Fairy Tale Charm Pack Winners Announced!

I am so sorry to have been keeping you all waiting so long......

The winners of the charm packs are Sarah and Liz B.! I am so happy to know they are going to homes who will love them and I can't wait to see what you make! (I will contact you both as soon as I get a chance between naps and other craziness around here.) Thank you to everyone who entered!

I have been way too busy this week. Husband and I decided to take our first mini vacation without Lucy! We packed up and headed down to Portland, one of our favorite cities, for a two night stay at Hotel Lucia downtown (a great place!). We spent two days walking around the Pearl and Hawthorne, drinking Stumptown coffee, drinking Oregon Pinot Noir, eating at awesome restaurants (Biwa, Apizza Scholl's, Kenny and Zuke's, Ken's Artisan Bakery and Pok Pok) and even got in a little shopping! Here are some purchases I made from some cute little quilt shops in Portland:

As if I needed to buy any more fabric!

Well, back to the business. Does anyone else feel like the holiday madness in beginning early this year?!? If I manage to get in any sewing this week, I hope to make some stockings from comfortstitching's fabulous new tutorial, found here!

Another Happy Day in Fabricland

Yipee! Yesterday I hit the Munki Munki Marshall's jackpot! Snowmen on flannel!

Shoes! Lipstick! Coffee! Polar Bears! Even the elusive OOP Coke Travelers! And full-length cotton poplin Camper Van robes! Lucky for me my mom is a Marshall's regular so she has been on the lookout. These are of course not all for me, some are for some of my lovely swap friends. If you have been searching Marshall's for Munki, too, now is the time to try because once they hit one it is only a matter of time before some of the other locations start receiving some too!

To top it off, I got a long-awaited parcel from Japan containing one of my all-time favorites, Little Peter Pan, and in three colorways. I couldn't resist buying a yard of each. These came from Sonatine on Etsy and she may have a bit left if you act fast. I'm pretty sure this line is long OOP and was too excited to see it pop up!

I also wanted to show you that, yes, I actually DO sew sometimes, not just shop for fabric! I have been trying to do a little work on this simple nine patch using all my Munki prints. It has been so much fun to cut into these fabrics. I am shooting for a twin size quilt for Lucy's big girl bed one day, so I have quite a long way to go, but I'm in no rush. I just wanted to play with the layout a bit, I am thinking of somewhat of a rainbow color-gradation.

I will be drawing the winners for the giveaway this weekend, too - so exciting! I can already tell from all your awesome comments they are going to wind up in a great home.

My First Blog Giveaway!!!!

I am so excited for this - my very first blog giveaway!!! As many of you know, I have been obsessed with japanese kawaii fairy tale fabrics for awhile now. I have scoured shops and the internet and spent way too much on shipping from Japan and Australia to acquire what I believe to be a lovely little collection. Oh, and not to mention the wonderful ladies who have swapped some of these to me! I really, really love these fabrics.

I know a lot of you love them too! Most of these are out of print or really hard to find. There is Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks, Pinocchio and many more. And don't forget Little Red. I have the fairy tale quilt I plan to make for Lucy all mapped out in my head but with all my other WIPs and the holidays looming that isn't realistic right now. Sooo, I needed an excuse to cut them - you! I really want to share and see what someone else would come up with.

So here is the giveaway - I spent tonight cutting 5 inch charms out of all my favorites - 25 different prints in total. TWO SETS are up for grabs! To enter, all you need to do is leave a message here about what you would love to make with the charms. If you sign up to follow me, you'll get another entry. And of course, the 25 great gals who have already been gracious enough to follow me will be entered a third time! I am thinking I will have my 11 year old niece help me to draw winners, the random number generator intimidates me! Comments will close Sunday evening November 8th at 10 PM Pacific.

Thanks again to everyone bothering to read my postings here. I am still so very new to this crafty-sewing-blogging-quilting-mama business and so many of you have been such a great inspiration to me. All your support and constructive comments are always appreciated!

Spoonflower Snow White is here!

It's here! My first very own fabric design printed by Spoonflower. I can't believe how fast it got here. The print and color is incredibly true to my original drawing! There she is, surrounded by her seven dwarves, animal friends, the evil queen, and even her Prince Charming! I would show you a few more photos but I am not getting any good shots with the dark weather, but I wanted to show you something right away.

This was such a fun process - I only ordered a yard to begin with to be sure I liked it. I think I would make the scale a bit smaller if I have more printed along with a few other changes but other than that I love it. The cogs in my brain are churning with the next girls to be made into fabric - Cinderella, Thumbelina and of course Little Red! There can never be too many prints of her, can there?

In honor of Miss Snow White's arrival, I will be posting my first giveaway soon - tomorrow if all goes as planned!

I also wanted to mention the new group and blog put together by some uber-talented ladies, The Block Party. They are putting together a book about virtual quilting bees, and starting a new Flickr Group as well. I have also just joined my first quilting bee, The Bee-utiful Quilting Bee, and I am so excited to be working with this group of awesome women. Their work is beautiful and I can't wait to start!

Spoonflower Fabric Sneaky Peek

I finally did it! After months upon months of contemplation, I finished my first Spoonflower design and sent it off to be printed. Here is a little sneak peek of the artwork I scanned and sent in:

Yep, Snow White. I know that Little Red seems to be the reigning champion of popularity, but I am quite partial to this ivory faced, dark haired beauty (not that you won't see any Little Red from me in the future if all goes well!) Does this scene look familiar? Every artist has their muse, and mine was this japanese kawaii print which is probably one of my favorite fabrics of all time.....

Unfortunately it is out of print, like most of my fave fairy tale fabrics. I wanted to create something similar to the Cosmo japanese prints but with my own artistic style. It has been so much fun to create again! I am a bit nervous to see how the lines and color translate onto fabric, but if it works out then I can see this becoming an addictive little hobby. Look out Little Red, Alice, Thumbelina, Goldilocks and Cinderella! The fabric should be here in about two weeks!! Yay!

I am also making some progress with the hexagon top for the Pillow Talk Swap. Speaking of addicting, these hexes are just that! And I love the fact that I can just pack the project up and take it to go. I was toying with the idea of doing an all Flea Market Fancy hex pillow (my partner loves the line, but who doesn't?) but so far I am liking this one - I call it the Hexagon Hodge Podge. Or should I go back to the all Flea Market idea?? Luckily there is still time!

Oh, and I apologize for the crappy photos. It is crappy weather here in the Pacific Northwest and I can't get decent lighting to save my life.

And by the way, True Up, which is my favorite digest in the crafty world, has a great giveaway going on - japanese fabrics. I'm entering for sure!

Sometimes I knit...

I haven't had much time for knitting these days......or sewing for that matter. Add to the list cleaning, laundry, dishes, oh and sleeping! This little pea you see here is a very busy girl! And she is not even crawling yet. I am really in for it.

While I was pregnant I spent every evening after my hubby went to sleep sitting in bed knitting, and this little sweater was my proudest accomplishment from that time. It is knit top down and the sleeves are added later so all in all it was fairly simple to do. The pattern is the Easy Baby Cardigan by Diane Soucy and I found it for free on Ravelry . I really loved the yarn used too. It is the Desert Bloom colorway from the Taos line by Crystal Palace. I got lazy and haven't yet added the ties, but it fits her and I am hoping to get some wear out of it all winter.

A Quilt only a Mother could love.....

Okay, maybe I am exaggerating. This was the quilt I made for my mom's birthday last week. It is actually the first quilt I had ever started - I began it back in the spring before Lucy was born. I love Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line so much and it seemed to fit my mom's personality well. Plus, she is the reason I am back to sewing again so I wanted to give her my first quilt as her birthday gift.

Ahh, the first quilt top ever! I am sure many of you can relate to this: I was so eager to jump in I really had no idea what I was doing. I have learned so much about quilting from the start to finish of this project that by the time I even finished the quilt top I was totally dissatisfied with my work I thought about tearing it up many times. But, in the end, it is pretty and my mom loves it. Oh, and if you are wondering, the pattern was a free one from Anna's website, the Folk Dance quilt (the flaws in the quilt are a result from not reading her pattern, the actual pattern is fabulous if you follow it correctly!)

Here is a view of the back. Very simple patchwork piecing and I quilted with a simple quarter inch stitch on either side of the zig zag seam. The quilt was hand bound on the fly to finish it in time for her birthday. It feels so good to finish one, and my mom really loves and appreciates it. That makes it all worth it!