And the winner is....

Lauren from Shooting Stars Mag!

I just want to say thank you to everyone for who participated. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing other giveaways in the future.

Finally a reason for whales

A couple months back I had found this pattern for a stuffed whale from small dream factory. I wanted so badly to make it but didn't really have a purpose for it. So I tucked the blog link away for when just the right purpose arose and it did!

A friend of mine is having a baby very soon. She is having a little boy and they are decorating the nursery in a nautical theme. Yay a reason for me to make a whale! I like to do things in twos when I am sewing so I cut two little whales. This way I get to keep one for myself and I am happy I do because these little guys are super cute.

Now that I have bored you with way too many pictures of a stuffed whale you should go check out small dream factorie's blog. They have a bunch of other fun tutorials that I can't wait to try out. Have fun!

Incase you have already entered today is the very last day of my bloggy giveaway so do what you need to do.

Getting new fun and trying new things

I intended to do a lot of sewing this weekend but I didn't really work out that way. I got a little bit of work done on by quilts and some progress made on a pile of wallets but nothing ever finished or completed.
Mostly I did some etsy shopping for fun fabrics and supplies. My first package of crafting goodness arrived today from Giantdwarf. I ordered a beautiful lot of fancy colorful felt. I am oh so excited to do some fun applique with it.

Earlier last week I decided to make a pattern for a mini wallet or card holder. I have had some requests for them at shows. So I decided to finally create them. I am pretty happy with the way the came out. They are super cute and compact.

Tomorrow is the last day of my super awesome bloggy giveaway.  So get your butt in gear and enter your name into the drawing.

Just keep sewing

I had the last two of my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday and I haven't yet fully recovered.  But I am attempting to work through the nagging pain in my mouth and keep up with my many sewing projects. I have been regularly working on my quilts and amazingly I have almost enough quilt blocks finished to start piecing it together.

These pictures are a week or so old so I do have more blocks now but I just haven't taken the time to take more recent pictures.

I have also started working on stuff for my shop again. I have a few wallets I am finishing up and last night I finally finished this race cart tote I have had sitting on my sewing table for a couple months.

I am currently doing a giveaway if you haven't entered your name into the drawing yet you should and you could win a super awesome new wallet check it out http://petalspurses.blogspot.com/2010/01/super-awsome-bloggy-giveaway.html

A little quilting update.

I have been steadily working on my quilts. It is my goal to do at least one square per quilt a day. Some days it doesn't quite work out that way but there are days when I get crazy and do an extra couple of squares so it evens out. I find that work to be a little tedious but I am still enjoying it and I have been able to watch seasons 1 and 2 of Weeds while sewing and doing other craft related work.
Here are a couple glimpses of what I have so far

I am loving the mix of new and vintage fabrics and I absolutely adore all the Japanese prints in there. It is so much fun. Ever time I get a few squares done I take all of them and lay them out on the floor and imagine the greatness they will become.

New items to come

I have been busily taking and editing pictures of new items to list in my shop.



And this isn't even all of it.

The scrap quilting has begun!

One of the few things I promised myself I would do the this year is make a quilt. I even kinda planned things out for this event. For a while now I have been holding onto and hiding away Little bits of fabric and I did research!
I had decided that I would use 2 different blocks in my quilt. I love me a good pinwheel quilt

But it seemed like it would be a lot of work so I decided I would mix the pinwheel in with a simpler roman square quilt block

So I made myself some little patterns. I had decided to do 12 inch blocks since this is my first full sized quilt. I pressed out my fabrics and got to cutting. When I got a good sized pile of pieces cut out I decided it was time to test my quilting abilities.
It turns out my quilting abilities are pretty good but my math or maybe just my direction following abilities aren't so good. My pinwheel block came out to be a 12 inch square but my roman square block was only 9 inches. Apparently I was looking at the wrong measurements when I made my pattern piece for that one. Oops!

Here are my first 4 blocks

At this point I decided that I had cut too many pieces to scrap the roman square and I liked to way it turned out. So I came to the decision to make 2 quilts (yes I know I am nuts) at the same time. I will keep the pinwheel for myself and give the other as a super special surprise for someone.
We'll see how it all turns out but I am super excited and enjoying the process so far.