I'm Baaaack!!!!

Days since I've blogged.

So I haven't blogged in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting. I sort of lost my job pretty much around the last day I stopped blogging. It was pretty unexpected and I've been in a little bit of a funk ever since. I am still looking for something permanent but have some temporary things lined up for now. Still waiting for my dream job as head crafter somewhere... sadly I'm certain I'll have to keep waiting for that one. But enough boring personal drama let me catch you up to speed on the crafts with a looooooooong blog post...

I have a new hand embroidered dry erase calendar which can be seen above. It was super hard to photograph without picking up all sorts of glares and reflections of everything around me so I apologize for the terrible photo above.

Literally the first day of my unemployment stint I was out walking the dogs and I came across these great Ikea picture frames in an alley near my house. They'd never even been open. I immediately snatched them up and laughed to myself that I was already picking trash out of the alley.  Here is a close up detail:

I embroidered the first letter of each weekday and the lines of the calendar and will leave the rest to the magic of dry erase. I still haven't decided what to do with the other frame. Probably a dry erase to-do list for my craft room though.

In case you are curious that is what the guts of 15 medium sized pumpkins looks like. The box is quite deep and probably weighed about 15 pounds. While job hunting I came across this post on Craigslist for someone who was looking for a pumpkin carver for an engagement party. I figured why not! I love carving pumpkins and the pay was pretty decent. The woman gave me a list of 10 things that were representative of the couple and asked me to incorporate them into the pumpkins and then gave me free reign of the last five. Three days, a crippled hand and a gross layer of pumpkin goo covering every surface in my kitchen later I had these:

These last few I finished the day of and sadly didn't ever get to see them lit up. They were Cinderella pumpkins and nearly impossible to carve. They were super thick which didn't allow me to carve anything too intricate. I wouldn't recommend using them as carving pumpkins.

So that is a few of the things I have been working on. I have some other projects I will save for future posts. Hopefully I can become a more frequent blogger in the weeks to come. I will leave you with one final picture... a sneak peak of the quilt I have been working on. I am really loving it and hopefully will have it finished soon. It is going to be the first quilt I attempt to sell...

Happy Birthday Laurel!

My niece turned 5 yesterday and we had an Angry Birds birthday. She loves the birds and so do I. I decided to make a live action Angry Birds and she loved it. I even created a "new" bird just for her. It is a pink flamingo. I hadn't told her it was a new bird yet and when she saw it she told me that it was nice but next time I might want to make the toucan a little more green. The boxes are just empty boxes (cereal, shoe, etc.) that were wrapped. It was a little confusing at first that they weren't actual presents for her to open and she wasn't quite sure how to play. But once I explained and showed her how to play the game she loved it. She enjoyed restacking the boxes to make a new game just as much as she enjoyed throwing the birds. She was even coming up with strategies for the order she was going to use the birds. Oh and the "King Pig" always has to be on the highest box according to her.

There are tutorials and patterns to make your own Angry Birds here: http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/2009/01/make-it-for-you.html

I didn't end up using the patterns because I was too lazy to print them out and figured they were pretty easy to make on my own and I made a few small alterations. But I did look over her tutorials and took some of the advice. Also the tutorial uses fleece but I used felt because it was cheaper. I also had to unstuff a couple of my own pillows to make the birds because I forgot to buy stuffing. I guess I'll have to buy stuffing later for my pillows. How I forgot stuffing on my two trips to the craft store for materials for this project I'll never know?!?!?

I spent a lot of time editing the little photoshop photo at the top for her birthday too (I'd printed out a couple and hung them around the house) and was thrilled when she was looking at it and said, "Hey the pigs stole the present!!"While I wasn't expecting a 5 year old to pick up on all the little details I went to the trouble of making she really did notice everything and comment on it. I think she has an eye like her auntie.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

Attempt #3

Candles out!

I love that she hasn't yet blown out the candles and she already has a half eaten cupcake in her hand... she is an Anderson! (Grandma is not going to be happy she is in the picture. Sorry Grandma but we have so few pictures of you anyway and I love your smile!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAUREL!!!

All in a days sewing...

So today was the deadline for the Make Mine Modern Swap. I had ideas lots of them and some bare bones beginnings... but for the most part I completely slacked on this swap. I think I probably should have sat this round out because the time just wasn't there. Luckily I had a good day of sewing and I think I pulled if off. Barely... considering the post office closed at 7pm



But I made a little pouch out of the super cute new line by Jessica Jones, Outside Oslo. I love the prints in this line and I like that she is a local Chicago designer too.



I also made a fabric basket which is a modified version of the Joel Dewberry pattern from Sewn Spaces. I think mine is just a little bit better.



Anyway it is off to my partner for them to decide. Hopefully they love it.

I did take a little break from sewing today to bring in the current tomato crop. I think I spent a whole minute picking. Unfortunately my plants got blight so I don't think they will go on to produce to many more tomatoes.



And now I should probably go to sleep as I need to wake up in a few short hours...

Busy, busy, busy...

It has been a busy week... I was even to busy to post about the giveaway winner for the Fall 2011 copy of Stitch but I did select one the other day. Or I should say my boyfriend did. It was very official. I yelled to him on the couch to pick a number between 1-17 (there were only 17 entries)  and he said 15.... so winner #15 who is "zena800" congrats!

And thank you everyone for all the nice comments about my sewing space! After this week it looks like a tornado went off in there.

The cutting room floor...

Last Friday my brother and I were standing in the bar at work and he said to me if you can think of anything decoration wise to make it look more interesting in here for the beer event next Thursday let me know. Well the next day I came to work with a sample and and idea and we decided to go for it... well I decided to go for it. I had a lot of work to do in less then a week but it all got done.

The event was our annual Dogfish Head Invasion where we feature 16 drafts (there are 36 draft lines at the restaurant) from Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware. A number of the drafts were rare or at least rare to the Chicagoland area. A portion of the line of people waiting to get in when we opened at 4pm:

Anyway enough with the beer geek information... lets get to the sewing geek information.

I decided that it would be fun to make banners that had the Dogfish Head logo and the names of the beers we'd be serving. There were 12 banners total, 7 of which were double sided, 16 beers and 3 with just fish. So Sunday morning I went to Jo-Ann's and got my fabric and spent all day at work cutting out fish and letters. Each banner is a half yard of fabric and I used a fusible web on the fish and letters. All the fish and letters were hand cut and ironed but not sewn. I don't quite know what possessed me to do this under such time constraints but it got done and they looked pretty awesome.

My favorite beer:

So while all this feverish sewing, cutting and ironing was going on for work, I also had a project deadline for the Spring 2012 edition of Stitch. And unlike the other two projects I've submitted and gotten accepted I'd never made this one before. Honestly I just submitted a rough sketch at the last minute and wasn't sure it would even be accepted. Surprisingly it was. So there was more feverish sewing, cutting and quilting. I actually didn't even have time to snap a photo of it before I mailed it off but it involves chalk board oil cloth.

Pretty {little} Pouch Swap

Pretty {little} Pouch Swap

I finished my pouch for my swap partner today. It was my first time using a zipper and I'm happy to say it turned out well. It isn't quite as polished looking on one end of the zipper as I would have hoped but it will work just fine. The inside is lined with the farmdale fabric pictured beneath the pouch.

I used a great tutorial that you can find here at kelbysews. On a side note the pouch featured in the tutorial lives with me! I love it and use it to carry my embroidery supplies.

I'm very happy that I finally settled in to my new place and can get back to making things.

My {new} Crafty Space & Stitch Magazine {Giveaway}

So yesterday... FINALLY... almost two months later I'm have my sewing/crafty space all unpacked and put back together. It feels good to not have to stare at the boxes and piles of things without homes. Now everytime I go in there I can just sew. At least for a while I'm sure piles will start to form they always do.  But here are some pictures of the space looking fabulous and in pristine condition.

Yesterday was also the arrival of my complimentary designer copies of the current issue Stitch magazine... of course I missed the UPS man for the third time and had to travel all the way to the south side to pick up my package but it was worth it! Anyway one copy is for me and one is for my mom so that means I have one copy up for grabs.

If you'd like a shot at it just be a follower and leave a comment and I'll pick someone at random next Tuesday, August 9, 2011 around Noon Chicago time. I'm not too big in the follower department so the odds of winning are pretty good! 

If you already bought this issue and you want to play anyway just mention in your comment that you already have it and if you win I'll send you something fun (probably fabric) and pick another name for the magazine. So there could be two winners!! 

The new Stitch Magazine's here!

I feel just like Navin R. Johnson...

Anderson, Lisa L... Page 60. 

You might remember seeing this already it was a sewing machine cover I made for my Make Mine Modern Swap a few months back. It is my first time in Stitch so I'm super excited. I have a few more projects slated for future issues as well. 

Hopefully, I will stop this post once every 4-6 weeks thing and get back on track with blogging and sewing. My sewing room hasn't completely come together post move but hopefully that will change soon. Also, I have some copies of the magazine coming my way and I'll do a little giveaway for one when I receive them. 

It's been a while...

I've been moving! And as you can see there isn't much space to sew...





But I had to finish a project that got accepted into Stitch magazine for their new gift issue that will be released closer to the holidays. So I pulled some fabrics and shoved some boxes over and carved out a little sewing space:





I imposed a no fabric buying or swapping rule upon myself while I was in the moving process. Of course I broke it because this was probably my only opportunity to purchase these Denyse Schmidt Australian fabrics at a fair price.

Glad I got them! Hopefully I will be unpacked and back up and sewing by the end of next week. Because I have lots and lots of ideas and lists of things to make for my new place.

Also I reactivated some of the destash fabric in my etsy shop and the BLOGPEEP10 10% off discount still applies.

Destash Sale on Etsy!

So I'm moving to a new apartment soon! I need to lighten the fabric load and increase the bank balance and I would love your help!! Here is a peak of everything I'm destashing:

You can head on over to etsy right now and stock up on all my fabric rejects... kidding!!! I had a hard time parting with all of it and there is some good out of print stuff available which I am letting go below what some others are charging. Oh and because you are a blog follower here is a coupon code for 10% off - BLOGPEEP10

MY ETSY SHOP

So get shopping!!! Mama needs a pair of movers!

It was one of those weeks...

Yep I sewed this one wrong the row on the right belongs on the left! I believe I did this back in January with the same style of block. But that was kind of the theme of my week nothing went quite right! Hopefully the new week will be less stressful.

I did manage to successfully finish some projects.

First up were some late bee blocks for Jen from The Hive. The Hive was meant to be a more lucrative bee where we make 4 blocks instead of 1 or 2. Since I was late getting these done and we lost a couple of members along the way and since Jen sent sooo much fabric... I decided to keep sewing until I ran out of fabric. I ended up with 9 blocks.

Next up I finished the other part of my swap package for my Make Mine Modern partner. It looks like she has a couch in her sewing room so I thought this would be a good fit. I hope she likes it.

This is the complete package I sent including apron I finished earlier and 6 FQs.

One thing went just right this week...

I was one of the lucky people who had a Jo-Ann Fabric that carried all 21 prints of new Denyse Schmidt line sold only at Jo-Ann's. I was only interested in 16 of the 21 prints!

Hexie Apron & Giveaway Winnings

March has been good to me. I've won two blog giveaways!! The first was from Kelly at kelbysews she had a giveaway to celebrate her birthday and I was seriously eyeing this bag and what luck I WON!! She also included some Good Folks fabric squares as part of the prize. I stole this picture from her because the Florida sun makes for better pictures then the Chicago grey I'm dealing with.

                            

She also sent me this pretty pouch which we exchanged for a side swap (yes I stole this picture from her too!) I have yet to fulfill my end of the swap - I promise I will have it out next week almost finished!!!

              

You can find an awesome zippy pouch tutorial on her blog too!

The second was a huge box 'o scraps from Kaelin at The Plaid Scottie. I had so much fun going through them.

                

Which almost immediately became this apron. I used my Accuquilt Go! to cut the 5" hexagons. I only added a couple of my own scraps. I probably have enough scraps left to make 10 aprons! Apron anyone?? I machine sewed them with the aid of this video from ladyharvatine. This went together so fast I am thinking I would love to make a 5" hexagon quilt as I don't have the patience (or quite frankly the skill) to hand sew smaller ones - I've tried! 

Thanks for the giveaways ladies! I'll have to return the favor to blog land with a giveaway of my own one of these days.