giveaway winner!!

Hey Friends! I'm a little late on the announcing but our winner is...

Thanks for playing along! I loved reading your comments!! I have something exciting happening soon that I can tell you about next week. No, it has nothing to do with sewing or blogging, but a lot to do with why I'm so disorganized!! And no, I'm not having another baby. See you soon!

Instagram round up from yesterday

I've been documenting on Instagram what I've been doing since I'm #notgoingtosewingsummit ! I thought I'd share here in the virtual sewing room! It's super fun to check out the #sewingsummit feed too! There is so much fun going on over there!!

I love seeing what all of you are working on this weekend! Keep linking up! I've put the same linky at the end of this post too, so you only have to link up on one post, it will just carry thought the weekend!
*****
Instaclass of the weekend.  If you are working with something slippery or stretchy, pin the heck out of it!

baby blanket for a soon to be niece!

botched hem job getting fixed

And here is the finished hem.  It looks way better than when I got it.  The mom was happy too.

*****
My quilt partner is crime came over to sew and she worked on some snowballs...

 

And I spray basted this quilt (that she pieced).  Quilting to happen shortly.

Keep calm, and sew on! (and get a drink!)

And party on!!

the (virtual) sewing room is now open!! {linky party}

Welcome to the #notgoingtosewingsummit pity party!  I kid, I kid! Not a pity party. But a way to connect even though we couldn't all make it there!  

I've been super busy today and just acquired another sewing project for the night!  I've become the homecoming dress rescuer!  I took in my neighbor's dress (the dance is on Saturday) and a new friend tonight asked if I could repair a HORRIBLE hem job that a shop did on her daughter's dress!  So that's what's going on in my sewing room tonight.

I'm hoping to get to work on my stars (that I showed in the last post) and a quilt top that needs to be quilted.

I won't bore you with too much, but feel free to link up and show us what you are working on in your sewing room this weekend!  Since we're #notgoingtosewingsummit.  I'll have a link up in each post I put up this weekend and leave it open until Sunday night.  Feel free to link up any sew & tell finishes you might have too! Remember you can use the #notgoing.... on Twitter and Instagram.  If you don't have those then that's what this link up is for! Or you can do both!  Let's have some fun!!

Join the party!

#notgoingtosewingsummit

I was so lucky to attend sewing summit last year. What an awesome weekend to meet up with all of my blogging sewing friends and make new ones!

Last spring when quilt market was going on I got a little envious of all the market posts on Instagram. So a little tongue in cheek I started a little #notgoingtomarket party! Hehehe all in good fun.

Sooooooo, why not have a #notgoingtosewingsummit party this weekend!? (There's another tag started on twitter: #sortasummit)

If you aren't able to go either, join me for a virtual sewing fest! Pick a few projects to work on this weekend. We'll have our own virtual sewing room! The sewing room was the happening place during last year's event.

Share your photos on Instagram and twitter and tag them #notgoingtosewingsummit. I'll open up sew & tell on Thursday night for our opening night mixer! Edited to add: If you don't have instagram or twitter the link up will be up all weekend where you can share what you are doing!! Link up as often as you want!


I need some motivation to get back to some sewing! Who's in!? And of course I'll be checking in on all the real #sewingsummit posts too!

Maybe I'll finish up this little lovely.

book review: beginner's guide to free motion quilting = {a giveaway}

I was so happy that Natalia asked me to be a part of her blog book tour! (all photos courtesy C&T publishing)

If you have followed her blog at all then you know that she does some amazing work.  Between the quilt designs (many with amazing applique) and the actual quilting, she is one talented mama!

Natalia has written her first book for the beginner home machine quilter!

As Natalia said in her kick off post, quilting does seem to be a family affair! I learned to sew and quilt from my mother.  We didn't have formal lessons, I just learned as we worked on projects and as questions arose.  I love that at the beginning of the book she lays out simple instruction with photos of the different aspects of quilting: the type of feet you might need, thread selection, basics of basting, etc.  I love having all of that information so handy in one place!  I'm always learning something new!

Lately my littleslouwho are my reason for quilting.



I've made and am working on many quilts for them and me and the mrlouwho.  I wish I had Natalia's book when I free motion quilted my first quilt!  It's a good thing no one inspects each little stitch!!

The book has great step-by-step photo instructions to achieve many basic quilted patterns!

There is also valuable information on achieving something more than just an all-over pattern of stipples or loop-de-loops.  Which as a beginner is mostly what I do these days!

I am finding that I really love doing the actual quilting part, but I need more practice.  I can't wait to dive a little deeper into the book and try out some of the techniques!  I have some more placemats to make, they are the perfect size on which to practice! I'll show you when I finish them.

Natalia, thanks for including me!  There will be a giveaway on each post during the tour and a grand prize on her blog at the end of the tour!! All winners will be announced 18 March!

Would you like to win a copy of Natalia's book?  Just leave me a comment here telling me who or what inspired you to start a current project you are working on!

sew & tell v4.4 ~ a nursery

Oh my.

Did you notice I didn't post sew & tell last week? Or earlier today?

I'm a mess!

I do have a good excuse for last week, we were out of town and I'm clearly not on top of everything enough to have written a post early and schedule it to magically appear Friday morning.

And yep, didn't do that again for this week.  The only difference is I wasn't out of town!! I'm just mourning the fact that my mom had to go home after a lovely 5 week visit!! And now my kitchen is a mess because she's not here to do the dishes for me.

So, you'll have to forgive me and I won't blame you if no one wants to link up this week.  But you'd better link up next week to distract me from the fact that I won't be at sewing summit!!!

And now to a short and sweet finish.

And by short and sweet, I mean once I buckled down and did it, it didn't take long at all.

I have three words for you:  ORANGE CHEVRON CURTAINS

photo courtesy Kristen Hassell

My super stylish (and talented) friend Kristen took some photos of babylouwho for me a few months ago. And by a few I mean 18. (You are going to want to click on that link. And if you want to cry you should check out the rest of her blog and look at all the military homecoming shoots!!)

We swapped services, she took photos and sewed some curtains.  Hmmmm, I think I might need to make her some more stuff.  In fairness I have hemmed 2 pairs of pants for her hubs too.  And I helped Brynn with that cute quilt there on the crib. I still think I got the better end of the deal!

Anyway, the nursery is all her and I'm so pleased the curtains turned out so well!

What have you finished recently?




Linky Rules.  Please follow along for a fun party!

1. Please write the post for sew & tell - or add a blurb mentioning sew & tell to a post written since the last sew & tell.  If you are linking to a post with your own tutorial, please make sure it was a finish from this week and that the completed project is shown first.

2. One linky per person. (please put multiple projects in one post.)

3. Link to your specific post.  (See here for permalink instructions - or email me.)

4. Link back here with a link or a button (HTML on my sidebar).

5. Be sure to visit and leave comments on other's posts!

Please put your (blog)name instead of your project name, it helps us get to know each other better!