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

A Lil' Handmade Swap

I signed up for a 'lil handmade swap today. It is perhaps a bit crazy to sign up right now when I am in the midst of crazy craft show preparation, but it just sounds so nice and doable. One handmade ornament, one lovely Christmas card and that's it. You can sign up here, at Daisy Quilts. Sign ups are open until November first, and the swap is open to international swappers. I've had lots of practice lately as I've been working on oodles of ornaments for the upcoming sale. I love adding handmade goodness to our tree every year.

- Donna

Have you seen this?? Flea Market Fancy STATIONARY, people!

I was at my local paper store this afternoon, picking up some paper to build my Thanksgiving Day menus for tomorrow's dinner, and what do I see?

Dudes, there's a stationary line, designed by Denyse Schmidt!! This is a gift bag set, but Chronicle Books has notecards, mini journals, and more. Check it. Although I want them, I cannot buy this gift bag set since I will never be able to give them to anyone.

- Donna

Operation Save the Quilt

You really do just have to love the Internet. After 9.5 years of not seeing one another in person, Donna and I reunited in her front hall and it was as though I'd seen her the evening before. That's really something, isn't it? I met her wonderful husband and tooth achingly sweet daughters and I must say, she keeps good company, my Donna! After she filled our bellies with some fantastic fare (note to self: get recipe for that honey mustard sauce), a trip to the fabric store (like I really needed more!) and some quality time with the family, the girls were tucked in "snug as bugs in rugs" and Operation Save the Quilt began.

We were joined by the lovely Holly, of A Fish in the Water (note to self #2: show the blogging world the adorable mushroom ornament she gifted you). Three crafters are better than two, especially when you're rescuing a quilt! Donna, Holly and I regularly share the fruits of our crafty trawl of the www in case one of us missed a gem in our travels. For all the time we've been doing this, I've never met Holly in person (my first honest to goodness e-friend!). Finally, like three ships passing in the night, we three were crafting in the same room together. All was right in the world.

By crafting, I mean ripping out more than 80 blocks, spraying them with starch, pressing them, squaring up said 80 blocks, pinning the heck out of them and sewing until they made 40 blocks...then 20. Just when we thought the squaring up was well behind us, we squared up some more and then pinned some more, sewed some more and ironed some more. Donna is very close to a quilt top that looks not unlike the one we ripped apart some hours earlier.

When I got home and was trolling around house on hill road, I found out that the problem Donna was having was likely not so much the fault of the individual blocks, but the bias of the top vs. the not bias of the border. Who knew? The night wasn't a total loss though, because we all learned the importance of squaring up at every juncture and that large doses of pressing and pinning may seem like a pain when you're in the throes of it, but really just add to the glory in the end. Even more important was the confirmation that "No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." ~Robert Southey

Thank you for your friendship, my Kindred Crafter!

~Sara