More Sewing Summit!

Hey y'all! How's everyone doing! So, as many of you know I attended Sewing Summit back in October; when I found out I was going I contacted my lovely editor at Stitch Craft Create and pitched her the idea of writing an article about the conference. She agreed and so for the entire conference I took pictures, jotted down ideas, made notes about classes, attendance and participants, and just generally got into the spirit by absorbing everything that was going on around me. I spent a hectic few days writing and editing my article and gathering my pictures and sent it off to SCC before I had even been home for a week.

My article appears in the Winter 2013 issue of SCC which can be found on newsstands now! As always, this issue is filled with gorgeous crafty projects including an ear warmer by Kay Whitt that I think is seriously lovely and a chevron pillow from Corey embellished with buttons. There's also an article on Modern Inspirations from my friend Thomas.

And here it is! Obviously I can't post the entire article online, and that opening bit there wasn't even written by me, but I did I take all of the pictures included in the article - there's a little bit of my vintage thread collection to add some colour! Unfortunately the lighting in the Sewing Summit venue is pretty yellow and terrible, so most of my pictures from the actual event weren't used, but at least it means that I took a ton of pictures (nearly 200) to remember it by. If you're interested in learning a bit more about Sewing Summit from a slightly different perspective, be sure to pick up this issue before it's gone!

And thinking about Sewing Summit led me to remember that I never actually showed any of the projects I completed in my classes at the conference - man, I am running a little behind! One of the projects was made as a gift for my mum for Christmas so I'll show that when I share all of her presents, but here's the other one.

I took Kelly's class and made my first frame pouch - I love it! The exterior is a fussycut print from Heather Ross' Far Far Away II and the inside...

Is a print from Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley! I got a lot of compliments on this fabric combination from other attendees - many people said that they wouldn't have ever thought to put the two together. My corners aren't rounded as nicely as I would have liked, but it was a bit of a steep learning curve with the machines we had to use in classes. My machine is older and all manual, so using a computerized machine for the first time was a bit of a challenge! I still love it though and need to figure out a way to use it more often.

My Sewing Summit swag which I (apparently) also forgot to share with everyone - some bought, some won, some gifted, some samples - dang, that was a good haul!

Sewing Summit Swap: Part One

After Sewing Summit finished up I received a notification asking if I'd like to participate in a swap being held for people who attended - of course I said yes! I received my partner notification a little while later and had been busily thinking of what I should make her; I looked though her blog, Flickr, and Pinterest and still had no idea what to do! Her style is close to mine in some ways, but many of the things I thought to make her she had already made something similar for herself. So I settled on "cute" with a few extras, hah!

Using a little munki munki from Heather Ross and a lot of blue scraps I made her a small log cabin-inspired pincushion! The finished size is about 4x4" so each of the little strips measures half an inch wide finished - I don't think I've ever made a log cabin using such small pieces before but it was pretty fun to work in miniature. The scraps are a mix of all kinds of things - Joel Dewberry, Heather Bailey, Liesl Gibson, Lizzy House, and a slew of others. I forgot to take a picture of the back but I used Mixed Signals in Sea Foam from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush and sewed on one of my own "handmade by" labels too! It's hard to see in the pictures, but I also added some batting to the top and did a little bit of quilting before putting it all together.

I thought I was being pretty clever putting the munki munki tomato pincushion in the centre of an actual pincushion... oh, I slay myself! It really is just the perfect fit too - miniature pincushion on a pincusion - good times!

My swap partner mentioned that she loves Denyse Schmidt's new Chicopee so I included a 2.5" square of all but two of the fabrics in the collection because I know she likes to make EPP hexagons. I also included two of my own handmade washi tape magnets as a little extra.

My partner hasn't received her package yet (so I can't reveal who she is), but I really hope she likes it! I haven't received my package yet either, but I've seen some really great stuff posted to the Flickr group and am really excited for it to arrive!

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. -Henry David Thoreau

Every time we're meeting up Jennifer, Doe, and I always give/make each other presents; this year at Sewing Summit was no exception!

On top of giving them both books - five L.M. Montgomery books for Jennifer (most of you will know Montgomery as the author of Anne of Green Gables) and a Japanese craft book for Doe - I made them each a pencil case and filled them with little goodies. I used this tutorial from A Spoonful of Sugar but added my own little touches like the lace and embroidering each of their initials on to the linen.

For Doe's pencil case I used natural linen and three prints from Heather Ross's Far Far Away II collection, along with some cotton lace, a dreams pull tab, and a pink zipper. Inside I tucked some groundhog sticky tabs, a pencil, a doughnut shaped eraser, the carousel doe pin from the Black Apple (of course Doe needed the doe pin!), and some fabric tape/stickers I made. I can not for the life of me remember what the Japanese craft book I got her was called though!

For Jennifer's pencil case I used some natural linen, two prints from Far Far Away II, and a cute Japanese clothesline print from Project by Cotton. For this one I also included some cotton lace, a little red riding hood pull tab, and a minty-green zipper. The little goodies I included are very similar to what I put in Doe's pencil case except that the sticky tabs have a fox on them, the eraser is a popsicle, and the Black Apple pin features a hedgehog (I should mention that I also got one of these pins for Katy too - with the tattooed lady on it!). The L.M. Montgomery books were Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, Emily's Quest, Jane of Lantern Hill, and The Story Girl.

Making these pencil cases was only my second time installing zippers (the first was my Art Student Tote), and I definitely had some issues but all-in-all I think they turned out quite cute and I like the personal touches like the lace and embroidered initials. If you missed it you can see my pressies from Jennifer and Doe in this post!!

Sewing Summit: Friends and Good Times!

So, I arrived back home from Sewing Summit very late on Sunday night - my journey home included a plane, a car, a bus, and then another car. Jealous yet? *wink*

Sewing Summit was flippin' amazing! I'm going to go into more detail about the classes and lectures, things I made, etc. later but right now all I really want to talk about is all of the super-awesome people I met/saw again/hung out with. I can't even express how really, really neat it was. I've had the lucky opportunity to twice attend Quilt Market, and I've met lots of great people there, but Sewing Summit was like an explosion of super-cool peeps!

This is Elena, Alexia, Katy, Laura Jane, me, and Megan at the bar in our hotel. And that coffee cup near the front of the shot? That's Thomas! At the table beside Thomas (there just wasn't enough room in our booth) were Angela, Christina, Audrie, Terri, and Sheila - woot! This is pretty much what it looked like for us every night - good times I tell you!

And this is hilarious - apparently Thomas and I are twins!! We didn't even notice until I went to walk past him and my leg brushed his; I looked down - mustard pants! Thomas looked up - plaid shirts and greyish cardigans! Oh my!

We spent a fair amount of time in the little lounge area on the second floor sewing and chatting away. Big thanks to Kelly for taking this pic so that I could be in it too!!

Angela, Anna, Sheila, and I all ended up on the same flight to Detroit; now you know why it took me so many modes of transportation to get home...because I didn't actually fly to Toronto. Sheila and I drove to Detroit and then flew to SLC. It was rather more complicated than that getting home. Because I'm a big baby and all I wanted to do on Sunday night was get home. I think I irritated the hell out of Sheila that day. But we're still like besties so it's all good.

I thought since I'm talking all about friends in this post that I should also show off the amazing gifties I received! Although Sheila and I flew in on Wednesday, we didn't actually have a room until Thursday, so we bunked with my girls Jennifer and Doe for the night (on the floor). And they both brought me birthday presents - hurray!!

Doe gave me the Heather Ross Prints book - thank you Doe!! And Jennifer made me this super-amazing Birdie Sling using Tula Pink's Birds & the Bees, as well as two cute notebooks, and a skein of Madelinetosh Sock in Thicket. Jennifer always spoils me rotten and I absolutely love her for it!

Christina gifted me with this beautiful mini quilt that she used as a sample in the curves class she taught - isn't it pretty?!

Here's a better picture of the mini and that's the bunting that Katy made using some Saffron Craig prints! I think I'm going to hang it either over our bed or over the window in the living room!

It was really and truly amazing seeing again/meeting these wonderful people! Although I loved my classes and lectures, spending time with everyone was most definitely my favourite part! Going to Sewing Summit has renewed my spirit somewhat (it really has been a rough few months) and has driven home how important it is to have a strong support system of like-minded individuals. I miss them all so much already!!

Flip-Pal Sleeve + the Giveaway Winner

Hey all! How's everyone doing? I've been away for a few days visiting my mum and grandparents, but now I'm back and can finally do this post since I have my computer back and have gotten most everything transferred back on to it - hurray!

One of my big plans while visiting my grandparents was to take my Flip-Pal and scan some of our older family pictures. So, of course, I needed to make it a travel case!

 

The Flip-Pal is larger than most of the tablet/reader cozy patterns available so I made up my own, but was inspired to add the pocket by Ann Kelle's iPad sleeve tutorial.

Aside from the linen that I used for the outer shell, all of the fabrics used are Heather Ross. I thought it would be fun to use some of the hexagons I had lying arund for embellishment - the big ones were made by me and the two teeny one came to me by Jo as part of the Handsome Hexies swap on Flickr.

I also made the 3/4" button for the closure using a little fussy cut mushroom from some of the Heather Ross gnomes munki munki.

The sleeve came out a teensy bit bigger than I meant it to but hey, that's better than being too small! I bound the top of the pocket using some Heather Ross that I fussy cut and also added a little loop for hanging the USB/SD card reader that holds my photo software.

The lining is, yet again, Heather Ross from the West Hill collection (you can see the scallop here that I fussy cut for the pocket binding). I love this - it just make me so super-happy to have pretty things to carry my stuff around it!

So I guess you want to know who won the Generation Q magazine giveaway, right? Well, without further ado the winner is...

Becca of Our Busy Little Bunch

Congratulations Becca! Please email me with with your address and we'll get your magazine out!

Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway Day!

Hi everybody! If you're stopping by Miss Print for the first time from Sew, Mama, Sew - welcome! If you've been around these parts for awhile - you know I love you! Feel free to snuggle down, put your feet up, and stay awhile. I bet you'd like to know what I'm giving away right? How does some Heather Ross sound?

I'm giving away four prints from Heather Ross' West Hill collection (which is out of print). Up for grabs is a fat quarter of tan matryoshka, a fat quarter of brown matryoshka, a fat quarter of the pink floral stripe, and a fat quarter of the cream floral stripe (this is the one with the yellow leaves, not the purple).

There are two chances to enter-

1.Leave a comment on this post letting me know what your 

favourite winter treat is - hot chocolate? holiday cookies? something else?

2. If you are a follower of this blog, or if you become one, please leave 

a second comment and you will be entered a second time.

The first entry is mandatory to be entered in the giveaway, but the second is optional and you only have to leave a second comment if you are a follower and want a second entry. This giveaway (as always) is open internationally. I will pick the winner on December 16th and announce it here on the blog by the 18th.

There are many more giveaways to enter over at Sew, Mama, Sew so make sure to pop by over there and check them all out! Thanks for stopping by everyone, and please keep in mind that comments are moderated - I will publish them as soon as I see them, but duplicate comments will be deleted. Good luck everyone and I hope you're having a wonderful day!

*the giveaway is now closed*

{Almost} Wordless Wednesday

Alice Kate loves Heather Ross...a lot! And she is very excited that Heather's newest collection, Macaroni Love Story, was released today exclusively through Spoonflower!

P.S. Happy Rosh Hashanah everyone!