Honeysweet Winner!!!

The winner of the Honeysweet Jelly Roll from Fat Quarter Shop is ....

Congratulations Brenda! I'll be emailing you shortly!

Thank you to all who entered!

Some Honeysweet for You!

It's Friday!!! My very favorite day of the week. How about a little fabric giveaway to get this weekend started?! The very generous Fat Quarter Shop is offering this beautiful Moda Jelly Roll of Honeysweet by Fig Tree Quilts to one of you lovely readers.

I am in serious fabric love with this line. Joanna Figueroa is such an incredible designer. She is one of my very favorites! I'm going to let you in on a little quilt nerd moment I had, okay?. Last year Fat Quarter Shop sponsored another fabulous giveaway for Joanna's California Girl line. Well Joanna Figueroa commented on that post.   On.My.Blog.   Yeah, I totally saved the e-mail notification in it's very own special folder. Dorky, I know. But how exciting is that? 

I've asked you before what you like to do with a jelly roll. Fat Quarter Shop has a new pattern out called Jelly Roll Jam! It's so cute and perfect for using those pretty Jelly Rolls! The pattern is free and there are also many more free patterns on their site here.

Here's a link to the Fat Quarter Shop's video for the Jelly Roll Jam pattern. The very lovely Kimberly of FQS shows you how to make the quick quilt! I am loving these Fat Quarter Shop videos.

Okay, so to enter just leave a comment below! That's it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I will pick a winner by Random Number Generator next Friday morning 10/18/13! 

Feel free to share! It's always much appreciated!! 

Strawberries!!!

The Strawberry Pincushion swap is going great and I am so pleased. I've not hosted a swap before and it has been quite fun. There are some beautiful makes happening in the flickr group. This is what I sent out to my recipient.

I made these and then ...

made this one last night. You can never have enough strawberry pincushions, right?

I used plain ol' felt for the leaves and wool felt for the flower. Then added some french knots. The hanger is a cotton crochet lace.

I was going to originally make a patchwork strawberry but it didn't look like it did in my mind so I scratched that for now although I want to work on one like this sometime. (whoa, run on sentence much?)

This one was just 'cause.. a super duper teeny strawberry!

I just want to say Thank You to all the ladies who joined in!!! 

xo Erin

A Pouch, Crochet Sweater, and Green Eggs no Ham

I made the cutest little pouch! I used Chase's tutorial at 1/4" mark. She has some really cute tutorials on her blog and I want to make the triangle zipper pouch next. Too cute! I enjoy hand quilting more and more each time I do it. This was so fun because I didn't over think my fabric choices. I just chose some of my favorites and started sewing not thinking too much about placement. I even got to use one of my cute fabric covered buttons. Bonus!

Here's a shot of the lining. I love both of these prints so much and although they do not "match" I love them together. 

Here's the back. It's just so cute! The tutorial is for an I-pad mini pouch but seeing as I don't have one of those I'll be using mine as a clutch type thing. Probably diapers, wipes, keys and wallet. It's pretty roomy.

I started crocheting a sweater for the baby. I am not so good at it but it's fun. I learned how to crochet when I was a teenager and I made lots of hats and scarfs but this is the first pattern I've followed. The pattern is free here.

Lastly but not leastly :) Our chickens started to lay eggs! YAY! This is so very exciting for me. We had three chickens a few years ago. They were Leghorns and laid white eggs. That was fun but this is AWESOME!
So far we've gotten greenish blue, lighter blue, pinkish brown, light brown and brown. Very fun!!!

Eye Candy ~ The Fabric Kind

Today I have a little bit of eye candy for you! Isn't this gorgeous?! I got this incredibly beautiful bundle of Atsuko Matsuyama fabric from Shay's shop Simply Sweet Fabric. Have you visited her shop yet? It's AWESOME!!! She has a great selection of Japanese fabric like the above Atsuko prints and Lecien Flower Sugar, umm, yes please!!! 30's reproduction prints, you know how much I love those. She has a really beautiful bundles and yardage of Briar Rose by Heather Ross. She also still has some Pam Kitty Morning! There are patterns and hexie templates too. So, yeah, I'm loving her shop.

Fresh from the package! My Atsuko fat quarters.

I'm squealed when I opened the package. These prints are even better in person. 

 Love, love, love these selvedges. Look at that little strawberry. You can click on the picture to make it bigger I think. Definitely saving these!

Sometimes it's hard to wash a beautiful bundle like this, but I am a pre-washer so it had to be done. They felt really nice after I washed them.

I am going to make some hexies with these pretties and turn them into a pouch. I'll probably use some linen too.

Another shot of this pretty stack, just because! Playing with fabric is almost as good as sewing with it.

One last thing before I go... Thank you all for the sweet Happy Anniversary wishes. My husband brought these Mums home to me. He thought that I would like them because they can be planted and come back every year. Aren't they pretty? I've never seen any like these before.

Hope the rest of your week is great!
xo Erin

Strawberry Pincushion Swap is ON!!!

Hey, Hey, Hey! What's Happening! The Strawberry Pincushion Swap sign-ups are ready over on flickr. Come on over and join us, okay?!!!

Catching Up...

Guess who has high-speed internet? this girl! I forgot just how nice it is. After more than a year on dial-up I am thrilled with high speed. I can use Pinterest again, which is pretty fun. I also "revived" my old instagram. The link is on my sidebar if you are also on IG. I have a ton of e-mail to go through so if you haven't heard from me, you will soon :)
I still want to have a strawberry pincushion swap (mentioned in the previous post) and will set up a flickr group for it this week. I'll let you know when I do.
I've been trying to organize my tiny little sewing space and my stash. My husband made this cabinet for me years ago and it's been in our kitchen, using it to hold my vintage Pyrex, tea pots and cook books. I stole it from my kitchen and put it in our room to hold my fabric. Sounds reasonable, right? I have a big storage container holding about this much more fabric. I think my stash is pretty well under control. I know exactly what I have now. My next project is tackling scraps. yikes!

I pulled out some old blocks that I need to keep working on, just waiting for some solid white to arrive. My toddler loves playing with the dresden petals. Future quilter? hope so :)

I had a custom order for a Christmas stockings bird quilt. These are a favorite of mine to make, with each stocking representing your child, grand child or family member. Seven stockings, blessed indeed!

I have a link to share with any of you fellow homeschoolers or those of you considering it. It's a completely free, full k through high school, every subject curriculum. Seriously, a true blessing to many. Check it out here.

I was wondering if any of you might be able to answer a question for me?... Sometimes I see links to my blog and on the url they say .au, .se, or .uk not .com Does anyone know why that happens? Is it a blogger thing? Just curious.

Hope all is well where you are....
Happy sewing!
xo Erin