guess what? it's giveaway day!!!

yay! Sew Mama Sew is facilitating hundreds of giveaways, you definitely have to go check it out! they have three lists, handcrafted items, sewing and knitting supplies, and handcrafted items with supplies. all three lists are organized with giveaways that allow international shipping first, and giveaways that are host country-only shipping second, which is super handy for those of us who aren't in the US.

so what am i giving away? i hinted the other day....







the Central Park Spring Pillow!

the pillow is made of yellow linen and prints from the Moda line Central Park that was designed by Kate Spain.

it measures aprox 16" x 10" and is backed in solid orange Kona cotton.


sooooo... the rules!


* this giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY! yay!

* you must post a comment on this thread to enter.

* the winner will be chosen via random generator, though i'll give you fair warning - if your comment is just something along the lines of "pick me!", the random generator might be chosing a different winner... cause that's boring. i know you're going to hundreds of blogs, but half the fun is looking around a bit!

* you don't have to become a follower or tweet or anything fancy like that to enter (though you could, if you wanted to! or sign up for the handy-dandy e-mail feed!)

* the giveaway closes at 11:59 PST on May 25th




that's it! leave me a comment about something fun... leave a comment about something you've seen here on my blog. leave me a comment about something that you wish more blogs had (like e-mail feeds! is that just me...) tell me what your last project was, link to an awesome tutorial that i might not have seen, tell me what you listen to while you're sewing/quilting/crafting/creating. tell me what you're excited about making next, what awesome book you just read or movie you just saw (i finally saw grey gardens last night!), what new blog you just discovered (i'm loving threadbared lately. gender, politics and FASHION! brilliant!), or what new fabric line you can't wait to order, or what your favourite zine is, and what distro carries it. tell me something that'll make me glad that you stopped by. ;)


good luck!

vote for me?

if you have a chance, do you wanna vote for my pretty yellow linen pillow in the Iron Crafter Sping Contest?

go check out all the awesome entries here, then send an e-mail to theironcraft@yahoo.com with the number of the one you have chosen (mine's #23!!), with "IC Vote" in the subject line.


voting ends at 7pm EST tomorrow! thanks!

Putting On The Ritz Aprons!

these are the two aprons that i made for the Abbotsford Sewing and Crafts Show. the challenge was sponsored by the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals, and the theme was, as the title of this post indicates, Putting on the Ritz.

i started planning my first apron pretty early on, because i knew it was going to be incredibly time consuming to make. i was inspired by my friend Louise and the amazing things she creates out of silk, and a recent birthday gift that i made with purple silk (that i haven't posted - i should do that soon!), and decided that i wanted to make the apron out of silk dupioni.



and black lace ruffles. lots and lots of black lace ruffles! and covered buttons, because i love them, and handmade fuchsia lame piping, which i didn't love making as much, but i loved the end result.



i started on the ruffles first, and using my fabulous ruffle foot, made a whole lot of black lace trim. i did the math afterwards, and i think i used about 50 YARDS of lace. yes, that's 5-0 yards! each row took about 300", and there are 6 rows, so that's 1800"... it was a lot of ruffling!



i sewed the ruffles on in rows to the underskirt fabric, which was a polyester crepe that matched the silk perfectly. i didn't want to mark the rows visibly on the good side of the fabric, because this apron isn't exactly wash and wear, so i marked them on the backside and basted along them so that i'd have guides on the front side.



after i'd sewed the ruffles on, i assembled the underskirt, making it into a bubble skirt with all of the seams enclosed.

the overskirt is black dupioni silk, a loooong rectangle with curved ends. i made bias piping out of fuchsia lame fabric and sewed it along the sides and bottom of the silk. as i was making it, i was wondering whatever possessed me to do it, but it's really that extra touch of glitz. after the skirt was assembled, i went back and hand stitched little gathers along the skirt to show off the underskirt, and sewed small covered buttons on each spot.

the waistband is fuchsia dupioni, with extra long ties at the back. i love long ties on aprons.



the bib of the apron is black dupioni, trimmed with the lame piping. the neck strap is sewn on, with larger fuchsia dupioni covered buttons.



so that was my amazing, super time consuming but totally worth it apron.

the second apron wasn't nearly as cool!



i had this idea about draping and bias, but totally ran out of time to really experiment until it worked the way i envisioned it.

i was a bit concerned that my definition of putting on the ritz would be a little too gothic lolita for the judges, so i wanted to go with something a little more traditional. sequins!!


since one of the judging criteria was use of colour, i also wanted to get away from black, and use a colour other than pink, so i decided to go with purple. funnily enough, a lot of people thought the silk apron was black and purple anyway!



i bought a purple sequined mesh fabric, and a sueded satin in the same tone. i started out sewing them together as a square, and then cut off one corner for the bodice/bib of the apron. i cut 5" off the remainder of the square, leaving me with the opposite corner of the square for the skirt. in hindsight, i shouldn't have bothered cutting those 5" off, it would have added a bit more fullness in the skirt if i'd left them on.


(this photo is probably the most accurate colour-wise)

i sewed a waistband inbetween, and threaded a piece of purple ribbon through the waistband to gather it a bit. since the outer fabric is a mesh, i couldn't use white or black elastic that would be visible.



before i sewed everything together, i reinforced the grommet points with an extra layer of the backing fabric adhered with wonder under. as with the elastic, interfacing would have been visible.

i'm not happy with the grommets on the bib, they turned out a bit warped because i'm just not strong enough to set them with one or two hammer strikes. luckily, that's not very visible! and the ones on the waistband, that are more visible, worked much better.



instead of making waist ties and a neck strap, i made two long straps out of the satin. they go through the grommets on the bib and are held in place with knots, then crisscross across the back to go through the waistband grommets.



i'm really happy with the colour of the grommets though! i tried a few different things, and the purple staZon ink matched the colour the best. the alcohol inks looked really cool, but weren't the right shade of purple.





so those were my two entries. and now that they're done, i can move onto the next apron on my list - but first i need to recover from the show itself!

Mr X Stitch Cross Stitch!

i know, i promised more embroidery posts, didn't i?

i've had a bit of a rough time lately, starting back at work, even for such short days as the ones i'm doing, has completely exhausted me. my fatigue and pain levels have been very high, and by the time i start to write up a blog post (or reply to messages, etc), i'm feeling fairly incoherent.

HOWEVER! i wanted to get this posted as soon as i could!

those of you who follow the Mr X Stitch blog (and if you don't, why aren't you? the eye candy and inspiration is incredible!) will know that it recently celebrated an anniversary. for an entire week they had daily giveaways, and though i managed to miss commenting on about half the posts (which killed me when i realized it, oh i would have loved the emily peacock pattern, i adore her designs!), i DID comment on a few!

and I WON!!! how freaking exciting is that?

the Mr X Stitch team recently announced the release of Mr X Stitch patterns, available at their etsy shop (some are still on their way, i believe).

they have 4 different series available, the Beefranck series, cross stitch full of saucy commentary and blackwork, Kittyzilla’s Internet Meme Series, line embroidery patterns to display your internet coolness, Krupp's robot series, cross stitched robots in fanciful situations, and of course, the original cross stitch graffiti series that drew everyone's attention to Mr X Stitch himself in the first place!

i won my choice of 5 patterns, and let me tell you, it was damn hard to decide!

i wanted a variety, and i wanted patterns that i was likely to actually stitch, so i picked two from Krupp's robot series, the domo-kun/kitten from Kittyzilla’s internet meme series, and two from the original graffiti series, which i can't wait to stitch - i might actually spring for proper framing if i ever managed to complete one of them!

i started stitching the robots immediately, so that i'd be able to show them off (if i'd waited to show one of the graffiti pieces, i'd probably be writing this in 2011, i have such a short attention span!).


i stitched up the Pet Robot pattern first, cause it's so cute. isn't it? aw!



i changed the colours in this one a bit. first off i chose a different red, because as much as i wish i like dmc 666, for the number alone, i really don't! it's such a tomatoey red to me, blegh! so i changed the red to dmc 321, which is probably my favourite true red shade. i stitched the swing and robot first, and once i started on the cage itself, the required thread, dmc 3072, seemed way too light, it didn't show against the white aida cloth very well. (i think it would look FABULOUS on a coloured aida cloth though!) so i switched over to dmc 318, and i liked it much better.



now that it's complete, i'm contemplating ripping out and redoing the swing itself, because it seems like such a GRAY colour rather than the GREY of the cage. (yes, i totally think grey and gray are different colours!) it seems to have more of a brown base, but i might just be being too picky! what do you think?




for my second pieces, i decided to do the robot photobooth pattern. i had to run to the needlework store for it - i thought i had lots of grays, but i didn't have any of the shades required. if you're stitching it, you should note that it used both ddmc AND anchor threads, which i didn't realize until i was at the store looking for dmc 400!

this piece definitely took longer than the pet robot piece, but i love how it turned out. the robots are so cute!



this one was a bit easier to keep track of, because the stitches are all filled in, but at the same time, it was easy to miss a stitch too! it didn't help that i was feeling so crummy while i was stitching it, the math side of cross stitch confuses me at the best of times. (i admittedly screwed up the basting i use to mark the edges TWICE before i even started on the cross stitch itself!)

but it turned out wonderfully.





so, the Mr X Stitch patterns. overall, FABULOUS! they're wonderful. interesting, quirky designs, a fabulous price, fun to stitch.

a few things to be aware of
a) they're in PDF format, and i'm too much of a klutz when it comes to computers to be able to figure out how to resize the embroidery patterns (is there a way? i want to make a smaller domo-kun!)
b) if you're a dmc snob like i am, you might need to buy a few colours in another brand (i don't know if any of the other patterns have multiple brands, or if it's just the one)
c) reading the patterns can take getting used to. i'm accustomed to patterns that are like graphs, with each square drawn in, and these ones aren't like that. and i think if i was doing a larger project, like one of the graffiti pieces, i'd go through the pattern with some markers and colour in the stitches, it's easy to mix up the letters of each colour. i might go through with a ruler and a pencil to lightly draw in lines as well. the patterns DO show the lines for every 10 stitches though.
d) the embroidery patterns don't have recommended floss colours. totally fine if you'd like to pick the colours yourself, but if you're a "completely like the pattern says" kinda folk, you might be frustrated.

but don't let the points get you down! the patterns are AWESOME, and a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Mr X Stitch and the crew for releasing them, and for their 1st birthday!


and of course, THANK YOU! God damn Mr X Stitch, you're a miracle!

Fabulous Father's Day Idea!

Erin at http://schlosserdesigns.blogspot.com has created two really awesome PDFs for a super simple but still super cool Father's Day present.

i don't know about you, but my dad is RIDICULOUSLY hard to shop for. if he wants something, he goes and buys it, no matter how close it is to a holiday (my brother's the same way. grr!) he was really into beer and wine making for a while, and that was somewhat easy to shop for - he got lots of books on the topics, and some various equipment. my sister gave him two big tubs of honey last father's day, and then managed to con him into giving her half the mead he made from it (still not sure how that worked out!).

anyway. he's kinda taking a break from the beer making now, and is super obsessed with his new boat. unfortunately, none of us know anything about boats, so that's much harder to shop for! we usually end up buying him home depot or canadian tire giftcards, which are such a cop out gift,and besides, my brother's girlfriend just gave him two big ones for putting in her hardwood flooring.

soo..... what to give him this year? a personalized tin full of candy wrapped in funky labels!

i LOVE the Custom Tool labels, they are so perfect for my dad - mechanical themed ones would be too, but motorcycle mufflers aren't really a selling design feature! he's definitely going to be getting a pack of resiens wrapped in tools this year!

Erin's doing a giveaway too, of both PDFs AND 2 tins to hold the candy! You have until Friday night to enter, so hustle on over. The PDFs in the giveaway are customizable with your own message, so they'd be equally perfect for a handy mother or partner!

Awesome Mail Day! (and kitty pics!)

i really should check my mail earlier in the day!

today i got lots of mail (i swear we always get more on mondays because they slack off on fridays!). i received several purchases from etsy -

3 prints from from www.cadmiumatelier.etsy.com, including this one

(i also purchased this one and this one)
they're awesome! super vibrant and crisp. i love the texture of silkscreening!

this cute little zine, which arrived packaged in an equally cute pink panther envelope, from www.EmmaJane.etsy.com


and these awesome catnip eyeballs, from www.hannapt.etsy.com


the cats love them already, mika's intent on loving them to death!



he's actually attacking sofie's eyeball in these pictures, he found it on my bed after he got tired of his own blue one! (um, yes, i bought the cats eyeballs that matched their own eye colours.... mika has to share with gigi and hemi though.)

and also super duper exciting, i got this book!!!!

about a month ago i won a book from whipup.net, but i didn't know which one i was going to get! i opened the envelope to find Linen, Wool, Cotton: 25 Simple Projects to Sew with Natural Fabrics by Akiko Mano. I've been flipping through it, and it's fabulous! Full of beautifully simple projects that look like they'll be a joy to sew. I can't wait to make something!

and i'm definitely going to be buying Patchwork Style: 35 Simple Projects for a Cozy and Colorful Life come May! (it was really hard to not add a U into colour while typing that!)

awesome mail day, huh?




and SPEAKING OF GIVEAWAYS!
sewmamasew is organizing a huge giveaway day on May 27th, with lots of blogs playing along! i got distracted, and just sent my e-mail in earlier this evening, but i'm hoping i made it, since it was only 10pm here on the west coast (it's kinda nice to find another blog in the same time zone as you - everyone seems to be on eastern time these days!). i've been planning on doing a giveaway for a while, but the timing is never right. i missed my 1 year blog-versary, and then i missed 150 and 200 posts (i kept realizing it at 152, or 207!). i was thinking i'd do 250 posts, but this gives me an excuse to just do it now!

so! i'll be posting the giveaway either late on the 26th or early on the 27th. i'm going to include at least one handmade item, and then some stash goodies as well, probably vintage fabrics or something of that sort. check back tomorrow to see the giveaway!

toronto craft alert contest!!!

toronto craft alert is having a great contest, and you can enter even if you don't live in toronto! you should go check it out!


Get 'Er Done Giveaway

the idea is to get your butt in gear and finish something, and have a chance to win a seriously kick ass prize package!

the deadline to enter is march 16, 2009, midnight EST, and i'm in manitoba, so it had to be a pretty simple project. god knows i have enough unfinished projects to choose from!

i have a really cool appliqued wall hanging that i started back in 1998 or 1999, and i'd love to have finished that, but i couldn't get it all gathered up and organized before i left for manitoba, so instead i decided to finish up the music quilt that i partially finished in july for the brother project. i bought the fabric for it in september 2007, so it has dragged on for a while!

unfortunately i'm in manitoba with crappy dial up, and i didn't remember to upload my "before" pic before i left. i finished it over the weekend while visiting my mom's side of the family and then sent it home with my mom (more luggage space for me and THRIFTING!!), so i'll take an "after" pic when i get home and upload it and the "before" picture super quick!

whew! my challenge project is complete! (ish!)

i didn't honestly think it would be, and it probably shouldn't be, i probably should have slept instead, but oh well! i had to send out 60 inchies yesterday morning, so i couldn't start on this until last night!

it is a work in progress, because i don't want to bind it right away, i'm hoping to add more pages in the future. but these pages are done!

(in case you missed it, my last post is about the adventure itself, including what the challenge was, and has lots of these photos in their original form)

all of the pages are difference sizes, which i love! this is what it looks like with most of them stacked together (a few were still drying!)



page 1

the photo was bleached and then torn, to really focus on the row of mailboxes. i added two solvent transfers and then the original of the postmark/date thingy, it's from ARTchix collage sheet "lavendar lovelies".

page 2

the eggs are from ARTchix collage sheet "E is for Egg" and i tinted them blue a bit to match the page better. all of the stamps are Invoke Arts, in various blue shades of stazOn.

page 3

the photo was altered with bleach, i used a q-tip to draw the oval, and then dripped bleach over the outside areas. again, the egg is from ARTchix collage sheet "E is for Egg" and i tinted it blue a bit to match the page better. all of the stamps are Invoke Arts, in various blue shades of stazOn.

page 4

the photo was sanded and painted with watercolour crayons. before gluing it down i added a library card catalogue for the book "Sea Swan". the images in the bottom right are from the ARTchix collage sheet "Petite Parade", tinted a bit, as usual!

page 5

the photo was sanded around the sides, and then it was coloured with watercolour crayons. after it was glued down, i used stazOn ink to blend the photo into the background better. the writing in the centre is stazOn, and the images in the 4 corners are ARTchix, from the collage sheet "Petite Parade". i smudged them a bit with grey stazOn before gluing them down.

page 6

this one is pretty simple, i'll probably add more to it at a later date. the photo is altered using bleach to write "WALK", and it's glued onto a piece of joss paper.

page 7

i edited this photo in photoshop before printing it out, and then scratched it up a bit after it was glued down. i added dabs of white stazOn, and the foil and the image were both free gifts from ARTchix.

page 8

simple, really. i edited the picture in photoshop, and then scratched "thrift" into it. i glued down some patterned paper on the sides before the photo was glued down, but you can barely see it.

page 9

this photo was printed off on my ink jet (the majority were printed at a photo lab), so i spritzed it with water a bunch to lighten it a bit, and then the edges were scratched and sanded. i added the lavender receipt from the ARTchix collage sheet Lavender Lovelies" and the moth is a solvent transfer from the ARTchix collage sheet "elegant insects".

page 10

fairly simple again. i used saddle brown stazOn to blend the paper and the photo together, and then stamped "exciting!" across the photo.

page 11

this a photo of the Upstart Crow sign, printed out and sanded around the edges. i added the blue stars sticker at the bottom, it was also a free gift from ARTchix, but i cut off the part that said "STAR" because it wouldn't fit!

page 12

this is an angled shot of the rows of carved wooden crows along the front window of th Upstart Crow. i bleached the photo and then sanded it.

page 13

photo of beads at the upstart crow bleached. i added the hand stamp (Invoke Arts, i think. maybe Alpha Stamps?) and the horoscope wheel and moon from the ARTchix collage sheet "Mystical".

page 14

photo of the Kroma paint display at the Upstart Crow (Kroma is a local brand!) that has been bleached around the edges. i stamped Art repeatedly with an Alpha Stamps stamp and stazOn, and then went around the edges of the page with the same ink.

page 15

this page is actually the backside of part of page 16, but since the page folds in, it comes first when you go through the book! simple again, sanded edges and paper and stamped Inspire with red stazOn and Invoke Arts stamp.

page 16

this page folds out to show two photos in a mirror image. the photo is of me, sleeping after all my adventures! i edited quite a bit in photoshop and then sanded and scratched the edges.

i'm pretty happy with it, and i'm looking forward to doing more pages and binding it, and hanging all sorts of dangly things off of the coil! i kind of feel like the backgrounds are kind of boring, because i didn't have time to do any background techniques that required drying! maybe that'll teach me not to leave my inchies to the last minute next time!

an adventure! (with photographic evidence!)

Helga from ARTChix Studios has weekly contests on her blog, and i've been saying i'm going to do one for a while, but of course it never happens!

the most recent challenge was actually a 2 week challenge, because she asked her readers to go on an adventure of some sort, and THEN create a piece of art.

i was really tempted, because when was the last time i went on an adventure anyway? i didn't really have the energy for it for a whole adventure, but on friday i was feeling better than usual, and i decided to make my own adventure out of the things i was doing that day.

so i went to massage in the morning, and then went across the border to pick up packages and mail stuff. after i was done at the postal carrier, i went to the park that's right on the beach, lighthouse park.

i wandered around point roberts and the beach taking pictures, and it felt really good. the beach was gorgeous, and it was a great day weather wise.


is that not completely random?


















after the beach, i drove into ladner and went to my favourite thrift store. i didn't take too many pictures there, cause i was busy shopping!


part of the crafty section. my favourite!


i was really tempted to buy this, but i resisted!


the box of pictures and frames is lined in velvet wallpaper. everytime i see it i think what a waste of awesome velvet wallpaper!

and then after the thrift store, i went to the upstart crow to check for a supply list for the Micheal deMeng class, so i took a bunch of pictures there as well.


















(i love those hat boxes!)




it was fun! i took a ton of pictures, and i was feeling pretty good. good day.