Vintage Sheet Patchwork Swap

 Last year I participated in Oh, Frasson's Vintage Sheet Patchwork Swap. It was a lot of fun and it was great to get so many sheet fat quarters. I'm excited that I'll be hosting a second round of the swap, so if you're interested go here for more info. Can't wait to get started!

Wallet Pattern Available

Hey there! So when I said the pattern would be available yesterday, I really meant today. You know how life just gets in the way sometimes!!?!? Anyway, my newest pattern is for the Carry & Go Wallet. The wallet holds a set of keys, has a clear vinyl ID pocket, a zippered coin pouch, a place for folded cash, and 3 credit card slots, each which will hold at least 2-3 cards. It can be a little tricky to make your first one, but once you get the hang of it, they'll become addicting, I swear! So if you're interested, you can find the pattern in my etsy shop or in my bigcartel shop. It is PDF tutorial that has 12 pages of directions and comes with color step by step photos that will be sent via e-mail so you can start as soon as you get the pattern. Enjoy! And thanks again to Kristine for testing the pattern :)

tricky blocks

This month for my two quilting bees I had two tricky blocks to complete, a cathedral window and triangles.

Sandy had the wonderful idea to have us do cathedral windows. It was a fun block to make but I probably could only make a few before getting tired of doing it. That's why this was an ingenious idea for a quilting bee!

 The second block is for Corey. She asked for triangles and squares. Somehow I came up with this. I like it, but it's a little bigger than the size she asked for. Let's just say my math was a little off when I calculated what size square to use. 

Lastly, my pattern for the Carry & Go wallet should be available tomorrow. My friend Kristine tested it for me last week and hers came out great. Hopefully I can get my act together and finish it up tonight!

doll quilt received

 I finally received my doll quilt from my partner from the Doll Quilt Swap. I think the best (& worst) part about the swap is the anticipation of receiving a quilt in the mail. Trying to figure out which one is yours from the pool, stalking the mailman everyday. Lots of fun. This lovely was made by Rachel. This picture is not the best, but it's been raining here for the last four days, so this was the only shot I could get. I just have to find a spot to hang it. I think I'm running out of wallspace from all these swaps. Now that the swap is over, I'm ready for another one. I sure love getting good mail!

On a side note, is anyone having trouble with the new picture formatting of blogger? I cannot seem to get the pictures to move where I want them too. It is soo frustrating! Anyone else having this problem and know how to fix it?

wallets

I just finished this cute batch of wallets. I started sewing one last week as a trial for a new pattern I'm writing and I got into a rhythm and ended up sewing 7 more. This could be one of my favorite things I've made to date. I use one everyday to carry my keys & credit cards for a quick trip to drop Isaiah off at school. It has an outside pocket for an ID and can hold fold cash, coins, and credit cards on the inside. I'll start pattern testing this week and hopefully the pattern will be available next week. In the meantime I'm adding these wallets to my shop.

Working & a winner

How was your weekend? Ours was pretty good. Nothing too busy and nothing too lazy, just right for me. I started working on my next pattern. I actually have two in mind but I'm waiting for some more supplies to come in. Have I said I love this Hope Valley fabric? Oh I did? Well I'm going to say it again. I LOVE this fabric! Seriously, get yourself some. Tell your husband I said it was ok. I'll vouch for you.

The winner of the patterns is lucky #13 Jenny who said: congratulations on the pattern complete and your good news!! would love your patterns. (Jenny I've sent you an e-mail. )

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway. For those that are interested, the pattern is available in my etsy shop. I also have pattern bundles, 2 for $10 or 3 for $15 if you want them all for a few dollars off. Hope you're all having a good beginning to your week!

New Pattern Available(and a giveaway)

Ok, time for some shameless self promotion! I just finished up my latest pattern, the Patchwork and Linen Headband and it's now available in my etsy shop. I have loved making these for a long time now. I started making them for my first craft fair over three years ago and they always seem to do well. Now you can make your own and they are pretty simple and fun to make.


To celebrate it's release (and some other good news!!), I'll be giving away a copy of each of my three patterns I have available. Just leave a comment and I'll pick a winner on Monday. You can receive extra entries for either blogging or tweeting about it (just include @seekatiesew in your tweet). If you already own the patterns, feel free to enter and I'll send you another prize.

Have a great weekend!

doll quilt

You may remember just two posts ago when I showed this doll quilt top. Well turns out it was a quilting nightmare. First it took me forever to decide how exactly I was going to quilt it. When I finally decided, I went with a "handstitch" stitch on my sewing machine, using metallic thread. I should have know that it was probably not a good idea to A. use metallic thread for the first time and B. to use a stitch I hadn't used before. Needless to say it was a frustrating process.

Luckily the same day a huge box of Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley arrived. I realized it would be perfect for my partner and feed my urge to cut into the new fabric. I honestly didn't think I liked this new line of fabric that much, but let me tell you, I'm absolutely in love with it. It is so gorgeous in person.

The inspiration for the doll quilt also came from Denyse, her new pattern, Cog + Wheel. I don't actually have the pattern so I just drew it out on graph paper. It worked out pretty well although probably not as neat as it would have been had I used the pattern. I used linen as the background fabric which I think compliments this line of fabric wonderfully.

When it came to quilt I had a few problems with the linen. It shifted a lot as I was quilting and I had to stop and readjust a few times. This is the first time I've ever really quilted with linen and I almost broke up with linen today. Almost. I'm glad I perservered though because I really, really love this quilt. I hope my partner like it too!

Oh and speaking of linen and patchwork, I'll be releasing a new pattern tomorrow and having a giveaway, so be sure to stop back!

a robot party

My little boy turned 4 on Saturday and we had a robot themed party for him. Over the summer (or fall, can't remember), I found a bunch of robot party supplies on sale at target and just snatched them up. I spent our snowed in week dreaming up of robot themed ideas and had so much fun. Thursday night I stumbled up this blog post and decided that I needed to make a robot pinata. I'm glad it came out so great because I was really kicking myself Friday night for starting that project.


I also find the cake idea at cookie magazine although Isaiah requested a blue robot, so we went with that instead. It came out looking a little purple, but he didn't mind. I made this cake from Smitten Kitchen and topped it with Swiss Meringue buttercream. It was sooo delicious and surprisingly pretty easy. Although I should mention that I made a batch of buttercream on Friday night using Martha's recipe from her baking book and it did not come out well, so I had to make another batch (this time using the SK recipe) on Saturday morning. I learned what worked best for me was to continue using the whisk attachment on the kitchenaid instead of switching to the paddle attachment like Martha suggested.

I also placed all the food in tin foil containers and put snacks for the kids in muffin tins. It was really cute but of course I forgot to take pictures of it.

My sister also made a pin the heart on the robot game but the kids were so busy playing that they didn't want to do it. It didn't all go to waste though because the adults were all good sports and we played instead. Of course I don't have a picture of this either, so I'll have to see if someone else got one.

All in all, it was a great time. It's so fun being the mama to this sweet boy and getting to watch him grow. I am also so thankful that John was able to be here for another one of his birthdays. He was in the hospital Friday during the day and went back in on Sunday, so the fact that he was able to be there with us was amazing. And as an aside to that, thank you again for all your words & prayers for John and I. We really appreciate your support!

doll quilt top

First off, you guys are the best. Thanks for the words of encouragement & prayers. I'm happy to say John is home and is feeling a lot better. It's good to see him having a little energy. Hopefully it'll continue to go that way.

We're now in the middle of our second major storm of this month. I'm pretty sure there's about another foot of snow and more coming down as I type. While I am starting to really feel the cabin fever, it is nice to have an excuse to bake and sew. This morning I finished the top for my Doll Quilt Swap. I'm still deciding on what binding to use and how to quilt it. Any suggestions? I'm sort of leaning towards not using a binding. I wish I had a bigger of piece of the FMF gray seeds because that would probably look good, but I don't, so I'll have to think of something else.

Alright, back to watching "Cars" with Isaiah. I'm pretty sure this about the 100th time I've watched it. At least it's better than Thomas ;)

snow & sewing

Unless you live in a hole, I'm sure you've heard about the huge storm that swept across the mid-Atlantic region. At the storm's end, we had close to 3 ft of wet, heavy, snow. It was certainly beautiful but being stuck in the house 4 days in a row is starting to get old. Now we're bracing for another storm, not quite as big, but more snow nonetheless. Our area is just not prepared for this kind of weather and I'm not sure if our road is ever going to be cleared! But we're trying to make the best of it. Lots of baking, cocoa making, snow playing and of course sewing. I finished up this block for Valerie yesterday. I really, really love how it came out. I'm sure she's going to have a really awesome quilt by the end.


I've also debated how much to share about John's current situation, but I think that we could really use some extra prayers. For the past two weeks he was in the hospital with pneumonia, which thankfully he recovered from, but then they decided to place a feeding tube in since he was having a hard time eating and was losing a lot of weight. They discharged him from the hospital on Thursday night, right before the snow storm hit. I was hoping and praying that he'd be ok because I couldn't imagine having to get him to the hospital. He made it through ok, but was starting to feel really lightheaded on Sunday. Yesterday he had a follow up appointment and they ended up admitting him overnight because he blood pressure was very low and he was severely dehydrated. He's feeling a lot better today and he will probably get discharged again, but with this next storm I'm just hoping he remains stable. So if you're the praying type, we'd appreciate any extra prayers you could send our way. Thank you in advance!

oh, hey there!

So I've come to realize if you state "goals" at New Years, you're really setting yourself up for failure. Well at least in my case I was. Pretty much what I should have said was "blog less, sew less, and don't get organized." Then I probably would have done the opposite and gotten much more accomplished. The only thing I've really sewn in the past few weeks were some more of the Dear Jane blocks. I do so love these little blocks, but they can be time consuming. Now that I've gotten most of them traced and some more aqua & red fabrics I'll be on the road to catching up.

Mostly we've just been busy. We were in NY for Christmas until New Years and just went back last week for my cousin's wedding. I love visiting home but it is hard to travel, even if it is a short trip. I finally put away the Christmas decorations in the attic. I consider that my major accomplishment for today!

There's so much more to do around the house. I would love to be sewing or knitting, but it is just plain messy around here. We have a pretty small house and I'm still trying to find room for all those new Christmas presents. And laundry, oh the laundry. I'm not sure it will ever end! Anyone have some good organizing/cleaning tips? I think I just need a maid!

Pheeww.. that was a lot of rambling. I apologize for that! I promise to be back soon with some craftier posts!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a safe and wonderful holiday. Ours was very low key after traveling to NY for Christmas. We had a good time but I'm happy for the holiday season to be behind us and to be able to get back into the groove of things. 2009 has been quite possibly the busiest, craziest and most stressful year for us. I'm glad to see it go. Hopefully 2010 will be a much better year for us. I'm not one for making resolutions, but I thought I'd list some of my crafting goals for this year. This past year I found myself making less and less, granted John has been going through treatments and I went back to school, but I really do miss making and sharing.

So for 2010 my sewing, knitting, and all around crafty goals are to:

• finish both of my virtual quilting bee quilts
• catch up on my Dear Jane blocks
• write more patterns ( I have one for this and one for this on the brain)
• knit something for myself, hopefully a sweater
• sew an item of clothing for myself
• participate in a few more swaps
• blog more!

I'm sure there will be more along the way, but I think this is a good starting point. What about you? Have you made any goals or resolutions?

dopp kits

A while back I thrifted some vintage houndstooth wool fabrics. I ended up bringing home the gray and brown, but they also had red which I regret not buying now. Anyway, they've sat around my sewing room for months now, taking up space, but looking oh so gorgeous. I finally decided that I'd make some Dopp kits with them because I think they're pretty classy fabrics. I used some leather from thrifted skirts and lined them with some Joel Dewberry woodgrain home decor fabric. I think the brown one is my favorite. Mostly because I love the bright green zipper with the dark brown. Now I'm going to have to search my stash of zippers to see if I have anymore in that color.


I'm headed out for a trip with my sister to somewhere in southern virginia. She has a conference and wanted me to come along, so Isaiah and I are tagging along. Hopefully I can get some Christmas knitting done in the car. I really need to catch up on presents. If anyone's interested in one of the dopp kits, they're in my etsy shop now. Have a good weekend!

little birds

Wow! Look at this. Posting two days in a row. Craziness I tell you. I spent the last two days working on my ornaments for the Freshlyblended Ornament Swap. This is my third year in the swap and it's always so much fun. It's so hard to decide what to make though, especially when Martha has so many great ideas. In the end I went with the cinnamon bird ornaments. I needed something that I could make several of and that would ship flat. The first year I made cardboard houses that took forever and were hard to ship. I learned my lesson. I'm happy with how these little birds came out. I didn't mess with the template the instructions had but instead used a bird cookie cutter I had on hand. The dough was pretty easy to work with. I just mixed it up in a ziplock bag and let it rest until it was ready to be rolled out. I let them dry overnight but it didn't really work, so I ended up putting them in the oven for a few hours. I'm starting to get sick of the cinnamon smell which I never thought was possible. The recipe made about 22 birds which is nice because now I have some to tie to Christmas gifts. Speaking of, I really need to get the Advent calendar down before Isaiah gets home from school. What are you guys putting in your Advent calendars? I need some ideas!

virtual quilt blocks

How was Thanksgiving? We had a great one, lots of fun and games, but I'm glad to have it past us and to get back into the groove of things again. I'm doing another craft fair in a few weeks and I'm trying to get prepared for it so I won't be sewing the night before. I finished up a few blocks for the two virtual quilting bees I'm in. I've had them done for a while but I'm just getting around to photographing and mailing them now. It's so fun to work on different blocks and imagine what the finished quilts will look like. Darci (above) is doing a tree themed quilt. Mary is doing a quilt titled "Neighborhood in the Sky."


Hope your week is starting off well! Now back to sewing. Hopefully I'll post more than once this week (now that would be a miracle!)

craft fair and gift suggestions

The craft fair on Saturday went pretty well. It's always fun to be surrounded by a lot of crafters/artists. It was so hard to resist spending the money I made! I did make a few trades which I'll have to show you tomorrow. So, so cute! Of course I don't have any pictures of the show since I forgot my camera, but hopefully my friend and fellow vendor Katie will put some up on her blog.

I have plenty of leftovers for my etsy shop. Mostly I have the metal frame purses. I showed you the smaller ones before and I also used the same pattern to make larger clutches. I love the way these came out. So much fun to make, albeit a little time consuming.




My house is now a totally disaster area (well it's been like that for a week), so I'll be spending the next few days before Thanksgiving cleaning up. Then I have to get started on Christmas gifts and prep for another show in December. What are you all making for holiday gifts?? I need some ideas for some quick projects.

Tomorrow!

Hello everyone. I've been MIA the past week because I've been busy sewing for my craft fair tomorrow. If you're in the D.C. area come stop by and say "hi" and/or shop with some great handmade crafters! It's taking place in Vienna, Va at the Soundry and is hosted by D.C. Craft Mafia from 12-6pm. Hope to see you!

trying something new & a winner

Oh you ladies are too funny! I'm glad to know I'm not the only scrap addict. I wish I had my own sewing room, but this is actually our dining room. Which we never dine in. So I guess technically it's my sewing room. The mess is not quite cleaned up, so no updated pictures, but it's clean enough for me to feel inspired again.

I have a craft fair coming up in a few weeks and I ordered these metal purse frames to try out. I've been wanting to do them for a long time but I was nervous about how they would come out. Turns out it's pretty easy albeit time consuming. Hopefully I'll be able to get a few more done in time for the craft fair!

And now for our winner of the scrap box.

Beth said...

Good for you. I always have problems starting a big cleaning project. And well scraps are just an additional bonus for the rest of us:)

Beth I've sent you an e-mail! Thanks to everyone else for playing.

cleaning

My sewing room has been in a sad state for over a month now. It's pretty obvious by my lack of sewing lately that I've felt overwhelmed by the mess. Yesterday I finally dug in and started some major cleaning. It's still need some work, but I'm feeling much better about it after just a few hours. I even tackled 5 bags of scraps that haven't found a home on my new shelf. I threw a lot of tiny pieces away, organized those that I'm keeping, and stuffed a flat rate box to giveaway to one of my fellow scrap lovers.

While I was cleaning, I also came across a whole bunch of scarves I made last year. Apparently I had anticipated listing about 10 of each colorway and never did. To make room for some new things, I've listed these in my etsy store for $20 each. They make great holiday gifts!

So you know the drill. If you want to win a box of scraps, leave a comment and I'll pick a winner Friday. I should also mention that it's not just scraps. I believe I threw some random yardage in there and some vintage linens as well.