The snowy kids

Winner Winner Spaghetti Dinner Part 2

Thanks so much for warming my heart with all your kind words. You did come back, you did! And thanks for all the birthday wishes for our little guy, so sweet of you. He's outside right now enjoying some snow fun with his siblings.

And to answer a couple questions I was asked...my blog banner is a photo of a bowl that sits next to my desk, just a bunch of vintage goodies for inspiration. Right now it holds some Christmas pretties. 

And someone commented on my profile that they didn't know what "anthro" was. Well here you go, www.anthropologie.com, best store. ever.

And a winner, yes, the winner. Randomly chosen by a random kid asked to pick a random number. No need for the Random Number Generator website here :)

Our winner is Susana, who commented,

See? Way more than two!

Happy birthday to your little one!
Something nice: my baby girl (she's just shy of one) just waved hi to your boy's picture.

Congratulations Susana, I will be in touch!!

And thank you again everyone...I'm inspired to post more now that I know you're out there.

Here are a few more snippets of Christmas around our house. Enjoy the last few days of preparation...I'm off to make hot cocoa for some snowy kids.

xoxo

Ruth

Winner Winner Spaghetti Dinner

Hi there,

Yes, day late but we have a winner!! Comments were tallied and a number was randomly chosen.
SO............number 206, sarahby who wrote  "OHHHH good give away. What a great blog I'll definitely be coming back. God Bless"    is our winner! 


Now, just for fun, I would like to try something. Another giveaway, just to see how many people actually are going to come back to read my blog and see who won!!
 I'm hoping it's more than like....2  :/
I'll be sad if it's like.....2

So leave a comment, tell me something nice and I'll pick another winner a week from now. You will win 8 fat quarters from my shop, YOUR CHOICE  ! Or pick 4 half yards or 2 yards, you get the idea :)

And a birthday wish for this little guy who turned 3 today, our youngest~

I love your determination

and your frustration

and your anticipation.

I love how you mix up your words, it's okay buddy, we still know what you're trying to say :)

I love your love for your big brother and sisters.

I love how my heart is squished up in your chubby fist.

You bring us SO much joy!

Happy Birthday my sweetie boy!!

xoxoxo

Giveaway Day is here again!!

It's time again! I'm participating in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!! One lucky winner will be chosen at random to win a fat quarter set , pictured below, from Heather Bailey's brand new collection, Nicey Jane. All you have to do is check out my shop and come back and leave a comment. You will get an extra entry if you become a follower of my blog. A winner will be chosen on December 7. Offer open to US, Canadian, and International friends :)

Good luck!

Meadowsweet

Just popping in to share the Michael Miller goodness! 8 boxes are on their way to me as I write this!! I'm thinking it's Meadowsweet, what do you think?

Going out to wait on the step for the truck :)

Surprise, here I am at the top of your blog roll!! I know, it doesn't happen very often :0

I always go to post something and before you know it I'm reading everyone else blogs and it's the middle of the night...again...

So before I get sidetracked....again... I want to thank everyone for the Sew Love Christmas love! The shop is doing well and I've sold out and restocked a lot already. It's been fun and I'm getting a lot of ideas for next year too. And remember those sets that I mentioned a couple posts ago...I was going to list a bunch every Monday??? I know, I listed them one week and then with two busy shops and half of us with the flu, well you know how that goes! I do have more though and am listing them as soon as I'm done with this post. I think I have 8 or 9 that I will be listing. They will be priced to sell!

I've managed to fit in a little sewing this fall but realized I never shared my summer sewing, so here are a few pictures of some things I made this summer.

It's easy to guess what my favorite thing to sew is :)

Here's a dress for my niece Halle, modeled by our Lili using a mix of prints from Alexander Henry, Jennifer Paganelli, and Anna Maria Horner and the "Frida" pattern by Patty Young.

A sundress for Emma using the Mezzanine fabrics by Patty Young and my pal Julie's "Little Bow Chic Dress" pattern.

Love the bow in the back and by the way, this pattern is super simple to make, perfect for the beginner!

A halter for Chloe using the Summer Soiree prints by Paula Prass and Amy Butler's Halter pattern.

Love how the keyhole matched up with the "nosegay" in the fabric. Isn't it great when you plan something and it actually works out!

That's it for now, have to run and list those sets! I'll try not to stay away so long next time :)

xo

ruth

New Shop Launch

I've been typing and listing all day so am tired, tired, tired...but excited!! I launched my new shop today, Sew Love Christmas. Lots of great Christmas fabric and patterns. Just felt the need to put them in a shop of their own since I can only have 10 sections on Etsy and mine were all filled up :)

Hope you like it!! I'm thinking it will stay open through the first of the year, ending with a sale in January and then will close until fall 2010.

Shop Talk

I've had some really pretty fabrics come in over the past week. The Girly Girl collection from Art Gallery is so pretty! The colors are just so beautiful!!

And then the fabric I've been waiting for since Spring Market, Teatime Floral 2 from Lakehouse Dry Goods. Her booth was my very favorite at Market. She had paper fans, the same print as the seed packs going the whole way around her booth.

If you like modern and trendy, then you better not look :) I'm not kidding, just leave now...and don't say I didn't warn you ;) This is nostalgic, vintage inspired polished cotton at its best. My favorite is the seed packs print, I'm using that for something, not sure what but something.

I'm still waiting for the print with the little tea cakes to come in, they had a problem with the printing on that one.

I would have to say though the biggest excitement for me this week was the unveiling of Meadowsweet by Sandi Henderson. I had already ordered it sight unseen but had to call and double up once I saw it. I'll be sitting on the curb waiting for the man in brown for that one!!

Love the browns and oranges, wish I could have them now for fall!

~~~Side Note~~~

I've cleaned out the closet in my studio again :) The closet is where the remnants go and the whoops, I cut the wrong amount pieces. Also the random fat quarters since you always cut 2.

So I have many, too many to list all at once, one of a kind sets that I've decided to list on Mondays. I figure I'll list about 5 of them every Monday morning and once they're gone, they're gone. The last time I did this, I had customers asking when I was going to list them and I had to tell them to look under my sold column :( So don't be disappointed, check in Monday mornings and snatch them up!

~~~Side Note #2~~~

I am opening up a new shop and will be letting you in on that soon!!

It's going to be fun!

xo

Ruth

Let's Play Catch Up

I know, I know, it's been a while. We had quite a summer with some scary medical issues with one of our children. Too many trips to the doctor, too many hospitals and tests, surgery and opinions, then second and third opinions... and the waiting and waiting for results. I am very, very thankful that right now, right this minute, all is well. Prayers have been answered. Thank you God for being so good. Thank you for teaching us to slow it down and hold tight to the precious children you have entrusted us with. Thank you for giving us hope.

And the Winner is...

Time's up everyone!! It was actually up a while ago but Blogger hasn't been cooperating with me and letting me on all day! Anyway thank you everyone for all the nice comments about my shop and all the great ideas. I had no idea that you like to shop by color, I'll have to see what I can do about that :)

Since it's late and the kids are all in bed, I had to go with the random generator to pick a number.....and that number is 452! Sheri said...

Wonderful Fabrics! I love your shop. I like the way that you have fabrics grouped together. Makes shopping faster. I really like groups of fat quarters. After all don't we all want a little bit of everything.

Congratulations Sheri!! I will be contacting you shortly!

Well, time's up for the chance to win the sewing machine for the Old Red Barn Co. giveaway! Thank you so much Dana for holding our hands and helping us make our quilts. It has been a whole lot of fun with good laughs along the way! I thought I would offer yet one more chance at a prize... for the 1786 people that didn't win the sewing machine...

A chance to make another quilt!! I'm giving away 12 half yards, enough to make another quilt top, from Paula Prass' new collection, Summer Soiree. All you have to do is visit my shop, and come back here and leave a comment about what you saw or let me know how you like to search for fabric, by designer or collection, manufacturer or do you just look around and see what you like? I'm always looking for ways to organize my shop to make it easier to find what you are looking for! Giveaway will continue until Saturday, July 11th at noon, good luck everyone! Don't forget to leave your email address or some other way that I can contact you if you win!

Summer Sidewalk Sale

Just a quick post to let you know I've pulled all of my sale stuff out of my studio to make room for all the new goodies coming in!! Have you seen Summer Soiree and Full Bloom and Mezzanine? They are just beautiful and so summery! Anyway the hallway outside looks like I'm having a sidewalk sale :P Wish you could all come over and shop and have some cookies and coffee with me. Help me clear it out, I have a few yards of this and a little of that. There's some Pop Garden on clearance and Andalucia. Good, good deals!! I'll leave you with some pictures of the new stuff ....

Dena Designs "Snowflower"
Bari J's "Full Bloom"

Jennifer Paganelli's "Dance With Me and Pretty Please"

Patty Young's "Mezzanine"

My New Best Friend

My new best friend drives a VW :)

My computer got fried recently during a bad storm.

Threw me back a bit and I'm still trying to copy everything onto my new computer. If you emailed me and I haven't responded, better resend it. Luckily the geek squad came to the rescue. The kids thought I made up the name when I mentioned the Geek Squad was coming to help me with the computer. Imagine the snickering going on when the poor guy pulled up in this with his badge on :0

I had to refrain from asking him if they really made them wear the white socks with the shiny black dress shoes. I mean really. He was great though, totally let me pick his brain and ask him a bazillion questions.

It's all working out for the best, I was in need of a new computer anyway and am loving my new MacBook...now that I almost know how to use it....almost....

Anyway, more exciting things now, like back to sewing talk. Have you been quilting along with Dana at the Old Red Barn Co.? I have and it's been fun! It's not too late to start (believe me, I'm no where near caught up) She has been giving weekly instructions on making a quilt. One step at a time, week by week. At the very least I hope you've been entering the fabulous giveaways that she is doing. This week is the grand finale sewing machine giveaway. Then there's a little secret giveaway. It involves my shop. That's all I'm saying. Really. Only other thing I'm saying is you better check back in a week or so. You think my SewMamaSew giveaway was good, that was nuthin' !

Here are some pictures of my progress. I used Valori Well's Del Hi fabric with Paula Prass' Rain Dot. I wanted it to be summery, I'm thinking picnic blanket hopefully while it's still summer...this summer ;)

Love these guys!!

Way to go Pens!!!

hello goodbye doll

When going through all of the comments from the Sew Mama Sew contest, I came across a website on someone elses blog, Craft Hope. Now I'm all about hope, our youngest daughters middle name is Hope, her first name is Lili which pretty much means Hope and a lot of time it is hope that gets us through, right? So I click on the Craft Hope badge and it takes me to the most wonderful site. Their motto is "spreading seeds of hope, one stitch at a time." Now this I love!

In their "about" page reads the following, "Craft Hope is a faith-based, love inspired project designed to share handmade crafts with those less fortunate. It is our hope to combine our love for crafting and desire to help others into a project to make a difference around the world."

So their last project was making dolls for children in Nicaragua. Although there were only days left before the dolls were due in, I knew I had to make a doll to send. So here is Lucy. And she is on her way filled with all the love that we could possibly stuff her with. and hope. lots and lots of hope.

Their next project will be announced on June 14th, so please click on the badge over there on the right and I'll be giving updates here as well.

New giveaway going on at Venezie Bags! Go check it out and enter!! www.veneziebags.blogspot.com

some sewing for Lili

Just wanted to pop in with a quick post as the final school days are winding down and keeping me busier than my normal busy! I finished up this skirt for our youngest daughter Lili. I used mostly Tina Givens and Amy Butler prints and the PinkFig pattern, the Mish Mash skirt. It was fun to put together :)

grateful

Jeez, wow, oh my gosh and are you kidding me????? I mean, are you kidding me??? 703 comments?? I feel like Anna Maria Horner with all those comments!


Thank you, thank you, all of you nice people that took the time to enter the giveaway and for all the kind words and support. I am very grateful and read each and every one of them. I hope that you check in with me often, especially if you like giveaways, cause I do too! And thank you SewMamaSew for hosting and organizing this fun event.

Now let's talk about the consolation prize first :) If you left a comment, I am offering a 15% discount on your order at my shop until June 5th. Just enter the code GIVEAWAYDAY in the "note to seller" at check out and I will credit you back for 15% of your order before shipping cost.
And now to the winners :) Of course, with 5 kids we had to turn this into a math problem! Each child chose a number and then we got the average of..... 187 , comment left by kathytypestoo.

And just to prove to the first person that left a comment, Jennifer, that it not unlucky to be first, I'm giving you a set too :) Because I feel like it. Please contact me.

Giveaway Day is here!!

I'm participating in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!! One lucky winner will be chosen at random to win a fat quarter set from Erin McMorris' new collection, Wildwood. It is a beautiful, contemporary mix of citrus yellows, mint greens, and bold pinks! All you have to do is leave a comment and a winner will be chosen on May 31st. Offer open to US, Canadian, and International friends :)

And more Quilt Market!

A lovely vignette with Bari J.'s debut collection, Full Bloom.

Pattern Designer Kay Whitt and myself. I checked in with her each day just to see what she was wearing! Well and to say hi just because she's so incredibly sweet!!

Here is a great trench made from her Sophie Trench Coat pattern. The fabric is a twill from Moda's Wonderland collection. I have a bit of it left in the jam colorway and am making this for sure! Love how she used the ladybug from the Rabbit Hole print as the top button!

A festive quilt from the Funky Christmas collection for Michael Miller.

Quilt Market birds :)

Here is Lila Tueller in her beautiful booth featuring her newest collection, Santorini. She has a bunch of fun, new patterns coming as well!

Here are a couple quilts made with Joel Dewberry's new line, Deer Valley which he tells me is shipping soon!!

I sat in on one of Kaffe Fassett's classes. He has some great new prints coming out and had lots of stories to share.

Here is a picture of Heather Bailey and her BIGGEST fan ever, my daughter Chloe! They shared peeks into each others sketchbooks and Heather was happy to share some great tips for my budding designer. Heather has a gorgeous new line coming up for fall! The beautiful quilt in the backround is from Kaffe Fassett's prints.

That's all for today but much more to come!