Down but I'm not Out

I think I had it. I'm pretty sure three of my four family members have succumbed.

The swine flu has infiltrated our house, darn it all. And the week before Craftalicious.

I'm stumbling along, feeling better, as are my girls. . .we've all been vaccinated so it wasn't terribly severe, but, but. . . I'm so behind!!

My week of time off to prepare for the sale has been pared down to three measly days. I also have a facial booked in there (hey, it's my birthday gift to myself every year!), a lunch date on my bday, some time for putting up posters (way too late but haven't been able to leave the house in days), and I'm making soup for all the crafters at our sale so they don't have to bring lunch. ACK!

Top this all off with the fact that my first batch of never fail chocolate almond butter crunch (aka almond roca) DIDN'T turn out. It's hanging out in the porch right now, in hopes that it sets up. I have my doubts. This has never happened before. EVER.

Deep breaths.

I did finish piecing all the parts for my 60ish shirts today. (Yay!). They're ironed on, and ready to be sewn (most are in fact already sewn, and were done before the week started). I got my small order of toddler tees in just in time, late last week. The owner of the wholesaler called me a few weeks ago to let me know that they were held up at the border, but that he had high hopes they'd get in just in time for the sale. Yay ZeeSpot!

My pushpins are done and packaged.

I have forty Christmas ornaments made.

I've done a few hairclips up, and my magnets are half assembled.

I picked up my awesome labels today (I'll do a show and tell at a later date. Nadia did a great job of designing them!)

Ingredients for my cookies and candies I'm planning on making are purchased, as are the ingredients for the crafters' lunch.

Sara's contributions to the sale are labeled and priced.

I've put some thought into my table layout and pulled together the necessary materials.

I can do this. I can do this.

And now, that I've bored you with all the nitty gritty what I have left to do before Saturday details, a bit of show and tell.

I loved loved loved Lina's patchwork star, and asked her permission to use her tutorial to whip some up for the sale. She kindly agreed. I labouriously cut out about 80 diamonds in various red and white fabric. (Don't worry, I used a rotary cutter and a ruler . . took me a few to figure this out though!). I stitched them together. I sewed on some beautiful fabric buttons. I sewed the first front to the back and turned it inside out and realized . . D'oh! My diamonds were far too small (not sure how I managed this, since Lina gives dimensions! .. I chalk it up to late night crafting .. which is the only time I craft so I should be used to it by now!) My stars, in the end, look different than hers, since I had to sew them together wrong sides facing, leave a gap, stuff, and finish sewing before pinking the edges. I really liked Lina's suggestion to just cut squares for the backs and then cut once. Brilliant time saver.


Ok. To the sewing machine I go.

Can't wait to write more about the sale . .have lots of thoughts about a) selling handmade goods for the first time and b) co- organzing an independent craft sale for the first time. (No, I couldn't just sell a few things to see how it goes . . I have to put on the craft show also!

- Donna

Giveaway Roundup

Hi gang!

I've been extra lucky this week - I won a honeybun from the Rouenneries line, as well as a beautiful looking Down Under Quilt calendar from Sarah (of Material Obsession fame!) AND 8 bottles of wine at the wine raffle held in my Office today. Taking home grand prize at the closing event of our charitable giving campaign is a good way to go into the weekend!

I admit I'm not organized enough to get a giveaway of my own going (maybe before Christmas once the Craft sale is over) but I thought I would point you all to some great giveaways on the web.

• Our friend Holly attended the recent fabric flea market with me and is wanting to share the wealth. Pop over to her blog A Fish in the Water and enter!
• Cruise over to Giddy for Paisley and take a peep at her sweet tweet quilt pattern. She's giving one away!
• True-Up is hosting a great giveaway of beautiful Japanese fabrics by Kiyohara. To enter you just have to tell someone who loves fabric about the giveaway. Check!

Good luck!

- Donna

Well Behaved

I recently did some cross border shopping which always means a trip to JoAnn. Since I usually only get over there once a year at the most, I really don't put any limits on myself in the fabric buying department. I was very proud of myself when I escaped those doors with only this in hand...well, this and a water soluble pen! Well behaved, right?

~Sara

My very own magic mushroom!

I've been meaning to show off my sweet toadstool that Holly made just for little ol' me! Is this not one of the cutest things you've seen in a long, long while? I don't know where she gets the patience for all the fine little details like the holly (Holly - holly, get it?!) around the door and cutting those little polkadots so precisely. She's pretty much my hand stiching hero!

Thank you so much for thinking of me, Holly!

~Sara

Fabric Flea Market - Worth Waiting For

Once a year, there is a Fabric Flea Market held at the Community Centre in my neighbourhood. It's a school fundraiser, and such a fantastic idea. They bring in tons of money by charging a small admission fee (2$) and manning (personning?) a large table of donated fabrics. Vendors also rent out tables to sell all kinds of crafty goodness, from fabric (new and vintage), buttons, thread, all kinds of notions, yarn of all varieties, patterns, sewing books and magazines .. the list goes on. Doors are only open for a short while (four hours), so it's a quick fundraiser that is so anticipated by the local crafting community.

Holly and I lined up at 9:35 and were within the first 20 or so people. By 9:45 the line had snaked out the door, through the parking lot, and around the community centre. It's a bit of a pushy crowd and I admit you have to get a bit agressive to make it through this sale in one piece. But oh, the dividends are worth it.

My first stop was a kindly elderly woman who was selling off her stash of unwanted goods. I picked up a huge baggie of white buttons for a dollar. A dollar!! I quickly moved along, losing Holly in the process, and picked up some cute cottons, some funky trim, a big ziploc bag full of vintage doilies and hankies (2$!), more buttons, and some thread and some embroidery floss (10cents a skein). All in all, a perfectly fruitful morning. (And I managed to find Holly with enough time to grab a coffee and compare our finds - possibly the most fun part of the morning. We're scheduling a button sorting part in the near future. Call us mega craft nerds if you will, but I just love my new buttons and so does she.)

Here are a few shots of my finds:

(Image 1 - the Lot, Image 2 - Vintage prints - sooo good, Image 3 - Funky Owl Trim, Image 4 - Button-apollooza)

I'm hoping to get some ornaments made using some of these luscious new buttons in time for the sale. I'm planning on some patchwork stars (thanks Lina for the tutorial and the go ahead to make some for my sale!), and am also feeling inspired by this, these, these, and this. Wouldn't a mini tree full of ornaments made using buttons be great?

- Donna

Whaddya think?

Thank you so much for your votes and suggestions on the layout of the quilt! I must say, Isa's suggestions of what Rita thought up pretty much consumed me! I could barely sleep thinking about the options. Early this morning, I got to ironing the little blocks so I could start laying out something. I didn't even get through 1/4 of the blocks before I started pinning to my project wall (aka-white sheet pinned to wall). Keep in mind this isn't all of the colors/patterns that will be included, but these are kind of cute together, aren't they?

excuse the terrible photography, please!

My challenge with this is that I'm not sure how big this is going to be when it's all sewn together which means I don't know how many of these squares I'll end up with on the quilt. If I was to estimate, I'd say there would be 4 blocks like this (2x2), but I don't want it to be too square as I was going for a crib sized quilt.

About the zig zag, a lot of the quilts I've seen have zigged or zagged one color per line. There aren't enough blocks of each color in the quilt to have a full line, so how do you feel about a multi colored zig zag? The one thing holding me back from the zig zag is what Donna said, that I have done one already and sort of want to try something new...

Which brings me to another option that appears to be simple to put together, but I'll admit, took me an inordinate amount of time to arrange!

At the risk of sounding needy, what are your thoughts now?

~Sara

Stuck.

See, I have this quilt I'm making and up to this point, I've chosen fabric (after ruining the surprise and getting the recipient to help me), cut out 80 - 6" squares (40 patterned and 40 white), did this to them and am left with 160 squares of half white/half pattern. Now, I'm stuck. Pinwheel? Zig Zag? Hourglass? This? This? Is there anything else you can do with squares like that that I'm missing?

If you could help a girl out here, I'd really appreciate it!

~Sara