Happenings on #BFSI 2014

I work with a woman in Belgium who kindly said last week, “The entire United States needs to go away for a few days. I’m so glad you all have a holiday next week.” Truer words were never spoken.

There’s a little thing around here we like to participate in the day after US Thanksgiving called the Black Friday Sew-In. There’s a lot of ways to participate in it this year, so keep checking back for updates!

  • Chat with other #twilters (Tweeting Quilters) using the hashtag #BFSI.  That means just add “#BFSI” to any tweet or Instagram you send/post that day on quilting so people can follow along with all the fun.  Specifically for twitter, you can use tweetchat to track the hashtag.
  • Hang out with us on a Google chat! Daisy over at Very Lazy Daisy is coordinating a Google Hangout. Look for the announcement on twitter for the link to join the Hangout, or just watch on YouTube at 3pm US Eastern/2pm US Central
  • Participate in a giveaway! Some quilting bloggers are hosting giveaways, and I’ve provided a linky below for those that want to share their giveaway - you can link a blog post, Flickr photo link, Instagram link, or whatever you’d like that describes your giveaway.  Just plug the URL into the widget below.

Scrapideux: Win this quilt!

Well, here it is, your chance to win a quilt made by me! And it’s a big old honking one, too.

This is a Scrapitude quilt, designed by Charlotte, with a quilt along hosted by Sandy.  I originally made this as a gift for someone but decided that the Ultimate Scrappy Scrappiness of it was a bit too…. much for the original recipient. Their loss is your gain!

Scrapiduex measures just under 80 x 80″. It’s got a scrappy binding and a pinkish plaid back. It’s been washed and dried and is nice and crinkly and was safely stored in a cabinet until Nina learned to open those doors, so I’ll wash and dry it again before mailing it out.

So… how can you win this quilt? I’m glad you asked!

I want to see proof that you’ve sewn a quilt. You may not have even finished it, only completed a top. You may have finished it ten years ago. Or maybe you finished it yesterday - there’s no time limit on when you finished the top or quilt!

Now, there’s no extra points for inventive showcasing of your quilt or top (cheesy Vanna poses, kitty or dog bellies on top of the quilt, showing the quilt is older than me, etc.), but you’ll get a shout out on the podcast and be eligible for a special extra prize I’m not showing until the drawing on the 13th.

So here’s how to submit proof: use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter the URL of where your photographic proof is hosted.  It could be on flickr, it could be on a blog, it could be on Instagram, or it could be some other photo hosting site I haven’t even listed.  I’m looking for a URL that I can use to go see of a finished top or quilt.

The drawing will be on July 13, which happens to be my 40th birthday. I’ll ship internationally, too. There’s no extra entries for sharing on social media, so feel free to sit on the giveaway yourself, but be aware I’ll be promoting it myself!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Update: A couple people have asked to see the pictures of all the submitted quilts.  If you don’t want me to share the picture you entered, please email me and let me know!

The Sportsball Sew-In! #SBSI

As you know, I am a connoisseur of Sportsball. At least, I married a person who knows it well, and together we made a person who knows it pretty good, too. So what better way to celebrate than by getting the hell out of their way when there’s a big game on! I am pleased to once again tie together a Sportsball Sew-In (#SBSI) on twitter this weekend!

There is nothing worse than feeling left out of large social and cultural events. I mean, sure, sports are hard and who can keep track of all those nit-picky facts like runs and side-outs and points. The only points we care about are those on a Disappearing Pinwheel or Scrapitude, amiright ladies?

So, shed those tacky polyester jerseys, slap on some soft pants and join me for the SportsBall Sew-In this weekend!

To celebrate I’m giving away an Official Carl the Sheep Wide-Mouth Zipper Pouch. This is the Noodlehead medium size - about 11 1/2″ x 7″ with a 4″ wide base. I use this size to hold my EPP and another one to hold my crochet project, so it can fit quite a bit. You can click either picture to go to Flickr to enbiggen the picture and scrutinize my doodling prowess.

Carl the Sheep Wide-Mouth Zipper Pouch

You can read about the history of Carl the Sheep in last year’s giveaway (short story: printing error leads to hilarious sheep doodles!). This year Carl is joined by his new friend, the Redrum Rooster. For those not in the know, the Redrum Rooster lives behind my house and crows like it’s being strangled. At all hours of the day.  There are also farts, a light saber, and party hats among the other doodles.

Yes, I can draw a fart. My kids are in awe of my (f)artistic abilities.

The Rafflecopter giveaway will be open until midnight Sunday night (US Eastern time) so all you non-US folks can enter to win. I’ll ship it anywhere!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The #BFSI Giveaway!

I am pleased to announce THREE BFSI prizes to giveaway!

The first is from long-time friend of the podcast C&T Publishing.  Did you know they celebrated their 25th Anniversary this year? Their first book was An Amish Adventure, and to celebrate the anniversary they released a NEW book on Amish quilts called Amish Quilts—The Adventure Continues.  And even better, C&T is having a sale on their website for Black Friday through Cyber Monday for 25% of everything on their website.  See this page for details.

Today, however, you have a chance to win a copy of Amish Quilts - The Adventure Continues by entering the giveaway below. If you are in the US and win, you’ll receive a hard copy of the book; if you’re outside the US, you’ll win an e-copy.

And our next giveaways are from Carole! You may know Carole on twitter as @carolewool, and she is generously offering two fat eighth batik assortments as a giveaway. Each assortment has 12 fat eighths in it, for a total of 1 1/2 yards each. On the left is the blue/green, and on the right is the pink/purple assortment. Carole has generously offered to ship anywhere in the world, so international quilters, go ahead and enter!

The giveaway is open for 24 hours starting at 12:01am US Eastern time on Friday the 29th of November (so no entering before then!). I’ll notify the winners by email and connect you with our generous sponsors to get your prizes!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’m also hosting another giveaway on Twitter at 2pm Eastern on Black Friday, so pay attention to #BFSI to enter.

Giveaway: A Month of Sundays

I’ve had a copy of Cheryl Arkinson’s A Month of Sundays in my possession for a couple weeks, and have waffled on writing a review. Not because it’s not an intriguing book, but because it’s difficult to categorize it.  Yes, it has sewing and quilting projects. And yes, it had some recipes. And yes, it is a “lifestyle” book, but somehow that phrase feels a bit hokey.

What Cheryl does do is talk about how her quilting style mimics her family and personal style - it’s laid back and low volume. It’s precut friendly, but also speaks to the value if doing things from scratch. Compared strictly project-centric books, A Month of Sundays has significantly more “story” around the projects than just instruction and techniques, although those are included too.

Projects include a wine tote, buntings, quilts, and several other smaller projects, all of which reflect the “low volume” aesthetic, defined by fabrics with low contrast in volume with lots of whites and creams.  The Sudoku game quilt is a great example of this.

I may never be able to master a lifestyle that embraces biking to a local market to purchase regional wine and a joyous parade of children waving homemade buntings, or even embrace “slowing down and sewing”, but the book makes me think I could.

You, too, can find out of the “Month of Sundays” lifestyle is for you by entering to win your own copy of the book! Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter. There will be one winner; if you live in the US, you’re entering to win a hard copy of the book. If you live outside the US, you’ll receive an e-copy of the book.  Giveaway will close on Tuesday Sept 10 at midnight.

Thanks to C&T Publishing for offering the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Kid’s Guide to Sewing: Learn to Sew with Sophie & Her Friends

Bloomer & I got an amazing opportunity to review the book “A Kid’s Guide to Sewing: Learn to Sew with Sophie & Her Friends” from C&T Publishing.  What I didn’t realize when first looking at the book was that Sophie Kerr (who I recognized from some spots on Quilting Arts with Pokey Bolton) was the daughter of Bill Kerr & Weeks Ringle, some of the pioneers of the modern quilting movement.

I’ve been mulling for a while how best to teach Bloomer to sew. On the one hand, I don’t want to force her into projects because she’ll come to hate it (and the time I spend helping her with projects takes away time from me doing my projects!), and on the other hand, I think it’s a great tradition to continue on. Let’s make it four generations of sewists in my family!  And possibly more, since I’m sure Grama Eddie’s mother and grandmother had to sew out of necessity.

What I think is great about this book is that it really lays out the basics of sewing terminology, getting to know your sewing machine, and elements of various stitches including embroidery stitches.  I skipped that part of the book because I’ve got over 25 years of sewing under my belt, but I suspect if I left the book laying around Bloomer would pick it up and read it (even though she’s only seven).  I do think that part of the book is an excellent reason to get it for a child/tween without a sewing heritage, like if you were an “auntie” for a friend’s kid if your friend didn’t sew.

Headband - Complete!

I had Bloomer peruse the book and pick out a couple projects, so we started with a headband for her to wear at gymnastics. She claims that the ponytail pulls her hair too much, but her hair has to stay out of her face.  The directions were clear (and elucidated a part of headband sewing I had never mastered as a teen, so that was helpful), and illustrated well.

We worked on this together, with me doing the rotary cutting and ironing (although she measured some things), and us splitting the sewing machine sewing.

She also picked out a felt ornament to make in the shape of an ice cream cone.  She picked the felt colors and I had her trace the pattern, then I cut it out, and then she traced the pattern on the felt pieces.  She did ALL the hand embellishment with my old bead collection from when I was in high school, which I realized were leftover from craft time with Grama Eddie.

This was her first time doing any hand sewing, and she poked herself a couple times but no bleeding.  I did help do the blanket stitch around the edge, and then she hung it up on about 50 different doorknobs before settling on one.

So in general, I definitely recommend this book for a new sew-er, especially if their parents don’t sew.  The projects are listed in order of increasing difficulty, and there’s enough variety that you don’t think you only making totebags.

C&T is generously letting me give away a copy of the book! You can use the Rafflecopter thingy below to enter, and the giveaway will stay open for a week.  If a US winner is chosen, they’ll receive a hard copy of the book, and an international winner will receive an e-copy.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Official Giveaway Post for the Sportsball Sew-In #SBSI

Whoo! I just finished the final zipper pouch 5 minutes ago so here’s the official entry post with pictures of the giveaways.

To win the purple floral zipper pouch above (it measures about 6×3″ on the bottom, and is about 10″ across on the top), leave a comment on this post with your favorite team colors for any type of sportsball team! Winner will be drawn by random number generator after midnight Sunday night.

Colors are the best part of sportsball! That, and the snacks.

The other two pouches will be giveaways on twitter tomorrow. Now, I noticed after I fused the interfacing to the exterior of those sheep pouches that there’s some sort of printing error that made the black ink run off the black sheep in some areas. Rather than chuck the whole thing and start over again with different fabric, I turned lemons into lemonade and spiced up the print with some custom doodling on it.

If you look closely, you’ll see the sheep jumping over the fence yelling “CARL! COME BACK!”. And the levitating black sheep saying “WHEE!” and “WHOA!”. Some sheep even have party hats or bow ties.  These things are custom! And if you ask my kids, they’ll say that Santa Clause decorated them since his handwriting looks an awful lot like this.

The fun is going on right now on twitter, but the two giveaways for the sheep pouches will happen Sunday afternoon (Eastern Time) and during the big Sportsball game Sunday night.  Good luck!

Black Friday Sew-In Giveaway!

Well, I don’t have a picture of what I’ll be giving away because it’s not quite settled yet. And the reason it’s not settled yet are 1) coffee, or specifically the lack thereof and B) YOU get to pick the prize.

I’m giving away 4 FQs, but to win you have to comment and tell me which color you prefer.  Here are your options:

  • Purple
  • Blue
  • Teal/Aqua
  • Dark Green
  • Light Green
  • Brown

Make sure I have a way to contact you (either via email or twitter).  Entries will close at midnight Eastern time tonight!

Edited to add: If this is the first time you’ve commented since my blog moved to the WordPress host, I will have to moderate your comment. Fear not! I will approve all comments before doing the drawing, and will be moderating throughout the day.

The Massive Giveaway Post

**The giveaway is now closed - thanks for entering!**

So! Having organized and folded the generous donation of fabric, I am sharing the love here on this post.  In order to win one of the groups of fabric, here’s the rules:

  • Leave one comment per bundle you’d like to win. Yes, you can submit to win all 9. In the comment, you only need to put the bundle name.  If you put multiple bundle names in one comment, you’ll only be eligible for for the first one in your list.  This is to make it easier on me to pick the winners.
  • I have to have a way to get in touch with you - either you have to NOT be a no-reply Blogger, or you can leave your email in your comment. If I can’t get in touch with you, I’ll draw someone else’s name.
  • Click through any of the pictures to go to Flickr, where you can enlarge the image for more detail.
  • Giveaway closes midnight August 10th. I’ll email the winners on August 11th.

Here are the bundles available:

The Black Bundle - features 4 yards of FQs and yardage of fabrics with black backgrounds and mostly purple/blue prints.
The Magenta Bundle - features 4 yards of FQs and yardage of fabrics in magenta and purples.
The Bright Bundle #1- features 4 yards of FQs and yardage of fabrics in bright colors, which are mostly reds and purples. Lots of novelty prints.
The Blue/Purple Bundle - features 4+ yards of FQs and yardage of fabrics in blues and purples.
The Garden Bundle - features 4 yards of FQs and yardage of fabrics with garden/floral prints and some other novelty prints.
The Rainbow Bundle - features 4 yards of FQs in a rainbow assortment. Primarily solids, but also some tonals.
The Sheep Bundle - 5+ yards (in 2 pieces) a black background fabric with sheep and spinning wheels prints.
The Paint Desert Bundle - features 6 FQs in a variety of tonals. The patterns are lightly speckled.
The Bright Bundle #2 - features 6 FQs of bright tonals.

Here is a handy bullet list of the bundle names for you to copy and paste into your individual comments.

  • Black
  • Magenta
  • Bright #1
  • Blue/Purple
  • Garden
  • Rainbow
  • Sheep
  • Painted Desert
  • Bright #2

Good luck!