An "Amazing" Video

Carrie Underwood and Vince Gill's duet of "How Great Thou Art."  It is absolutely beautiful!

Happy Friday ... and Help Wanted

Just taking a break from packing to let you know I'm still here .... surrounded by clutter and boxes, but I'm still here!

One of the best things about our new home is that I finally get my own craft room.... yay! I am so excited to have a room dedicated solely to sewing and crafting. I am already thinking of ways to decorate and organize the room.

Do any of you have any tips you can share with me about organizing the space?  How do you store your fabric? I have an armoire that I can put in the room that I was thinking about using for my fabric storage. I bought some comic book boards and was planning on wrapping the fabric around them as shown here.

I'm going to need a desk and maybe a nicer sewing table than the fold-up table I am currently using! I think I might browse the thrift stores for those.

I'd appreciate any and all suggestions you can give me for organizing and decorating my new sewing space!

Have a great weekend. 

Movin' on Up

I won't be doing much sewing and crafting for the next month or so, as DH and I will be moving!

I'll be spending my time sorting through closets, cupboards and drawers and packing up moving boxes. We have lived in this house for ten years, so I've got my work cut out for me.

My blog postings will be few and far between, but I'll try to stop by your blogs when I can and say hello.

And The Winners Are ....

Funny story about those patterns... I e-mailed Izzy & Ivy to thank them for sending me sooo many patterns and it turns out that their shipping clerk made a mistake in sending me so many... she was only supposed to send me one each of the five patterns... oops!

I'm more than happy to share them, though, so the lucky winners are ....
all of you!  That's right, I decided that since three of you wanted them - Karin, Andrea and Kara -  all of you are going to get the patterns!  Yay!!

Ladies, please send me an e-mail (azbelle3@yahoo.com) with your mailing info so that I can get them mailed out to you. Congratulations and happy sewing!

One Good Turn Deserves Another... and Now Another (AKA The Giveaway!)

Last month I participated in the Basics Charity Challenge and donated items to my local Ronald McDonald House. I really enjoyed participating and have made it a goal to continue to donate to local charities.

Well, imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail from Cara at Cara Quilts telling me I had won a prize in her drawing from all of those who participated! She told me I had won some patterns from Izzy & Ivy Designs.

Imagine my surprise again when I received my package from Izzy & Ivy yesterday and it contained not one, not two, but FIVE copies each of FIVE different patterns!! That's right, they sent me 25 patterns in all!!!

Since one good turn deserves another... and now another.... I have decided that TWO of my lucky followers will each win a set of the five patterns. Here they all are:

There's a messenger bag that I can't wait to make for myself:

The cutest hat called "Jack and Jill" that you can make for a boy or girl.

An adorable top called Beverly Belle ... wish they had it in my size... LOL!  Looks like it has plenty of "twirl factor!"

For sleepovers at Grandma's house, there is the Gabby's Sleepover Jammies pattern. They can be made out of cotton or flannel, and if you put leggings under it they could wear it as a dress... adorable!

And last, but certainly not least, there is the Claire Marie Topcoat. You could use different fabric options to make a warm winter coat or a darling spring jacket.

The hat size chart shows sizes Newborn to Adult; the twirly top, jammies and coat all show a size chart from 2T to 14!  I snuck a peek at the patterns and they look great ... plenty of instructions and diagrams so that even a newbie sewist like me could make them.

So how do you win you ask? It's simple... just be a follower of my blog and leave me a comment on this post telling me you want them. Easy peasy!

The deadline to enter is by midnight this Friday, March 25, 2011. I will draw the 2 lucky winners on Saturday using a random number generator.  Please be sure and leave your e-mail address so that I can contact you if you are one of the winners.

Good luck everyone!

A Sewing Tip

It is not often that I come up with an original idea when it comes to sewing. However, one day while I was sewing the projects with my SIL Beth I had an epiphany, so I thought I would share it with you.

I love using my rotary cutter, mat and rulers - they make cutting fabric so much easier. But sometimes when I am cutting a longer piece of fabric and using my 6 X 24 inch ruler, I would find that the ruler would sometimes wiggle on me at the very top.  The thought struck me - why not anchor the ruler with something heavy to make the ruler stay in place?

I went to the pantry and grabbed a bag of lentil beans and voila - no more wobbly ruler!! I decided to take it one step further and I made a cover for my bag 'o beans!

Since I actually needed those lentils for a recipe, I scrounged through the pantry and found a half-open bag of kidney beans, as well as a half-open bag of popcorn.

Since the bag of lentils worked pretty good, I decided to make my bag about that size. I found some home-dec weight fabric in my bag of scraps and set to work. I just cut the fabric to size, put it wrong sides together, sewed around the edges, and left a small opening for turning. Once I turned it inside out, I filled it up with the kidney beans and popcorn. My dear SIL Becky hand-stitched the small opening closed for me (because she knows how much I hate hand-stitching!)

Now I have a nice weight that I can use to hold my ruler in place while cutting.

Project Number Four - Fat Quarter Bags

The fourth and final project Beth and I made together was a Fat Quarter Bag using this pattern:

It is Pattern #1144 Six Pack Stack Reversible Fat Quarter Tote by Whistlepig Creek Productions. I either bought this pattern at a quilt show or at Jo-Anns, I don't remember which.  If you are interested in it, it is probably available on-line also.

We liked it so much we ended up making 4 of them! Here is the first one I made, which I gifted to my other SIL Becky:

It has four pockets total; 2 on the outside and 2 on the inside.

I then made one for myself in pinks and purples. Here is one side of it:

And here is the other side:

I added a magnetic snap to mine, since I wanted to use it as an everyday purse. I now love magnetic snaps!! They are so easy to put in and work great. We just reinforced the area where we put them in with some small pieces of leftover fusible fleece.  I'll give you a tip too; I found several different kinds at Jo-Anns, but they were cheaper in the purse handle section than they were in the notions area!

Beth ended up liking the pattern so much she made 2 bags for herself:

Here is the interior of the one on the right:

I really liked this pattern.  It was perfect for a newbie sewer like me, with detailed instructions and diagrams to help me through each step in the process.  Be aware that you will pretty much use every inch of your fat quarters, so make sure your fat quarters are truly 18 X 21. We had to make our handles a little shorter than we wanted on a couple of these because the fabric was not cut true to size.

As usual, Beth and I ended up using some of the decorative stitches on these too!

I had so much fun sewing with my sister-in-law that I have asked her to come back this summer for another visit! The next time we will tackle quilting, which I am so anxious to learn. I think we've even convinced our other SIL Becky to buy a new sewing machine and join us! It's going to be so much fun... I can't wait!