Luckiest Day Ever

I usually take time out on the weekends to update my blog since I have Fridays and Sundays off, but last weekend I was so sick I just couldn’t sit at the computer. But now my system is back to normal and I’m ready to post again! Today’s post is going to be about my extremely lucky day!

I try to spend a day with my Grandma every other month or so, of course I see her more often than that, but on this one day we actually go on a treasure hunting adventure. We visit the usual thrift store, any garage sales on the way, have lunch, and maybe run a few errands in there. Either way, it is always great fun and awesome quality time. (I’m such a Grandma’s-girl, being the oldest and all.)

Today we did everything that we normally do, but I hit the jackpot of treasure finding! At the thrift store I found a set of dishes from the 70’s. Some of the piece were marked 50% off while others ere not so I asked the cashier about them, and she gave them all to me at half price! You are probably thinking, “Woohoo, big deal, they are just dishes.” But they aren’t just any dishes! They are the Daisy Chain design from Pyrex and Correll. I have been collecting pieces one or two at a time since I found my first piece 2 years ago and fell in love with the little green daisy borders! So now I have most of the plates for the complete set. (6 plates, 5 bread plates, and 1 saucer for about $7!) This counts as the first “treasure find” of the day.

Then we went to the mall to eat lunch because its the only place that has Gyros, and I’m so on a Gyro kick lately. I really don’t like going to the mall, so we had lunch and left. We then visited The Cotton Patch where I found an aqua fabric I need for the Quilt Block Swappers group and that was it and of course a few other pieces ended up in the bag as well. (Fabric has a mind of its own, I can’t help it if it insists on coming home with me.)

The next treasure find isn’t really a big deal, but I found $10 on the ground at the gas station. I gave it to the clerk and he said since I found it I could keep it, so it paid for the gas. Awesome!

We ran a few other errands, but on the last stop of the day I hit the Jackpot of treasure hunting. We stopped at a new thrift store, not sure if we were going to find anything because it is small and a hole in the wall. However, that quickly changed when I spotted a sewing cabinet with a White sewing machine in it, marked at $3. The sewing machine is shot and not worth the cost or effort of repairing, but the table is steady. It just needs to be sanded and refinished or painted, though Erik might use it for a wood working stand instead – to mount his vice on.

So when you think about it, I either got a free bucks in gas or a set of dishes and a sewing table. Pretty awesome day no matter how you look at it.

I will try and post pictures on Sunday. Hopefully I will have my reversible smock top done by then as well.

 

Little Red Riding Hood

Some people do Sunday Stash days on their blogs, where they showcase different pieces in their stash. Instead I thought I would show some pieces I would like because they are so darned cute!

After receiving my Japanese fabric earlier this week from Felicitysiu, I am thinking that I might need to start a small collection of “Little Red Riding Hood” fabric. So that is the theme of this segment of Sunday Stash Wish-list.

Hollandfabrichouse $3.25FQ

Ikoplus $4.00FQ

Francisbel $7.50Halfyd

Hollandfabrichouse $3.00meter

Myetsyshop $2.55FQ

Eurogirlsboutique $3.50FQ

Sakurafabric $4.00FQ

Ikoplus $4.00FQ

Cottonblue $4.50FQ

I’ve listed the names of the Etsy shops with the price of the fabric under each. (“Myetsyshop” is the name of the shop, it doesn’t refer to my etsy shop because I don’t have one yet.) There are several other ones available if you search for “Little Red Riding Hood”, but they are more expensive than what I would pay for fabric, i.e they were near $10 per half yard. They are still nice to look at though.

 

New Projects

…as if I need more projects!  These are “work related” though so that has to count for something extra!

Being the youngest at SewFlakes has it’s advantages! Like this evening a new book came in for me to review. My homework is to go through the book, make up some of the projects, and decide which ones I want to teach to beginner seamstresses, i.e. kids during school vacations. I actually really like the idea, besides it is a book I get to use for free – definitely a plus!

The Best of Sew Simple Magazine

Like I said, I just got this book this evening, but by the looks of it, it is going to be awesome. I already went to Kinko’s and had one of the purse patterns enlarged. FYI, Kinko’s was able to enlarge the pattern by 400% on a single sheet of paper for something like $2.42. This is so much easier and cheaper, labor wise, than piecing a gazillion regular sheets of paper together – more accurate too.

The next project I’m planning on is this quilt.

Cartwheels by Tula Pink

I will show a little self control though. While I can’t wait to make this, I will wait until I finish making my quilts using the “1974” fabric. At least I will try to wait, it is just so darned cute.

Last thing for the evening, I promise. The ice storm we are suppose to get starting tomorrow morning might knock out the electricity. Thinking ahead about this I went to the store and picked up a few things to be prepared.

I didn’t get bottled water, or stock up on canned foods. Instead, I found a pack of 3 flour sack towels at the Dollar General for $3. If the electricity goes out I won’t be able to use my sewing machine so I will do some hand embroidery instead! These towels are softer than the towels I’ve seen at regular craft stores so not only will they be easy to stitch, but they will also be practical to use once they are finished – Bonus!

It is going to be a fun weekend!

Trina

P.S. I didn’t forget about the scrap bag give away I promised to have. It isn’t the end of January yet, so I’m not even running behind on it.  I will have the details posted later this weekend, saying we don’t loose electricity.  Also, the Tula Pink pattern will be available in the SewFlakes Etsy shop tomorrow.

 

Telemark Sweater

I could probably put everything in one post, but I figure it would be easier to read it I broke it up a little. With that being said, here is my second post for the evening, but I don’t think it will be my last. ….

This winter has been a crazy one for Oklahoma. We had a blizzard over Christmas! A blizzard! In Oklahoma! Needless to say, it has been pretty cold, which of course, makes me want warm comfy clothes. Unfortunately, I do not knit so sweaters are out of the question unless I want to go buy a massed produced one from the department store – which I don’t.

I found the solution though! Etsy has a section called “Alchemy”. You can post details of a project you would like made, along with a time frame for it to be finished, and your budget. Then people from all over the world respond with bids. It was the answer to my sweater dreams!

I received several bids from really talented people. In the end I chose Dana who owns the UIACouture shop on Etsy. Not only is she talented, but she is also really helpful (letting me know which supplies to buy) and she is very reasonably priced.

She is going to make this sweater from me.  I bought the pattern from Knit Picks.

Telemark Ski Sweater

I can wait to wear it for the first time. She will be sending pictures of it in progress, which I will obviously post here. I’m really so excited about this! Think of the warm comfy prettiness I will experience when wearing it!

Dana doesn’t have a blog yet, but you can bet I will post it if she decides to make one! In the mean time, if you have any questions about commissioning her to make something for you contact her through her Etsy shop, linked above.

Trina

 

Ellen Medlock’s New Fabric

Ellen Medlock is having a give-away on her blog! All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a comment (on her blog) telling her which you prefer of the three colorways her fabric comes it.

Ellen's fabric

I voted for Turquoise. It is so beautiful!

 

Now for the fabric…

Oh I bought so much fabric! I hadn’t really planned on getting any at all, especially since I work in a fabric shop, but once I laid eyes on the beautiful pieces I couldn’t resist!

It started off with just a few pieces on the first day:

Save the Planet Recycled Canvas by Fabri-Quilt

The black piece was from Prairie Quilt, but then I lucked into finding the white piece at Patchwork Place. I got 1/2 yard of each so I can make market bags out of them.

Amy Butler Dots

I got these from A Joyful Soul Fabrics. They carry all of Amy Butler and Heather Bailey’s fabrics, and they keep them in stock as much as possible so it is available if you are ever 1/2 way through a project and realize you need more.

So see, for not intending to buy fabric at all I did well for the first day. I only walked away with the equivalent to 1 3/4 yards of fabric. Not bad..

Then comes the second day. The day I went crazy after I found a shop, Legacy Patterns*, carrying almost the complete line of a super cute fabric priced at only $2.00 per fat quarter!

*I can’t find their website right now, so I will post about it later.

I was only going to get this colorway.

1974 by Urban Chicks for Moda

But then I couldn’t resist getting the rest of the color ways.

Really I did resist for a while because there are three other pieces missing out of these collections. I thought I could go without them, but then I had a chance to sleep on it. By morning of the third day I figured that I might as well get the last three pieces that Legacy Patterns had available because I might miss my chance to do so later. (Besides, getting them at the show allows me to avoid shipping costs. *smiles*)

I still don’t have a picture of the last three pieces, but they really aren’t anything special, they are more filler pieces than anything. However, I did go back to Patchwork Place and buy 4 pieces of Art Gallery fabric that I had eyed on the first day. (Sorry the pictures is bad.)

I love the dandilion piece next to the dots.

What is sad is that had I had more money I would have gotten yardage of the 1974 line! As if I really need more of it! Now that I have so many pretty fabrics that actually match I can’t put off putting some quilts together. Not that I was trying to put them off before, its just I didn’t have a robust enough stash to have a good starting place. It is time to get busy! I have to find some way of supporting this addiction!

Trina

P.S. The ending count for the weekend was 2, 1/2 yard pieces and 31 fat quarters. (The equivalent to 8 3/4 yards – a record amount for me to buy at 1 time, by 3/4 yards.)

 

Never enough fabric…

We took down the Christmas tree this week and spent a couple hours picking up the 6 bazillion pine needles that ended up on the floor. Now I can start putting my sewing area back in order. I’m so excited about it because for Christmas, Erik’s parents, gave me a wall shelf that will help me get all my fabric organized.

Really, I don’t think I have enough fabric. It seems that when ever I want to start a new project there just isn’t enough an any one fabric to complete the item. So I keep buying fabric, and though it is never enough I am at least developing a nice little stash….finally.

Speaking of buying fabric, I found an Etsy shop with really cute Japanese prints, and everything in the shop is 30% off until January 24th. Be sure to take a look at Felicitysiu’s shop. The fabrics above are just a few examples of pieces I would like to get. Imagine some really cute baby clothes being made from (most of) them.

Also on the same note, as I clean up my supplies I have a bag set aside for fabric scraps. Sometime later this month I will be hosting a give away for these fabric scraps so keep an eye our for more details soon.

For now, this weekend is going to be consumed by practicing using Thangles so I can demo them at the Oklahoma City Winter Quilt Show. I will be cleaning my area, and of course packing for a trip to OKC, needless to say the next week 1/2 is going to be pretty full, but I’m eagerly looking forward to it!

 

Cute Winter Stitches

I’m on Facebook all the time!  Seriously I spend about 6 hours on and off through the day on Facebook! This isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds though because most of that is work related. (Oh my job really is the pits – I have to sit in a fabric store and “play” on the computer. If that isn’t the worst job ever I don’t know what is! *note the obvious sarcasm*)

Anyway, I was piddling across Facebook and saw that Sublime Stiching was tagged in a few photos.  These stitches were done by Shannon, and I just have to pass them on they are so cute!

You can visit Shanon’s blog, here, and see all of her awesome embroidery projects.  If you like the stitches she made and would like to make your own you can get the pattern from Sublime Stitching, here.

(I will add both links to the side of this page for future reference and inspiration!)