another OOPS project I'll be working on. I'll tantalize you with the "before" version for now.

The winner of the Name Game giveaway is Elisa Black, who said:

"I love your little name game/selvage pincushion and I am very excited for the upcoming series on bloggers names-- great idea!"

Thanks for playing along, Elisa.It will be on its way to you shortly.

Do you have a lot of projects lined up for the weekend? Do tell...

WIP Wednesday #25

And it's WIP Wednesday once again.

I have no sewing to show. Nada. However, I don't want to let a good excuse go to waste, so here it is: I was at Disneyland for three days. And there you have it.

So for this week, I'm considering these two munchkins my WIPs. Warning: You will have to tilt your head because no matter how I tried I couldn't get the video to turn right side up.



This arrived in the mail while we were gone. ETA: The fabric is a line called Tiny Town by Timeless Treasures and I found some here.

If you have some good ideas, please share. This little part of the fabric is my favorite:

The winner of the pincushion from Chasing Cottons Quilting 101 is Rhonda (aka Quilter in the Gap) who said:

Your pin cushions are super cute! Great tutorial! I love the reference guide you shared. I will print and leave hanging in my studio. Thanks so much!! **fingers crossed**

And now we know the secret of winning: **fingers crossed**!

So go check out the real sewing being done by everyone else here. Hopefully by next week, actual progress will have been made on actual projects.

The time is near!

And I'm not talking about the world ending on May 21. Actually I have way too many quilts that need to be completed so I'm hoping we're all around for a while longer.

First of all, I was amazed and touched at the number of comments you all left on my post about not apologizing for who we are as quilters and our personal creative journeys. The message left by so many of you is that whatever is right for each of us should also be alright with anyone else. We don't know what is happening in the real lives on the other side of the computer, the parts that don't get written about, the things we don't know as we look at the quilt pictures and read the posts. Kindness is not a trend and respect never goes out of style.

The amazing Random Number Generator chose comment #18 (which I'm personally thrilled with, because after my great blog makeover, somehow my comment numbering html code disappeared and I haven't had time to search for it--have you ever tried to search for something specific in your html code? Daunting task, I'm telling you!)

So anyway...#18 is Diane H, who said:

I have sewed, crafted and used my imagination with my creations since I was a child - before the internet, designers and blogs told us how things 'should be done'. And I will continue to do so, like you, with no apologies. Thanks for such a wonderful post.

Now on to new business. I'm really excited to be starting a new series in May, just around the corner, called The Name Game. Do you ever wonder how a blogger chose the name for her blog? Did she have other names she considered? Is she still happy with the name she chose? The answers to things like "Is 'Crazy Mom Quilts' really crazy?" I assure you she is not, but she'll be one of the first to share how she chose that name for her blog.

I'll be spotlighting bloggers, who will be answering just those very questions, and sharing some pictures of their work with us as well.

There are already some really interesting bloggers in the lineup. Would you like to be spotlighted? Is there a blog name you have always wondered about? Email me, because I'd love to hear from you. Nominate yourself or someone else. I think this will be interesting, and who knows what secrets we'll learn?

And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who gave such fascinating information on your birth order. When I told Mark I was going to write this post, he told me he didn't think anyone would comment. Was he surprised! Lots of good reading.

The Flea Market Fancy fabrics scraps (and I did mention that they are little scraps, right??) go to Sherri, who said:

"I'm a hard one to figure out...only child for 4 years...then the youngest for a year when my Mom remarried...eventually ended up the middle child of 5. I think I have more traits of an older child though...
I love birth order stuff, too...I had never thought about applying it to fabric...fun post!"

I'm glad she was number 7 because in the midst of getting my new blog update, I seem to have lost the html code that numbers my comments. Argh.

I forgot to mention the other day when I made these Scrapbuster Blocks from Material Obsession 2

that although of course you can make the blocks using paper templates,

I highly recommend this ruler.

It made cutting the triangles a piece of cake, and much more accurate, and so the points in the center were a lot easier to match up.

Next up will be a tutorial on making a custom camera strap cover using selvages. Along with the many ways I was able to mess up a seemingly simple and straightforward project...

Bookworms

I love reading. I love quilting. I love Elizabeth's creativity at Don't Call Me Betsy.

Can you believe this mini quilt with a row of books?

I think the campaign is on to get her to write a tutorial. Do you see the selvages in there? Everybody with me on this one?

Speaking of books. And organizing (which I do love to do). You must watch this short video that Monica posted her blog, Quilt While You're Ahead (incidentally, one of my favorite blog names and favorite blogs). It's short. Watch it a couple of times. It's probably good I don't have this many books. I might be tempted...

The winner of the pincushion is Free Indeed, who said:

"I want to try the mugrug binding tute."

And if you guessed the selvage pillow is my favorite tutorial, well, I don't know what could have possibly been your clue.

I hope you enjoyed learning to know my "sister," Carla, as she celebrates her blogiversary. I can't wait to see what she does in the coming year!

Sewing With Kids, Lesson One: Patience

Shortly after Christmas, Charlotte said she wanted to sew a scarf, and also informed me that she had already designed it. I was thrilled. It has always been my dream that she would want to sew, and in anticipation of that I was ready with her own Featherweight, purchased long before she was even born.

She is 4 1/2 and unbelievably bright. However, I wanted her to understand the concept of sewing but was unsure how to convey that in a way that would make sense to her.

Talk about incredible timing. At that very time, Deborah Moebes of Whipstitch said she was starting a series called Sewing With Kids, geared to 3- to 8-year-olds, all about introducing sewing skills to little ones. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was, because it meant Levi could also take part in the lessons as well.

Deborah's first lesson was titled "Patience." In the introduction, she said: "The very first skill new fingers must master in order to work their way up to the sewing machine is simply understanding what sewing is and how it works. Seeing that thread can hold things together and keep them there, so that the finished product is something more than the initial bits and pieces...is a huge part of conceptualizing sewing."

EXACTLY what I was looking for.

Lesson One involved dyeing pasta shapes and stringing them together, the standard macaroni necklace.

I chose three different shapes and got food coloring. And did you know that you can now get food coloring in neon colors? Awesome!

Charlotte chose the colors she wanted and we made little bowls full of dye, just like dyeing Easter eggs.

I thought Levi would find this very fascinating. Interestingly, he looked to see what we were doing, and then announced he would rather read. How can you argue with that? He got a stack of books, made himself comfortable and started going through the books.  However, he did say that he wanted to "sew" the macaroni when it was time.

That morning we had time to dye our pasta and let it dry, but no time for sewing. We saved that for another day.

Day Two:

We spread all the pasta on the table, and Charlotte and Levi had their strings cut and ready to go. I told them they could do whatever they wanted, and gave them a few suggestions, like pick one color but use all three shapes, pick a shape and but change the color every other one, etc., just something to get them thinking about pattern and design choices.

Charlotte immediately said she wanted to do a "pattern." Yay! I watched to see what that meant to her. She stuck with rigatoni and chose three colors, and just repeated the pattern over and over.

Levi, being a total boy, "drove" his macaroni onto the string. I kept hearing him making this "bup bup bup bup" sound, so I asked him what he was doing. "Grandma, this is a truck" (duh!)....bup bup bup...." until he had driven eight pieces of rigatoni onto the "road" and declared that he was done and was ready for a snack. But as I watched him, he also instinctively decided on a pattern, three "trucks" of one color, two of another color, and three of a third color.

I'm so excited about this series of lessons. They are well planned and extremely well written, and this morning I finished purchasing the supplies for the next two lessons,which involve lace-up cards (Lesson 2) and plastic canvas with yarn (Lesson 3).

This is a win-win thing for me. Planting the seeds of sewing knowledge for the future, while at the same time having a great time "playing" with Charlotte and Levi.

The winner of The Quilt Show certificate giveaway is Jen, and you should definitely check out her blog,
The Quilty Home. Jen, I'll be in touch with the information.

An Award? Me? ...and we have a winner

I wish I could read blogs for a living. There. I said it. There is so much amazing creativity and inspiration out there. Although I must admit that sometimes reading  blogs tends to bog me down. Instead of taking that inspiration and doing something with it, I find much of my available time has been used up.

I read a lot of the same blogs written by the "big girls" that I'm sure many of you do as well. But there are a multitude of lesser-known gems out there. Those are my favorites. Those writers are people who have become my friends.

One of them is Andrea, from Millions of Thoughts. She is funny and witty, an awesome quilter, and my friend. She loves solid fabrics and knows how to use them to their great potential.

The other day I received an email link from her, telling me that she had chosen me to receive the Liebster Blog award. It is "awarded" to crafty blogs with 300 followers or less who are quietly going about doing their own thing and possibly not getting the exposure that some of the larger blogs are.

This is my first blog award. There are a lot of choices out there, and to be chosen by Andrea was both amazing and humbling.

It is an award meant to be passed on. These are listed in no particular order, but I  hope you will take some time to check out the blogs of these incredibly talented women:

quiltish: quiltish is one of the first blogs I started reading on a regular basis. Allisa is the classy and talented creator of many wonderful items that she sells in her etsy shop. Most of all, I highly recommend that you check out her Business Bits series. I have gained an enormous amount of information from this series which is very well written.

Wishes, true and kind:   Like Allisa, Joan lives in the Portland, Oregon, area. Which is probably one of the many reasons I love reading their blogs. I'm a Pacific Northwest girl at heart and I'm hoping one of these days to pop up there and meet them both in person. Joan makes absolutely stunning quilts. You will love all the eye candy in her blog, and enjoy her writing too.

Little Scraps of Happiness: Jen is a Navy wife, whose husband is often gone for long periods of time, and the mother of two small girls. That alone makes me admire her more than I can say. Her quilting is beautiful. I really like reading her blog and she always takes the time to comment.

I'm adding my good friend, Terri, as well, although I'm certain she has a readership larger than 300. (It's so hard to tell with Wordpress and Typepad people...).  She has an amazing eye for color, makes gorgeous quilts and bags (I already have one, and this one is on its way), and is a gifted photographer. So after you check out her blog, be sure to check out her shop!

And one more, who I am sure also has a readership higher than 300. If I could choose one writing style to emulate, it would be Monica of Quilt While You're Ahead (also one of my all-time favorite blog names). Along with quilting, you will see gorgeous pictures of food, knitting, English countryside. It's a highly recommended blog read.

The winner of the polka dot scrap giveaway is dooddles, who said:

"Donating fabric to a worthy cause is never a bad thing. Also, I can't tell you how many times I have picked up fabric at Goodwill and was excited about it. Coming from someone on a VERY tight budget, this has always been a welcome treasure. I need to add pinks to my stash. :o) BTW... polka dots are my fave print! Thanks for the chance. "

So, dooddles, I'll be contacting you soon.
 
By the way, dooddles has a blog called fabric.addict.
 
Not that any of us would have a clue what that is all about...

And the winner is...

Needled Mom, who said:

Congratulations on hitting 300!!
I have started some of my Christmas sewing, but still have a lot more to do.
November 12, 2010 6:47 AM

Wow, she reads blogs early in the morning, just like I do. Although I kind of intersperse blog reading throughout my whole day. Too bad I can't say the same thing for exercise.

Okay, that was kind of off topic.

Anyway, Needled Mom, when I get your mailing information, this will be on its way (I finally got around to taking a picture...)

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment. There is a lot of sewing going on already..and a lot of plans in the works. I hope to move mine from the planning stages in my head to some actual sewing in my beautiful new sewing room.

Tufted Tweets Winner

I meant to post the name of the Tufted Tweets pincushion winner earlier.  And this is my reason for not having done it yet.

Some of you may know that we are part of an owner group of Lakeview Cottages, rental cabins at Huntington Lake, which is 7,000 feet elevation. We have had freaky weather this spring, snow, snow and more snow. Our first guests should have been checking in yesterday. But we have not been able to get to the cabins to open them up. Oh, and we have no water yet. This is what it looked like at Lakeview Cottages yesterday. And remember it is JUNE!

The road leading up to our driveway:

The only way you had a chance of getting up the driveway was with four-wheel drive. Mark, who grew up in Minnesota, was able to get up the driveway in our 4-wheel-drive Pilot (and had a good time doing it, I might add...). And he had brought a sled along. Wondering why someone who lives in the central valley of California even owns a sled? Because it always pays to be prepared. "Our" cabin, the one we use in the off-season when we are opening or closing up for the season, is in the shade during much of the day. So this is how Mark get our icechest to Cabin G.

A view around our cottages:

This is our lakefront. This is where there should be boat docks and our "fleet" tied up and ready for the water.

So the guys spent most of the day scooping snow. It was actually t-shirt weather so by the afternoon the snow was doing some nice melting. The snow had been scooped away from the driveway, but then it turned to mud.

So it was still hard to make it up the driveway:



And the point of all this? I'm just now getting around to posting the winner of the Tufted Tweets giveaway.

Soooo...without further ado, the winner is lucky Number 13, Sooz, who said:

I'm so glad I found your blog thru Laurie's post/giveaway link. Lovely! I'm a big fan of hers, as well, and now of you! Best.


June 1, 2010 5:05 AM
 
Congratulations, Sooz. This little bit of Tufted Tweets goodness will soon be winging its way to your home.
 

 
Thanks to Laurie of Scarlet Fig, and fabulous designer of the Tufted Tweets line (which should be making its way to fabric shelves soon), for sending these fun selvages. The winner of the other pincushion is posted on her blog.
 
Another really fun giveaway will be happening here in just a couple of days, so watch for it!