Stop staring and start sewing!

2009 A Sewing Year in Review

Are you done with your Christmas shopping?  I'm not.  That's what the weekend before Christmas (and priority shipping) is for.  Sigh.

Anyway, I don't have much time to sew and tell these days.  December has sort of freaked me out because the fabrics that were suppose to ship to me in September, October, and November all came in December.  At last count I've had 9 collections show up in the past 3 weeks plus lots of re-stocking so all work and no play make Jona a very dull girl.  Indeed.

But I decided it would be fun to do a Year in Review mosaic and now that I have I realize I've had a very productive year and so I feel a little better.

1. oh cherry oh pouch, 2. child's apron, 3. My new office, 4. Butterick 5439, 5. My new bag (I love it!), 6. New skirt for summer!, 7. swing5, 8. skirt re-fashion after, 9. evie, 10. DSC_0052, 11. new valance, 12. My new little table runner

Looking at these picture make me realize how quickly this year has gone by.  If you have a flickr account you should go ahead and make one of these!  If you don't have enough finished projects then commit to sewing enough to be able to put one together next year.  That's my idea of a new years resolution!

Voile-ah! A teeny tiny tutorial

I really want to make some blouses with this amazing voile fabric from Anna Maria Horner (this fabric is just as nice as Liberty of London and I can't stop running my hands over it) but I have zero "me" time right now.  Fortunately this little scarf took almost zero minutes!  My outfit needed a little spruce up and it's been a little chilly here (actually flippin' cold by Arizona standards but I'll be darned if I'm going to complain because I don't want comments from all you folks in the midwest!).  This was a great spruce up and it really does keep my neck toasty.

This fabric is 55" wide so it's the perfect size (your finished scarf will be about 54" long) and you only need 1/2 yard for a scarf.

Cut the selvages off and fold it in half, right sides together.  Pin the edge on the 3 unfinished sides.

Stitch together, pivoting at the corners, leaving an opening about 4" long on the side.  Trim all of your corners.

Turn right side out through the opening and press well.  Pin at the beginning and end of the opening (so you can see where you need to stitch).

Stitch it closed.  You can hand stitch if you like that better but machine stitching gets the job done fast (and that's what I'm going for here)!

5 easy steps (and pretty darn inexpensive too!) and I've got myself a beautiful, soft voile scarf.  I'm going to do one in every color now.  And guess what everyone on my Christmas list is getting? 

If you looking for quick gift ideas (besides this one!) don't forget about my Apron in an Hour tutorial.  It's fast and I've never had someone cry when I gave them one (kits in the store too).  Let me know if you'd like a different fabric combo and I'll see if I can put something together for you.  More tutorials on my sidebar and I'm going to try to put together a fast gift idea that you can sew for kids.  Busy week ahead!  Keep sewing!

A fast little runner

Jenean Morrison's beautiful new California Dreamin' collection showed up last week and every time I pass it I can hear it scream "Christmas!!!" to me.  I finally couldn't take it any longer so I spent an hour this morning making this little table runner.  12 strips of fabric 3"x8" (6 different prints) went together lickety split and then I couldn't help but trim it with some "swans a swimming" from Lizzy House's Red Letter Day collection.  See?  Christmas!!

Yay!  The finished dimentsions are 32" x 11" and it was easy peasy Christmas Evey.

A winner! Weeee!

Holy cannoli people!!!  Over 900 comments (thanks Monica)!!!!  So what you're saying is...you like fabric?  Me too!  Well the big winner is Kerry who left a comment at 11:05 am on 12/2.  Congratulations Kerry!  This should keep you busy in 2010 (can you believe it's almost here?  Weren't we just stashing 50 lb bags of rice for Y2K??). 

I have to show off something I got last week from Genevieve Gail the fabulous fabric and jewelry designer.  I saw these new designs in her etsy store and knew I had to have one so here's my new brooch!  I'm wearing it proudly (with my Fabric Pimp button) and it's a great gift for sewing gals.  But I'm sure you've already finished your Christmas shopping, right?

And look!  I finally got two more (long awaited, ugh) blocks done for our virtual quilting bee.  The one on the left is for Sarah (I hope she loves it as much as I do!) and we will exchange ours in person since she's not too far from me.  Yay!  And the one on the right is for Katie and I loved adding a little French General too it since it seemed to fit so well with the soft, lineny look.  The fabric in the back is for Chris and it's all vintage sheeting.  I love it (hopefully I won't wait 5 months to finish it)!

Thanks for leaving so many nice comments for Give Away Day!  It was a blast and hopefully we'll get to do it again in May.  Stay warm and keep sewing!

Give Away Day!! Yay!!

Yay!  It's time for Give Away Day!!  A huge thanks to Beth at Sew Mama Sew for organizing this fun day twice a year!  Run over to her blog and look at the whole list of participants and join in.  You might end up with some fun goodies!  And don't give me that "I never win anything" whine because folks are trying to give you FREE STUFF here!!

Here's what I'm giving away (I think you'll like it!).  It a massive stack (5 yards total!) of totally awesome all your favorite designers fabric "scraps" (actually most of them are too big to be considered scraps but oh well), and a brand spankin' new copy of 100 Blocks Magazine.  It has quilt block patterns designed by some of my very favorite quilters and between the magazine and the fabric you should be able to make oodles of blocks.  Oodles!

Just leave a comment and be sure to run over to my store Fabritopia and look around because I've received tons of new stuff (5 collections this week and 4 more next week)!  I usually order complete collections so there's a great selection to make any project.  You can join my mailing list on the bottom of the front page there or on the sidebar here to stay updated on all the new things going on in the wonderful world of fabric.  

Good luck!  Oh, the drawing is open through Sunday, December 6th.  Fun!

Take a picture, it lasts longer

Today we bake.  I thought I would take a picture since the countertops are clean and that's so temporary.  Here is my valance which I love.  5 more to go!

Now off to make 1 cheescake, 1 apple butterscotch pie, one coconut cake, and one cranberry cream cheese yummy thing (I'm not sure what it's called).  The girls are cooking everything but the pie.  I've never made a turkey (true confession).

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  Take time to just sit, eat and be thankful.  That's what I'm going to do.

Oh, all fabric is 20% off with the coupon code "thankful4u09" through Thanksgiving day.  And then I'm going to get blitzed with about 8 new collections in December.  Crazy (in a fun crazy way).

Making progress on my kitchen

I spent Saturday painting and painting my kitchen.  Joey helped by removing all the stuff from the walls and the pot rack from the ceiling (where it's been blocking our views for 6 years).  So here's the color.  It's called Ocean Kiss and it's Behr paint from Home Depot, which is my favorite.  I got the fancy new primer/paint combo so it's a little more than the regular stuff (around 33.00 a gallon) but much less than the Sherwin Williams stuff I used in my office (and I like it a lot more).  It took one coat!  And I'm very picky about good paint coverage so I'm serious when I say one coat (avoid the paint that rhymes with "flidden", it takes 3 coats).

I think the pretty teapot my mom got me looks great against the blue paint.  And I'm working on fixing that empty curtain rod.

Here's my valance in the making.  The moment I first laid eyes on Jennifer Paganelli's Michal Mustard fabric I knew it would be put to good use in my house.  I adore everything about it and have a few more projects planned with it.  I recently realized the roses in the Social Climber Ice fabric by Anna Maria Horner looked great with it and then decided to throw in a little zebra for fun.  I've never been crazy about animal prints but I've had to re-order that zebra print so many times I think it's growing on me.

I got that blue cutting board at Walmart last week (around 10 bucks) and I love it!  It's just the right size to be useful but not so big that it's hard to store (and it has a cut out at the top so you can hang it on a nail for storage).

The kitchen is a mess now but I think it's going to look great when I'm done.  I'm going to be painting the family room next and re-valancing in there too (it's next to the kitchen).  I'm also re-painting and covering the chairs and painting the table to match.  I'm really happy to be updating things since we've been here 6 years and some things are looking shabby (seriously, some of the doors have holes in them).

In other news...I received a sweet note from EllyAnne Geisel regarding National Tie One On Day.  It's in 5 days so there's still time to take part.  Here's her quote (this is easier than me explaining it!): Participation in NTOOD is very simple: Wrap a loaf of bread or other bake offering in an apron, tuck a note of encouragement in the pocket; then "tie one on" (an apron, of course!) and deliver the bundle to someone in need of encouragement, spiritual or physical sustenance or just a bit of recognition.

So take a look at her cute site (she's having a wonderful give away too!) and if you have time put something together for friend in need.  A lot of folks are out of work or tending to sick kids right now (at least in my part of the world) and can used some encouragement.  Feel free to use my Apron in an Hour tutorial too (since it's super fast and stress-free). 

Time to start planning Thanksgiving baking too!  I've never made a turkey because we always go to friends and bring dessert.  I made a butterscotch apple pie last year and I think I'll do that again (I'll share the recipe if I do because it's amazing).  What are you making??

Weekends are made for.....

This is what I'm doing this weekend.  What are you doing?

Blissful Bliss Blissity

We had a lot of fun at the BlissFest on Saturday and my girls made some decent pocket change.  I feel like mostly we learned what to do better next time.  You could tell most vendors really had their act together and knew how to set up fast and display their stuff well.  But it was lots of fun!

Here I am with  Olivia and Peety in our matching aprons.  Snappy huh?  They had a Western theme so we did our best to get a little cowgirled up. I found my blouse at Goodwill (3.99) and was so excited (it's Ann Taylor Loft) until I washed it and realized all the elastic in it was completely shot so I was up late the night before replacing the elastic in the neck and sleeves.  But I love it now.  (thank you Jamie for the pictures!)

This gal had a fabulous corner!  It was like gypsy bling-land!

More!

This is the inside of her travel trailer.  She had two chandeliers and this pretty Frida Kahlo shrine area.

Some great celebrity sightings too!  Can you find Heather Bailey?

And we were thrilled when we saw Barb and Mary from Me and My Sister Designs (for Moda)!  Here they are with Jamie and as you can see Jamie is wearing her quilt made from their Oh Cherry Oh! collection (and it's their quilt pattern too!).  Fun!  Jamie makes beautiful quilts and she sold a bunch.  In fact for a little while there were two gals having a stand off over her things.  They each kept waiting for the other one to put a quilt down so they could snap it up (and they each knew what the other was thinking so it was kind of funny to watch).  Cheap thrills.

Heather had a fabulous booth (hard to believe, right?) with her fabrics and Trash Ties and once she showed up fans were lining up to chat with her.  This picture was at the end of the day and I snapped a quick shot of these cute newlyweds walking by.

Kachina in a tutu.  Too too funny.

This trailer was lots of fun too.  We were very grateful for this vendor because she had paper parasols for 5.00 and we really needed them since we had no cover over our booth (one of those things we'll be sure to have next time!).  But I had a nice tan on my arms at the end of the day so it wasn't a complete disaster.

This gal had some wonderful hand milled soaps but I just really liked her cute little pink sewing machine.

My girls went crazy at this booth.  Oodles of vintage jewelry at great prices and Peety found a darling set of 4 dishes in a gorgeous pattern for her hope chest.

Oh and Elvis and Wynonna were there!!  Together!

Hello!

Another great vendor.  Cute antiques and painted furniture.

I loved this couch!  And they had these great lamp shade covers that were made with scrunched up fabrics and gathered ruffles (I may have to make my own!).

I also saw Tara Frey there but by the time I grabbed my copy of her book and went to find her she had already left.  Bummer!  Stephanie and Christian Nielson were there too and it was great to see them in town (they lived in Mesa before their plane accident).  All in all a good day spent with a fun friend and my sweet gals!  Bliss Fest indeed!

I'm always out of white thread

I had to make a run to get white thread today and I don't know why I just haven't bought a case of it to stash under my sewing table since I'm always running out of it.  That, and I can never find a seam ripper even though I own at least 7 of them.  Anyway, I'm scrambling at the last minute (as usual) to put together a few things for the Bliss Fest this weekend.  If you're in the Phoenix area, come out and say hi.  My girls have made oodles of aprons, tote bags, and pin cushions, as well as some great fat quarter stacks so I felt I should put together a few things so I didn't feel like a total parasite (even though I did finance the booth for them, ahem).

This little stack is five Evelyn Apron Skirts in the making (I already have two done).  Of course I finished the first and realized I'm out of 3/4" elastic, which I also need to buy by the case load and stash in here.  I just used my scraps and bolt ends for the skirts so they're turning out kind of funky but cute.

I've also been dabbing my eyes every time someone orders some of this incredible Rouenneries fabric.  My girls are getting irritated by my over-emoting but this is one of those fabrics that can make even the coldest heart turn soft.  I'm grabbing a little for myself because one of them keeps whispering "peasant blouse" to me.  Lovely stuff.

Ooooh, speaking of French things (here's my segue), my girls and I went to see The Phantom of the Opera on stage last week and it was incredible (it takes place in Paris, so that's where the French part comes in).  Joey and I had gone to see Wicked in August and it just broke my heart when I saw how amazing it was and then couldn't get tickets for my girls because it was sold out for the rest of the run.  So when I saw that Phantom was coming I had the girls pitch in and we bought matinee tickets.  It was on the Arizona State campus at the Gammage Theater which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (who lived part of his life in the Phoenix area which has always struck me as odd) so just seeing the theater is a treat in itself.  Anyway, we got seats on the first balcony in the very front row and we were so mezmerized by the play and not one of us made a peep the whole time.  Now we all sing opera around the house.  Joey loves it.  No really, he does.

Meanwhile, back at home, we are rejoicing in the aquisition of our new dishwasher!  It's one of those mundane things that makes everyone happy since our old one has been broken since March.  Handwashing dishes for a family of seven is no small task so we are all happy.  It's the only piece of stainless steel in the kitchen now so I have (want) to replace the refrigerator and stove too (the stove can wait a little bit but the fridge is on it's last leg for sure).

I've gotten quite a few requests for Joey's hat pattern (which he calls Jona's hat for some reason) so he was kind enough to put it on paper and you can download it here if you like (and I'll put a download link under the original post).  It would make a great gift if you're looking for ideas and I'm trying to persuade him to make me a matching scarf.  Kind of pathetic since it's been in the 90's this week (it's November people!). Download Jona's Hat  

Anyway, I hope you've had a great week!  Start working on those Christmas gifts (not nagging, just a gentle nudge in the right direction)!