SALE!! Holiday Pillow Panels

So you still have a few gifts on your list? And need a quick hand made project? How about a pillow panel? Just add some trim and a simple backing and voila! Instant holiday smiles.

All Holiday Pillow Panels are 20% off in my store. Quantities are limited and the sale price will only last until they're gone. So hop on over. I can ship within 24 hours of ordering. :)

NEW Holiday Pillow Panels in the store

Who's ready for the 2013 Holiday Pillow Panels!? This year there are 6 designs and I can't wait to share them with you. I had so much fun with these new critters and hope they'll bring a smile to your face. They're all listed in my Etsy store and will be ready to ship within the next two weeks to give you plenty of time to get your pillows stitched up in time for the holidays.

Bear in Boots

Donkey in Holiday Wellies

Llama in polka dot hat

Llama in striped hat

Kitties with mistletoe

Birdes on Couch

A pile of pom pom pillow covers. 

And my ever present hair sharer. :) And yes, that is my bathtub. 

The light in my master bath is perfect for photohoot Sundays. 

Giveaway winner!

Thank you so much for all the great ideas for holiday sewing projects! I'll keep today's post short and sweet and am going to dive right into congratulating the giveaway winner!

Via random number generator, lucky #13 mvink has won a copy of Amanda's book, Modern Holiday.
I always sew pj pants. This year I'm going to do up some hot pads and mug rugs! So excited. I love the designs in this book. Thank you for the chance!

Congrats! I hope you really love Amanda's book!

Modern Holiday Blog Tour and Giveaway

As a fabric designer, it is such an amazing feeling to see your fabric made up into projects that people have put so much love and time into. When Amanda Murphy contacted me last year about possibly using my Brr! collection in a quilt she was working on for her new book, I was absolutely over the moon. And today, I'm happy to be sharing some sneak peeks from Amanda new book Modern Holiday: Deck the Halls with 18 Sewing Projects Quilts, Stockings, Decorations & More. 

The book is filled with beautiful projects and some really fun embellishing approaches. My favorite is the Brr! quilt... (No shocker there!) but I'm itching to try some of the other projects too. 

The back. Squee!!

The stockings are definitely on my list! I would love to make them up using my new Holiday Sweet Tweets. I'm especially fond of the 1st two stockings and see loads of fun possibilities fussy cutting some chairs and tweets. :)

And now for the giveaway! If you'd like to win a copy of Amanda's book, just leave me a comment here and let me know what your favorite thing to sew is for the holidays. Please leave your comment before Wed morning 7/22/13 and make sure you leave me a way to contact you. (If the winner is from the US, a hard copy of the book will be shipped from Stash publishing and if the winner is international, Stash will email an e-copy.)

To prep for the holidays around here, I'm getting ready to start on some new pillow panels for my Etsy store. Remember these guys? I was thinking of bring them back and I'm hoping for a few fun new designs as well...I'll just have to see how well the creative juices flow! Any requests?!

Sew Pretty Giveaway Winner!

Wow! I am beyond tickled at how excited you are about Sew Pretty! I can't wait to see pictures of all of the sewing machine covers, PJs, sewing kits, quilts and other fabulous stuff you have planned for it. I had a great time reading all of your comments!

Via random number, congrats to lucky #86 Carrie P!

It is such cute fabric. I would make a new sewing machine cover if I were to win and of course the little organizer. thanks for a chance.

Thanks so much Carrie! Your FQs of Sew Pretty and a PDF of the adorable sewing kit pattern from May Chappell will be on their way to you super quick!

Sew Pretty Giveaway....and a super cute little sewing kit pattern!

Who's ready for some new fabric? I'm super excited to share some sneak peek shots of one of two new lines for Robert Kaufman shipping this fall. Meet Sew Pretty! I had so much fun designing this line and hope you're as excited to start sewing with it as I am to see what you make. Sewing machines, pin cushions, scissors, thimbles, buttons, thread, safety pins, tape measurers, buttons... and of course my weapon of choice, the trusty seam ripper!

Thread selvage!

A few weeks ago, I was on Instagram and spied an adorable sewing kit project from Lee over at May Chappell. And I was beyond tickled when she agreed to make up a version of her All Sewn Up sewing kit using my Sew Pretty line. Sew, sew cute, right!? 

Her pattern is available here and she's selling a kit that includes all the supplies you'll need (except fabric) and the pattern. 

Sew... to share the goodness, Lee and I are each giving away a FQ set of Sew Pretty + a copy of her sewing kit pattern. Enter to win here by leaving me a comment before the morning of Monday 7/15/13. I'd love to hear what you'd make with Sew Pretty! As always, international entries are welcome and make sure you leave me a way to contact you. After you leave a comment here, hop over to May Chappell where you can enter to win her giveaway as well. Good luck!

I went over the edge!

You may remember a few weeks ago, I posted about raising funds for the Central Texas Make A Wish foundation? And that if I could reach my fund raising goal of $1500 that I would be rappelling/abseiling down the side of a 32 story building here in Austin?

Well thanks to the generous support of family and friends, I met my $1500 goal! I was able to be part of a group that helped Make a Wish raise over $324,000 dollars to spay for amazing wish experiences for kids suffering from terminal illness. 100% of the proceeds will be going directly towards funding wishes for these kids (often the last great experience some of these kids get to have) and I'm so touched at the support, words of encouragement and financial support I received. 

If you look closely at the picture above, you can see a tiny little me coming down the side about 1/2 way down the left side of the building? I'm not gonna lie. It was pretty scary! Especially taking that first step over the edge. 

So you're all harnessed in and you step over the safety railing and just sit back into the harness until it takes your weight. I definitely felt a teensy bit insane... That's why the safety railing is there, right!? I kept asking the safety guy "So I let go of the railing now? Now? Are you really sure? Super duper sure?" At least I made everyone on the roof laugh. :)

Oh, and I decided to wear a tutu. It made the kids smile.

You can tell how tightly I'm holding on but that's what sheer glee looks like. :)

Between the adrenaline and the physical effort, it was a bit of a work out. In order to go down you have to squeeze on the brake to let it up and then you just use your feet to sort of bounce/walk down the side of the building. I had visions of being all Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and very smoothly descending....Not so much. :) I did ok most of the way but ended up getting spun around somehow and couldn't stop giggling. I think that was also about the time I heard my friends on the street below hollering my name (love those people so much) and that got me back on track. It took me just shy of 7 minutes to make it down the 32 stories. The fastest person was 1 minute 3 seconds (zoom!) and the slowest was 21 minutes. Nearly 200 went over the edge over a 2 day event.

Tutu, coming over!

And she's off!

Feeling very Tom Cruise...

And then not so much!

Still spinning! And laughing really hard.

HUGE smile all the way down!

Wahooo!!! I did it!!

Back on terra firma. A glass of champagne and a little curtsy. 

Feeling pretty proud of myself!

Part of my cheering squad

Big hug and kiss to all of you for all of your support!

Photos courtesy of my friend Brian Gray (unless stamped with the MAW logo and those are courtesy of the MAW foundation)

Holiday Sweet Tweet Winners

What a wonderful time I had reading all of your winter traditions. I really loved getting a teeny glimpse into your lives and how you celebrate with your families. Thank you for sharing with me! I have some wonderful ideas for fun new things to incorporate into our traditions here in Texas. :)

I've finished my Sweet Tweets quilt and as soon as I can get some pictures taken I'll post some shots. I'm so happy with how it turned out (minus all the cat hair Dexter and Fiona deposited on it while I was pinning it for quilting...note to self: do not forget to remove kitty hair from quilt prior to photography...)

Without further ado! Congratulations to the two winners of the giveaway (via random number generator):

Johanna #12
We don't have any "unique" traditions. My favorite though is leaving cookies out for Santa on a special plate with chocolate milk. I LOVE those cardinals! They have been my favorite since I was probably three.

B Greene #49
I have a little white Christmas tree (an extra) that I usually decorate with my late grandmother's earrings as ornaments and beaded necklaces as garlands. We first did this when my husband was deployed and I couldn't face getting everything down from the attic alone. It was really , really pretty and a nice way to have her memory with us at Christmas. Love the new fabric line - I need to make some Christmas goodies, so this would be perfect!

Everyone have a great week! Oh... and I'll be postings some sneak peeks of TWO more new lines shipping this fall. Think kitchen and sewing room!!

Holiday Sweet Tweets | Giveaway and a sneak peek of my new quilt

A few weeks ago, the UPS man showed up with my yardage of my newest line for Robert Kaufman, Holiday Sweet Tweets. And I have been absolutely itching to sew with it. So, the weekend before last, I pretty much barricaded myself in my sewing studio and cut, sewed, cut, sewed and fondled fabric to my hearts content. I had hoped to finish the quilt over the weekend but I'm just not fast enough. I did get the whole quilt top finished though, pinned and started the quilting. Yahoo!

The top is inspired by Ashley's (from Film in the Fridge) Picnic Stripes quilt (way back from 2009)  and I am so delighted with the way the piecing turned out on my own Holiday Sweet Tweets version. I've included a few WIP shots below. I was able to use my all time favorite circles from my Modern Whimsy collection (stash of that is becoming dangerously low so am hoarding it like crazy) as well as some pretty solids and other goodies from my stash. 

Sweet Tweets comes in two color stories and I am so delighted to get to work on holiday goodies using navy, yellow and pink. The little peppermint footstools just make me smile every time I see them. And I have a special place in my heart for cardinals so it just makes me so happy to get to sew with this line. 

I think I love the diamonds pattern from the line more and more every time I look at them.

And I took a page from my IG pal Julie's (@chickenjulie) book and worked a big piece of selvage from the line into the quilt back. I stitched it straight line and then reinforced with zig zag to make sure that narrow little seam holds up. Hoping to get the rest of the quilting done in the next week or so and I'll make sure to share pictures as soon as I can. (I have determined I *might* detest the quilting process. Piecing I love. Quilting not so much. All that tugging and dragging a giant thing around on a tiny machine. Blech. I have nothing but admiration for those of you who do such beautiful quilting work!! I have no idea how you do it! Mine is just a hot mess. Maybe I just need to finish this one off but plan to rent time on a long arm machine for future projects...)

Partridges and cardinals!

Holiday Sweet Tweets has started shipping and will be making its way to stores this month and next, so get your holiday project list prepped and I hope you might find a way to work some little peppermint footstools into your plans!

In the mean time, I have 2 FQ bundles (1 in each color story) cut and ready for two of you! Just leave me a comment here before the morning of Monday June 10, 2013. (As always, international entries welcome and make sure you leave me a way to contact you!) In your comment, I'd love to hear about a winter holiday tradition you share with your family. I think it would be fun to bring a new tradition into my own family's celebration and it would be a blast to have learned about it from you!