TGIW and a winner!

TGIW folks! I realize that not too many people get excited about Wednesday, but I've had a pretty bad week so far, starting with a nail in my 2-week old tire that I had to drive an hour home on back roads at 1 am [by myself]. But hey, when you start the week off like that then things can only pick up, right?

And it's definitely good for one of you...

The winner of the JOY charm pack from Urban Stitches is Robyn! Remember, she's hosting a huge Christmas fabric swap right now if you're interested. I know she's making a quilt and hoping to have all different fabrics, so hopefully this charm pack helps in that goal! 

And for those that didn't win, remember that you can use the coupon code SewFestive10 at the Urban Stitches shop until the end of July! Thanks Anna :)

As for me, I finished up this triangle log cabin table topper last week:

I had already made the top and just needed to quilt and bind it and get it to the store so they can hang it up. The class starts August 2nd, so I needed to get going!

If I'd had time to sit and ponder the quilting for a few days I think I would have done something different. I quilted straight lines in a concentric triangle in the center of each log cabin and then I FMQed in every other area. All in a light gray thread. I think it needed something a little more geometric, but oh well.

I used a great Kona teal color for the binding and I think it really frames the whole thing well.

Tune in tomorrow as I have a tutorial for my stop on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop! :)

A Race Against the Clock

Yesterday I received an email in the afternoon from my LQS saying that they needed a picture for their online class registration. Not a picture of me [eek, the horror!] but a picture of my class sample.

Which is all fine and dandy.

Except... I hadn't done anything but cut up the fabric.

I promise I wasn't putting it off, but I have a deadline of this weekend for 3 projects [some of which have to be mailed off for photographs], so I was really, really trying to finish those items up first.

I've set myself a very strict schedule for the next 2 weeks, since I have so many different projects and obligations around the Interwebz, so I was a little dismayed to have to abandon it and bump the class sample to the top of the list. In fairness, now I can halfway cross it off the list, which is nice.

I literally was racing against daylight by the end. I had to be able to send them a picture of the top before the day was done!

So hey, if you live in the Central Florida area and want to learn in person how to make log cabin triangles [click here for tutorial] and then turn them into a little hexagon table topper, just swing by The Sewing Studio and sign up :)

I promise I'm only a little bit of a dork in real life. Or a lot. Whatevs.

**Also, while taking pictures outside, I met my downstairs neighbor who just moved in. And uh, she's a clown! She goes all over the country and does clown stuff, although I'm not sure what is considered "clown stuff"...

Do you set a personal schedule for projects? Do you feel flustered if you have to abandon that schedule? Or are you more of a "sew what I want to work on that day" kind of person?

Top 10 Finalist and a WIP!

Eeeee! Remember my Nautical Striped Skirt from this past Sartorial Saturday?

I entered it in the Full Skirt category over at Crafterhours and it made it to the Top 10! The judges pick a winner out of the Top 10, but there is a Reader's Choice Winner too. So, if you don't mind, take a moment and go vote for your favorite skirt! You don't even have to pick mine, although I won't complain if you do!

I think the best skirts out of the contest are in this category :)

So for today's sewing?...

I ended up going with jewel tones, added in some more fabrics and scraps that I found, and got to cutting last night!

I have to go to the LQS today to pick up the fabrics that I'll be using for my class samples, so I'll pick up some more jewel tones while I'm at it!

And on Monday my friend Amanda finished up her t-shirt Polaroid quilt. She now has more respect for quilters in general [this took us about a month, working in 5-6 hour shifts two or three times a week], and is proud to give her friend a birthday present that she worked so hard on. And I'm proud to have survived teaching the making of an entire quilt to someone that had only sewn once before!

Today is a happy Wednesday! :)

*Linked over at Freshly Pieced for the last regular WIP Wednesday of the summer!

Food for thought

Did you see the Christmas in July schedule, prizes, and a pre-event giveaway?

So today has been a thoughtful day.

I spent the morning with a woman at The Sewing Studio, figuring out what classes I'll be teaching. I'm going to be teaching my triangle log cabins, which we will make into a hexagon table topper. And then I'm also teaching a class on a Christmas pillow. The manager also wants me to teach my scrappy clamshell pillow, and a few more, but those have to go on the next schedule. It was pretty nice to be complimented! She couldn't get over how young I am haha!

I already had sewing on the mind as I was getting really excited about the classes. And now I'm sitting with my friend Amanda as she quilts her tshirt quilt. And reading Rachel's post on blogging for the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop. It was a thought-provoking read.

Do you often think about what you're doing with your blog? I know I do. For those of you who may be new readers, I started my blog in October of last year, and it was primarily because you needed a blog to enter the Celebrate Color event at Stitched in Color [she then changed the rules to just a Flickr account for the second month]. Then I kept blogging because it was a great way to keep track of, and document, the items I made for a craft fair in November. And then I kept blogging because I fell more in love with sewing and needed an outlet for it; I didn't have anyone in real life to talk to about quilting designs and the newest fabric lines.

But do I have goals for this blog? In all honesty, I don't know. Rachel mentions that you have to make sure to not compare yourself to any other bloggers out there. It's both easy and hard to do this [I know, I know, how can it be both?] because I'm not a stay-at-home mom. I'm a recently graduated student who has been searching for a job and lives month-to-month, financially. I love to sew and quilt, but I can't see myself making a living off my blog like some people do. So I know I'm not in the same place in life, which makes it easy to not compare myself, but...at the same time...

How do you work to not feel jealous when you see all the amazing opportunities that other bloggers get? The perks from companies, the opportunity to sew for designers? That little green monster rears its ugly head every now and then. It takes gentle reminding from myself that it doesn't mean my creations, or other people's, aren't good.

I'm not normally a jealous person, so sometimes this emotion surprises me. I think that everyone craves a bit of approval from peers, and since the Internet is such an anonymous place at times it can be easy to forget that there are real people behind those comments. That whether you have 5 people reading or 5000 that those people appreciate what you can bring to the table. And honestly, this whole venture is about personal satisfaction for me. The satisfaction that comes from having an idea, working out the details, and seeing it come to fruition.

Now here's my own thought to chew on for the next couple days...Am I blogging in my own voice? I have been wondering about this for some time, but am not sure if I like my writing style. I don't know if it stems from 5.5 years of writing academic papers, but I tend to write in a much stiffer manner than I am in person. I'm also very dry-humored and sarcastic in person, which doesn't really translate well on the Internet. I honestly don't know if there's anything I want to change, or even can change. Do you feel like you're representing your true self when online?

 I'm working on some sewing projects tonight in preparation for the Handmade Parade  at There and Back tomorrow [do you have any hand-stitching to show off?!], so I'll be pouring myself a glass of wine, picking up those scissors, and sewing, not mindlessly this time, but thoughtfully.

Please feel free to leave any comments on blogging in general, your own blog, any opinions about my blog...I welcome an open forum!

Sort of Fresh Sewing Day

So I was planning on doing this whole round-up post on May for Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day.

And then I looked through my pictures. And saw the small number of things that I created during the month of May. Yes, I made a quilt, but that's pretty much it. There were no small projects this month. And yes I made a dress, but I haven't shown that yet, and it's monsooning here in Florida so pictures will have to wait.

So instead, this is what I've been up to the past two days:

 Started my hexagon flowers for Chelsea for Don't Worry {bee} Happy.

 Finished the embroidery on the fabric for my pillow cover. Now to figure out if I just want a simple cover or maybe some piecing?

 Probably the weirdest sewing I'll ever do...my old roommates are going on a month-long backpacking trip in Europe and they brought me sheets and wanted them sewn up sleeping-bag style so they don't have to ever touch the beds at the hostels they're staying at. So I sewed them some long skinny tubes and they tested them out last night when they came over for dinner. I couldn't even hold the camera steady because I was laughing too hard!

One completed tshirt quilt top! My friend Amanda is pleased as punch at this, but just said those all-too-familiar words today..."I don't want to give this away" because this is her first sewing experience. She doodled and wrote under each "photo" in true scrapbook style. But man, teaching her how to make this took twice as long as if I had made it. It's exhausting!

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! I'm waiting on word from a company that I interviewed with this week, so I'll be sewing up a storm to calm my nerves :)

On being published

Have you ever submitted something for publication? If so, how was the experience?

While I'm a little shy about admitting it here, I just finished submitting 2 ideas to a popular sewing/quilting magazine. I also have something in the works to be included in a project later this summer, but it is not in a printed format. It would be really cool to see my name in print, but I must admit that I don't have too much hope that my ideas will be accepted.

And by the by, sewing lessons are still going. We've logged about 15 hours this week on Amanda's quilt [it's amazing how much slower she sews than I do! Was I ever that slow and careful?]. She was so excited to see her first giant t-shirt Polaroid. I'm not going to lie, I'm glad she took my suggestion to make them Polaroids and not just sew them together as-is.

Winners and WIPs

I am SO sorry for not posting the winner yesterday. I had a crazy day of back-to-back interviews for a job, teaching a friend to make a t-shirt quilt, and putt putt plans that got rained out and turned into a trip to a favorite bar.

So today we have our winner...

Lucky #14...

Sarah! She's so fun! Her blog is full of cross-stitchy goodness. And she's moved all over in the past year or so, and is now planning her 2nd wedding ceremony! She's just now becoming more acquainted with her sewing machine, so hopefully all this quilty stuff will help spur her on :) Sarah, I emailed you!

As for what I've been up to:

This is my friend Amanda working hard at the sewing machine. She was getting a little frustrated with sewing the jersey yesterday, and we discovered that she is not an accurate cutter at all, so I had to make her go back and fix all her t-shirt squares. I'm such a pushy quilt teacher ha! But she loved my suggestion that she turn the t-shirts into large polaroids, so I'm excited for the quilt to develop [bahahaha].

 Fantastic mail day! Cooking Light, which is a phenomenal magazine in my opinion; another triangle log cabin; fabric from The Intrepid Thread market sale [she apologized for having a computer printed message, how cute is that...and she included 2 charms!]

Today is rainy and dreary and I'm cutting more pieces out for my quilt. I made all the previous pieces smaller, and I picked up some more blue fabrics. It's so hard to find true blues! I can't decide if I want to use just 3 or 4 fabrics or continue with this scrappy version...

*Linked over at WIP Wednesday for the first time in a while! :)