Giveaway Time!! Xmas Coasters!!

it’s giveaway day! or rather, giveaway week, which i gotta say, makes me SO happy! i really like the changes Sew Mama Sew has added this year. a whole week to visit blogs, and a set ending time? so awesome!

(Sew Mama Sew is facilitating hundreds of giveaways, you definitely have to go check it out. they have six separate lists, Handmade for the Home, Handmade Baby + Kid Items, Handmade Bags, Handmade Accessories, Sewing Supplies, and Other Craft Supplies (Non-Sewing). all the 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 hi! if you’re a new visitor, welcome, if you’re a regular reader, you already know that you’re loved, don’t you? but welcome to you too, in case you were wondering.

i’m amy dame, and this is glitter, vinyl and thread. i’ve contemplated changing the name, since i haven’t worked with vinyl in a while now, but who knows, i might find time to get back to it one day. besides, i hate thinking of names, i’m terrible at it. new guests and regular visitors might like to check out my "about me" page, over there on the right. it's kinda long, so feel free to skim. i tend to babble.

i do a lot of different things, but for the past year and a half, i’ve been obsessed with quilting. i’m on the exec for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and a member of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild, and i love it! i also do hand and machine embroidery, make clothing, and occasionally do more art focused pieces. i've been blogging here for more than 4 years now.

i also think it’s awesome that the Sew Mama Sew giveaways didn’t have to start on monday, because i’m obviously late. that’s really no surprise, but i have an excuse this time!

i’m away from home, again, halfway across the country, hanging out with my grandma. she’s been having some health issues, and shouldn’t really be alone, so i’ve spent much of the past 6 weeks here.

my sewing time has been limited, and my internet time has been even more so, so i totally forgot about the giveaway until blog posts started appearing in my inbox yesterday morning. i contemplated skipping it, but really, what’s the fun in that?

so i decided to sew up a set of coasters, which was the perfect excuse to use this kickass Alexander Henry xmas print that i picked up last month. i made a set of these last week for a swap, and when i made this set, i took a whole bunch of pictures, thinking that i might do a tutorial for them....

if you're interested. would you be interested in a tutorial? i guess you have to see what they look like before you decide, huh?



like 'em?

here's an action shot.

(disclaimer - the winner doesn't get my grandma's christmas mug, that was just a prop. you probably didn't want it anyway, but just in case...)



there are 6 hexagon shaped coasters. they each have a red linen hexie appliqued on the top, and cotton quilt batting to protect your furniture.



the backs are made up of the red linen, the green owl fabric, and a darker red Kona cotton.

see?



wanna win them?


here's 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 become a follower if you wanted to! or sign up for the handy-dandy e-mail feed! check back soon for another version of the coasters, and another giveaway for my birthday next week!)

* if you're participating in the Giveaway Day/Week and doing a giveaway yourself, leave me a second comment with a link to your giveaway. you get two entries because you're special!! yay!

* the giveaway is open until december 16 at 5pm PST

(the rules are almost exactly the same as the last giveaway, cause that worked!)


that's it! same as last time, leave me a comment about something fun... tell me what your last project was, 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, what new blog you just discovered, or what new fabric line you can't wait to order. tell me if you'd like a tutorial for the coasters! tell me what else you'd like to see a tutorial for. tell me something that'll make me glad that you stopped by. ;)

good luck!

xo,
amy

the Easiest-Peasiest Draft Stopper Ever! (with tutorial!)

i have lived in my apartment for over a year now, so for over a year now, i've been thinking that i need to make a draft stopper for my front door. there's a rather large gap below it, and for some reason, the hallway outside my door is really really freaking cold. (other hallways aren't, just mine. there's this darn vent right across from my door....)

i've had a few ideas. i bought a cute pair of stripey leg warmers that i was going to sew together and stuff. i eyed beautiful draft stoppers like the wool tree branch in Betz White's book "Sewing Green".

i had a few requirements for a draft stopper.

number one, it MUST be washable. i live in the land of dustbunnies, thanks to hardwood floors, my cat sofie, and the amount of work that i do with various fibres. that pretty much tossed out lovely wool stoppers, or anything in a light colour!

number two, it had to stay where i put it. sofie LOVES the hallway for some incomprehensible-to-humans reason, and sits at the gap at night. i knew that anything i tried to put down, she'd just pull away. plus, i wanted the door stopper to be in place when i wasn't home as well, so that meant it had to somehow lay against the door, even after i shut it behind me.

a few months ago, i found an awesome vintage towel, and it worked fairly well for the first requirement, but less so for the second. i kept thinking i'd sew it up and stuff it, and maybe add some straps, but i never got around to it.

fast forward to last wednesday, when i discovered the blog "Iron Craft" through a random post on facebook. Iron Craft started out as two friends in different parts of the states challenging each other to create cool things on a regular basis, but this year they've decided to open it up to anyone who wants to participate.



from their FAQ -
"Every Thursday one of us will post a creative challenge to be completed by the following Wednesday. The challenges maybe as specific as a particular pattern or as vague as a theme. They'll cover the gamut of crafting skills: knitting, sewing, quilting and so on. Every Wednesday we'll spotlight the results of the previous Thursday's challenge from our Flickr group."

they've had two challenges so far, challenge #1 was "lighting the winter gloom" and challenge #2 was "staying warm!", which translates to draft stoppers!

(be sure to check out their blog and their flickr pool to see what folks have made for each challenge, it's an amazing variety!)

reading their challenge info totally inspired me to get my butt in gear. i don't know if i'll be able to follow along all year, but i think it will be an interesting thing to attempt! i didn't manage to get my entry completed in time for this challenge, thanks to the need for a zipper (and if you saw my zipper collection, you'd see how ironic that is!) and only discovering the blog around supper time on wednesday, but i'm still super happy with it, so i thought i'd share, even if it is a week late. (today's deadline is a "bunting" themed project, which was the inspiration for my hoopla bunting pillow)


the first thing you need to know is that i LOOOOVE vintage towels. there's a specific kind that i like, and i'm not even sure if people in other countries have them, because 9 out 10 of them have tags that say "made in canada".



they're always two tone, with really fun brocade style prints (or random prints - i have a yellow one with buttons all over it that's my pride and joy!), and i've been collecting them for years. you occasionally see newer versions, but they're always cheap and thin. the ones i love are thick and lush and are pure cotton with none of that satin-finish crap, they actually DRY your hands and hair.

i have them scattered around the house, blue in my kitchen, purple in my bathroom for a bathmat, and pink toned ones in my old bathroom at my parent's house. i occasionally find ones that don't match anywhere, and i buy them anyway, because i have plans to one day make a big picnic/beach blanket out of them.


(note the kitchen towel with the vintage jantzen ad - it says "lure him... away from the poolboy!" how homoerotic is that? i love it! the 50s were so weird.)

so when i decided to use one of my cherished kitschy towels for my draft stopper, i really didn't want to cut it up at all.

my original thought was to make a tube and stuff it, and i thought about ways of sewing it with the excess on the inside, so that i could always take it apart later and use it as an actual towel if i wanted. and then i started thinking about washing it. stuffing take forever to dry, and after awhile it starts to get lumpy, which is no fun at all. what if i didn't stuff it at all?

and then the easiest-peasiest draft stopper was born! no stuffing, minimal sewing, and easy washing!

you'll need:

tools:
- pins
- matching thread
- sewing machine

supplies
- a towel, preferably one that's about 36" long, which is a standard for doors (handy, that!) if your door or window is wider, you'll want a bigger towel, or two to sew together
- a separating zipper the length of your towel, but if you can't find that, it's okay if it's a bit shorter. mine was 30", and it was fine.
- a piece of waistband width elastic, either to match your towel or your door, depending on how concerned you are with what your neighbours think! ;)


step one:
measure your towel and your door
if you need to sew two towels together, or shorten one, do it now. don't forget to finish the ends and seam allowances, cause toweling totally frays.



step two:
cut a piece of elastic the width of your door, minus about 10-15" (in my case, 36"-10" = 26") if your elastic is super duper stretchy, you may want to cut yours shorter, but mine's a pretty standard waistband elastic, with minimal stretch. if you're being especially perceptive, you'll be thinking "but amy, your elastic doesn't look like it's 10" shorter than your towel..." and you'd totally be right! the photos are all taken with a longer piece of elastic, because it wasn't until it was done that i realized i needed to shorten the elastic. i went back and unpicked one end and took about 12" off, and i still could have cut it a bit shorter.



step 3:
zigzag the ends of your elastic to keep it from fraying, which is kind of a pain. it's usually easiest if you start in the centre of the edge and backstitch, rather than trying to start at the corner.



step 4:
sew the end of your elastic to one end of your towel. you want the elastic to go along the long side, NOT the short side of the towel! making sure that you haven't twisted the elastic, sew the other end to the other side of the towel.





step 5:
lay your towel down and start rolling it up, starting with the edge that has the elastic sewn on it



step 6:
when you've rolled the towel into a tube, pin the edge to the roll



step 7:
now go along and pin the towel just beside the edge, to mark where it meets



step 8:
unroll the towel, and you'll see your line of pins



step 9:
now take your separating zipper and sew it along the line of pins, with the teeth facing the elastic side of the towel



step 10:
take the other half of your separating zipper and sew it to the long side of your towel that doesn't have elastic sewn onto it, with the teeth facing out. you want to sew this zipper face down on the opposite side of towel that the other zipper was sewn on.



this is confusing to explain, but very easy to do! basically, you're going to end up with your two pieces of zipper facing opposite directions.



step 11:
roll your towel up again, like in step 5. once it's fully rolled, do up the zipper.



step 12:
slip the elastic around your door, and put your draft stopper in place.



ta-da! draft stopper!

and to wash, just slide it off the door and unzip it. you can toss it in with your regular towels, and it'll wash and dry just like a regular towel, making it super easy to clean!


cool, huh?


this is seriously the quickest, simplest draft stopper ever. it's taken me at least 4 times as long to edit photos and write it out than it did to make it, even with my seampicking (oops!) and photographing every step. if i had a second door, i'd make another one to time it, but i don't, so just trust me when i say it's super quick, kay?

kitschy coasters!

you know, i've never really understood most coasters. i've always thought that their main purpose was to protect your table from damage caused by liquid, ie condensation on a glass or cup. unless, of course, there's some magical coaster purpose that i'm missing?

but most coasters you see are either entirely absorbent, so that the condensation soaks right in, ending up on your table anyway, or else they're not absorbent at all, and the condensation drips right off, onto your table!


today i decided to make the perfect coasters, coasters that were a mesh of the two types, the answer to my lifelong question!

i made two sets, one is a prize in my BLOG GIVEAWAY, and the other is listed in my etsy shop. they're prototypes, and i think i'll be changing things a bit for the next few batches, but i still love how they turned out!


the top layer is vintage cotton (with a super cute gingham and folkish design!) quilted to batting to absorb the moisture, and the bottom layer is a matching bright red vinyl, to keep the moisture from seeping through to your table.

one set has green quilting,



and the other has yellow. i think i like the yellow best...





both sets are backed with matching red vinyl.


what do you think?