the post you've all been waiting for.

I know nothing I write up here will be read - but I wanted to thank you all for the lovely comments.  It was so fun to read about so many dear sewing memories!  Okay, fine.... I'll get on with it.

Ohhhh, can you stand the suspense??  Drumroll....

1. The winner (chosen via random.org) from those who linked to receive the the swing bag and cabo halter patterns, and 3 yards of Amy Butler fabric from The Material Girls Quilts is...

#18 Vickie and her Birdie Sling!


For the next two I started counting from the linkers and then into the commenters.  So comment #1 was entry #48... a little confusing I know! (47 + 87 = 134 total entries)
2. The winner of  the Birdie Sling pattern and a $25 gift certificate from Fabricworm is...

#61 (47 +14 = 61)

Jenn said...

14

I am *almost* finished with my tote/library bag made with Amy Butler fabrics...but not quite yet. I'll have to try to get it finished. :) Ok, sewing memories. Let's see: My [LEAST] favorite sewing memory is when I ran my needle through my finger a couple of weeks ago. But the best has been seeing my daughter get excited when I have something new for her ~ she doesn't care that I'm just learning/teaching myself to sew...she loves the pretty fabrics and loves that Mommy made it. :)

9:46 AM, September 24, 2010

3. The winner of the laptop cover and mp3 case pattern is...

#7 Emily!  With the pretty pink and brown quilt!

This new linky tool has a page for me to see how many times a link is viewed.  I chose winners of the next prizes according to views.

4. For having the most views on her linky, the winner of the diamond bouquet quilt pattern from Chasing Cottons is...

The Daisy Chain Skirt (#2) Allyn!  She had the most views of any other linky!















5.  For being 2 and 3 in number of linky views, the winners of the headbands are...

Mary (linky #3)

and

Sara (linky #6)

6.

And E. at pinksuedeshoe made another darling pumpkin to giveaway to someone who would truly love it!  We were chatting online yesterday after she told me the sad tale of the pumpkin getting taken to a bunco party and no one claimed it as a prize - she rescued her darling-ness and brought it home herself.  We were talking about how the internet is great for bringing like-minded people together! Then we listed our top favorite entries and we both agreed that Dee (#10)! and that awesome quilt needed the pumpkin!

 

Dee said...
Your dish quilts are inspiring! I've been wanting and needing to make some and you've just encouraged me with yours!

Favorite sewing memory is of me as a junior high home ec student sitting on the lawn of my parents' house sewing the binding on my first quilt.

I still have some of the fabrics I used and remember the warmth of the sunshine and thinking how much I loved that quilt!

Congratulations ladies!  Please get me your contact info so that we can get you your prizes!!

This was so much fun everyone!  Any ideas for another themed sew & tell?  How about using a tutorial you've been procrastinating??  Leave me some suggestions in the comments!

last day to enter the Amy Butler Extravaganza Giveaway!

you can still enter here - just leave a comment with your favorite sewing memory!

Oh my word! YOU guys!! I am loving every minute looking through all of the Amy Butler link ups! Seriously, I was having kind of a weird week and seeing all these beautiful projects totally lifted my spirits!  I'm telling you, if we could just get everyone in the world to use beautiful fabrics the world would be a better place.  :)

I've loved reading all of your sweet sewing memories.  Most of them involve spending time with mothers, grandmothers and children.  It truly is a noble thing to spend your time doing as it enriches our relationships with each other as we pour our love for the recipient into our work.   Not to mention satisfying our need to see the beautiful around us!

So many of you said you finally cut into fabric you had been hoarding.  That was the whole point!  yay!  I'm so glad we got to break out of fear of cutting into those luscious fabrics!  Isn't it great to be able to use something every day rather than have it sit all pretty in a dark closet?  I wrote a post a while back on the science of fabric love. It explains this fear!   The Belle Acanthus I used for my dishmat is one of my favorites and I had a hard time cutting into it.  But I'm so glad I did, now I get to look at it every time I'm at the sink.  Which is like 5 hours out of my day! Seriously.  Does one's kitchen ever stay clean?

Now just as a reminder - you can still enter the giveaways by leaving a comment on Friday's post.  So if you haven't go do it NOW!!  I'm going to be drawing some prizes with Random.org and I might give some things away to my favorite project and/or comments!

I had a prize offered yesterday too that I'm going to add to the mix.  This lovely quilt pattern from Rebecca of Chasing Cottons.

photo via Chasing Cottons

sew & tell - amy butler extravaganza and giveaways!

*****Comments Closed***** Winners to be announced later today!*****

It's the day we've all been waiting for!  I'm so excited for today's Amy Butler exclusive sew & tell!  I can't wait to see what everyone has finished for today.  I've been getting emails and sneak peeks and think it's going to be fun browsing everyone's links!

I'll admit, it's been a rough week here.  I haven't felt well most of the week, and after finishing the baby bedding last week, I'm feeling like anything I do will be a little anti-climatic.  But, if it involves Amy Butler fabric it will still look nice!  So finally, last night, after everyone was in bed I tried to figure out something fun.

So here's what I did. 

I've been wanting to make one of these FOREVER.  I found 2 of my favorite Amy Butler prints and cut them the size of an old kitchen towel - the absorbent terry cloth kind.  I even used a clean one.  Then I just cut my fabric the same size.  And then made a little sandwich - fabric/towel/fabric.  I had to piece the one side, because my scrap wasn't quite big enough.

Then I decided it would be a good idea to quilt it.  And why not free-motion?  I needed the practice and it was only 11:00.  PM!! I really should have just gone to bed.

I think you can see the quilting better in this picture.  It's definitely not perfect, but hey, it's really my first time doing it.  So maybe I just need to tackle a couple of my quilts and get better.  I'm not sure if you can see it, but I just serged around the edges to finish it off!  Super easy and now my kitchen looks better already.  And so does my adorable teapot!  :)  I might actually want to wash some dishes now.

And I love that I can look at two of my favorite prints all the time!

There are a lot of giveaways for today's participants!  I'm going to be selecting several winners for the following gifts.  To enter you must link up your Amy Butler project and/or comment on this post.  Let's be creative with our comment entries.  Tell me about your favorite memory sewing!  I will take comments until Monday night, September 27.  Winners will be announced sometime on Tuesday.  If you link up and comment you will get 2 entries!

1.  A winner will be chosen from those who linked up today to receive the following 2 patterns, and 3 yards of Amy Butler fabric from The Material Girls Quilts!

www.thematerialgirlsquilts.blogspot.com

2. A winner will be chosen from all linkers and commenters (one comment per person) to receive the Birdie Sling pattern and a $25 gift certificate from Fabricworm!  So you can pick out fabric to make your bag!

www.fabricworm.com

3.  Another winner will be chosen from all linkers and commenters to recieve the laptop cover and mp3 case pattern.

4.  And then there's these awesome headbands!!

I'm going to be giving these two away as well!! Thanks so much to my dear friend Allyn who made them this week, especially for two of you!!  You may have seen her post last week featuring more of these darlings (her girls AND the headbands!).  Maybe I'll decide to pick someone from my facebook page, maybe I'll just pick my favorite project, maybe I'll use random.org for all of them.  Either way you'll want to come back to see who wins!

I feel like every sentence I just wrote should have an exclamation point after it!

Thanks to everyone who has been so excited about the challenge!  I can't wait to see all the things you've made -  It's going to be such great eye-candy!


What Amy Butler project did you finish this week?

ALL PROJECTS LINKED UP THIS WEEK MUST BE A SEWING PROJECT AND HAVE AN ELEMENT OF AMY BUTLER IN THEM (fabric and/or pattern).  
Please show good bloggy manners and follow the linky rules.  Refer to the sew & tell page if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been  deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had during the time period for the Amy Butler Challenge.

2. Please mention sew & tell in your post and link back to this  post (link or button) so everyone can join in.
3.  Pat each other on the backs in the comments! Please, don't just link up and leave, we all want to hear from you!

amy butler inspiration #5

And again!  More dots!  Coordinating with an older print.  I just love it.  This is one of my favorite fabrics.  This fabric from the Belle collection didn't strike me as being much from the little thumbnails I saw in my online fabric shopping.

image via maddymazestudios on Flickr

   But when a friend picked it out for her bag I had a chance to work with it and more importantly see it in person (read what I got in exchange!).  This is the bag I made.

One of my favorites, for sure!
The dark blue has a teal-ish quality, while the rest of the print boasts my favorite light blue/turquoise!  It's gorgeous.

Gorgeous enough that I bought a yard, framed it, and hung it on the wall.  Too bad the rest of the mantle doesn't look as good as the fabric.

Friday's the day!  Have you been spending some quality time with your Amy Butler stash?  This is the last inspiration post.  I'm really looking forward to it!   Let me know if you are planning on posting on Friday!

sew & tell - on a roll

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

I don't know what's happened the last few weeks!  I feel like a sewing maniac!  You might be surprised to see two things that I have never made before.  And only one diaper clutch.  :)

I owe all of you a big thanks for keeping me going.  Part of getting these things finished is so that I have something to post each week too!  Otherwise, I'd have a ton of UFOs laying around. (Like the bumpers that I have cut out for my almost 5 year old daughter when she was a baby...)  I wasn't feeling too great yesterday (darn pollen) and I wasn't feeling like finishing up the big thing for today - but I went ahead and kept plugging away and it really only took about 15 minutes.  And I'm so glad I did!  So thank YOU!

Alright, first up.
I totally get the bunting thing now!  I keep seeing people make them and I've wanted to make on too.  I  just hadn't had a reason to until I helped my gorgeously talented (and gorgeous) friend throw a baby shower last weekend.  Here it is hanging up in my sunroom/sewing room/home office/workout room (I told you I was a multi-tasker!).

And here it is after the party had been staged.  I LOVE it so much and now I want to make one for every room in my house.  And I hope you noticed the Amy Butler Wallflower in there!

I just made a template out of a cereal box and used it as a guide to cut with my rotary cutter.  Then I sewed it to some hem tape, because that's what I had.  These aren't lined and may fray a bit, but then they'll be *vintage*.  Right? 

If you like gratuitous food and decor shots go here to see more of Heidi's magic!

Next up.
The gift for that shower.

Shocker, I know. I can't get enough of these!  And Amy Butler in Daisy Chain is always nice.

Lastly. (But not leastly.)
Are you ready?  Are you sure?  I finally got to the bedskirt with my newest fabric crush in my favorite colors.

And I love the way it turned out!  I'll admit, it was a little bit of a bugger to figure out.  I wanted to match up the large print and make sure it wouldn't look totally ridiculous.  I needed more than one width of fabric to make the long section, so I had to work that into the equation.  I really did do some algebra to figure some stuff out!  (My teachers were right after all... you may just need it some day!)

I ended up using a different dot for the inset pleat, but I thought it matched better.  And after all was said and done, I still screwed it up, but I'm not saying where and I don't want to know if you can figure it out.

I also have the mattress high right now, since she's still pretty little, so it will look a lot nicer when it's hanging to the floor.  And even better when this becomes her toddler bed.  The quilt is doubled up here, so it should get a lot of good use too!

The best part is I just used an old crib skirt for measurements and THEN instead of sewing it to a big piece of fabric, I JUST TAPED IT TO THE PLATFORM.  YEAH!  I felt like such a rebel/cheater!  I think it will actually work better and not get all wonky all the time.  I had read of several other people doing this too.  I may have to go back and tweak it a bit, but I'm happy with the tape method.

And thank you Target, for making awesome matching sheets (I bought 2) and cute-as-all-get-out Owl pillows!

oh, and can I tell you again how much I love my serger?  Especially for hems?

So if you made it all the way down here, THANKS! This was a long one.  Remember, next Friday is the big day!  I can't wait to see what you guys have been working on and I'm super excited about the giveaways!  I'm adding a few handmade things to the pot as well!    Leave me a comment today and tell me what you are working on for the Amy Butler Challenge (or for you over-achievers what you have already finished!)!


P.S. I'm not going to be around much this weekend - so if there are any questions or problems I will get back to you - it just might take a little longer.

What sewing project did you finish this week?

Please show good bloggy manners and follow the linky rules.  Refer to the sew & tell page   if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been  deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in your post and link back to this  post (link or button) so everyone can join in.
3.  Pat each other on the backs in the comments! Please, don't just link up and leave, we all want to hear from you!

amy butler inspiration #4

Here are some lovely clothing items made from some of my favorite Amy Butler prints!

Every little girl needs a twirly skirt! And one with roses AND polka dots? Priceless.  Am I too old to wear this?

image via littlegirlPearl on Flickr

And a little dress?! With coordinating sleeves and ruffle?  Yes, Please!  I have this pink and brown print for an apron...

image via personalized for you on Flickr

Speaking of aprons - wow. 

  image via pamwares on Flickr

I love how these full moon dots in green coordinate so well with all of her fabric lines.  It's from Lotus and above paired with a Daisy Chain print and here with Midwest Modern.  Genius I tell you!  I have several yards just waiting to be used for the perfect thing.  And I think I just thought of it....

There's still time to pick a project to post for NEXT Friday's Amy Butler Sew & Tell!  I'm getting so excited!

sew & tell - cute overload

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

How are you guys? I hope everyone has had a great week.  I was on a roll last week - I can't believe what getting your machine going for a few simple projects will do to a girl's motivation!  It helps that there are a ton of people here that are having babies for whom to make some little lovelies.

So to start off - how about another diaper clutch?  Hello, black and white and pink.  Have we met? Let's be friends.

I did a couple things different this time.  I added ribbon to swoop around the button instead of elastic (the elastic and I weren't getting along).  I also left out the interfacing.  Faster and the pink is a heavier linen weight, so I decided to do without the extra bulk.

I finally got around to the other dress from this pattern that I made earlier this summer.  It's a big hit!  I just need to get a picture of her modeling it.

These Nicey Jane fabrics are so . . . well, . . . nice.  And again, can I say how much I love my serger for finishing off all of those gathered inside seams!  Plus it makes hemming so much easier.

I have an Amy Butler project finished, but it's under wraps - I'll show it next week.  Hopefully along with this lovely fabric made into something extraordinarily fun! Any guesses?

I can't help it.  Every time I see this fabric laying around I want to take a picture of it!!

Don't forget! Only 2 more weeks!


What sewing project did you finish this week?

Please show good bloggy manners and follow the linky rules.  Refer to the sew & tell page   if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been  deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in your post and link back to this  post (link or button) so everyone can join in.
3.  Pat each other on the backs in the comments! Please, don't just link up and leave, we all want to hear from you!
 

amy butler inspiration #3

image via studiocherie on Flickr

StudioCherie is amazing!  I found this chair cover and loved the image as well as the color  (no surprise there!) and print.  You can buy her pattern on Etsy here.
 
While browsing her photostream on Flickr I saw this and stopped breathing for a minute!

image via studiocherie on Flickr

It's so gorgeous!!  She sells the duffel pattern too.   Seeing these lotus prints makes me want bust into my stash!

sew & tell - pillows + pom pom fringe

 *****Sorry!  I goofed on the linky, but it's up now!*****

If you are new or need a refresher for Sew & Tell guidelines you can click on the tab above for details on linking up!

Just a few quick items before we get to the good stuff!
I got some great feedback from a lot of you on the sew & tell survey I posted last week.  Go check it out and give me your 2 cents if you haven't yet!
*****
You can find us all here on Facebook now too.  Go to the Facebook tab at the top to click over if you feel so inclined.
*****
Please show good bloggy manners and only link up if you can adhere to these guidelines.  One of the best parts of sew & tell is the encouragement we get from one another.  Try and visit others and not just link up and leave!  I know it's not possible every week, but that's part of the fun, right?
*****
So you do you want to see what I made this week?  Actually yesterday?  While I was waiting to see if Hurricane Earl was going to pay us a visit?  I was working on another project that needed a little more time than I wanted to spend on it.  Plus it wasn't made out of Amy Butler fabric.  I knew I wanted to get this little number done to go with the LOVE quilt.  So I put the other one aside (for next week) and I whipped this up!

Seriously, I love making pillows.  They are so fast and satisfying!  You will probably be seeing some more of them in the next few weeks.

And I can't stress enough how much I. LOVE. POM-POM. FRINGE.  Doesn't it just make it look so happy?

And the dots?  Oh how I love Amy's dots.  All of them.  Every time she comes up with new ones - I have to have them in all colors.  Or at least I think I do.

I used this awesome filler called Cluster Stuff by Morning Glory.  It's little pellets of stuffing so it's very soft and not lumpy at all!  (I may or may not have found it at a big blue box store that still had its sewing department.)


What sewing project did you finish this week?

Please show good bloggy manners and follow the linky rules.  Refer to the sew & tell page   if you have any questions or wonder why your link may have been  deleted.

1. Link to your specific post about a sewing related finish you had THIS week.

2. Please mention sew & tell in your post and link back to this  post (link or button) so everyone can join in.
3.  Pat each other on the backs in the comments! Please, don't just link up and leave, we all want to hear from you!
 

amy butler inspiration #2

image via sewfunbymonique@ Flickr

Love this Belle Acanthus fabric and not sure I've ever seen it used before in this colorway.  I made a bag out of the same print (different colors) for my mother-in-law and fell in love with this fabric design.  (Go check out Monique's blog for some other fun things she's been working on.)

Do you have some out-of-print Amy Butler fabric that is screaming to get out of your stash and made into something you can enjoy?