Some Holiday Stitching and a Winner!

Hey all! How's it going? I just finished day seven of a seven day work week and let me tell you - I am wiped! But there is sewing to do and a friend in from England so no rest for awhile yet especially with Hanukkah and Christmas fast approaching.

I sent off a little gift to one of my bestie's, Jennifer, last week and it arrived in Maryland yesterday - huzzah! Arriving within a week was a miracle in and of itself considering the fact that I sent her some fabric way back in October that only arrived two weeks ago - Toronto to Maryland should not take two months!

I made this little mug rug for Jennifer using the Je T'aime Cocoa cross stitch pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery (which is the same company that I designed the Itching to be Stitching pattern for) and random scraps of fabric from my "string bag". Some of the fabrics include Heather Ross' Far Far Away II, Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley, and Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane. The one of the very far right side is from Joel Dewberry's Chestnut Hill collection (that print, in that colourway, is actually one of my favourites ever and I so wish I had more).

Here's a little close-up of the cute mug and marshmallows! He got slightly warped when I ironed him but I still think he's too cute!

I used some Heather Bailey Fresh Cut for the back and a greeny-khaki solid that I don't have a name for since I think I got it in the remnant bin.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer's Twitter

I also sent Jennifer a copy of Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories which is a collection of Lucy Maud Montgomery stories that were published in magazines and such around the turn of the century. I have had my copy for about 14 years and read it every holiday season - I know Jennifer is going to enjoy it!

So I guess you want to know who won the SMS giveaway too? Well, after an overwhelming response of over 700 comments, the winner is...

Heather D. of the blog Crafting... Congratulations Heather! I will send you an email soon and I really hope that you enjoy the Heather Ross fabrics!

So what are you sewing up this holiday season, whether as gifts or for yourself? I want to know!

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*

The Life Quilt...and seeing life in quilting

A few months ago, as some of you will remember, I was working on a quilt when my walking foot exploded shooting dark oil in splotches across the top; luckily I was able to get the oil all out (phew!) but wasn't able to complete the quilting until I got my new foot.

This is the photo that I showed at the time with the quilt all basted; I was finally able to get my new foot at Creativ Festival in October (it is surprisingly difficult to find the proper Janome foot in Toronto and I tried to order one from a shop in Guelph but that was such a farce that I gave up) and finished the quilt last month. Just in case anyone wants to know the prints are from Kate Spain's Fandango collection and the solid is Moda Bella in Snow (I believe it's snow anyway).

This little quilt is going my friend JJ's mum who is sick. A few months back JJ decided to put together a project and asked her friends to contribute - she asked that we use/put the word "life" into situations and take a photograph so that she could put the images in places where her mum would see them everyday and she also created a gallery. I decided that since I see life in quilting that I would make a tangible object for her mum to have (I also sent her a picture to put into the gallery) and this little guy will be leaving my house sometime very soon to join JJ and her mum.

Seeing "life" in a quilt or in quilting is an interesting concept, but one that I also think is a very true part of my own everyday. I really can't fathom who I would be without quilting and sewing and creating and designing. It kept me sane when I was getting through grad school, helped to keep me in food when I was looking for a job, and has introduced me to so many people - some of whom are my very best friends now.  It's been difficult recently with a full-time job and the lack of sunlight hours to find time to do everything that I would like and that includes creating - the lack of sunlight hours has really put a cramp in being able to photograph my completed projects too (I have two quilts and a couple of other smaller projects that I need pictures of). Sometimes all I want to do is sit on the couch and just sit, but what I really need to do is kick myself in the pants and get back to the sewing machine. The last few days I have really been trying to do just that and completed both a gift for a friend and a couple of Christmas commissions. I have one more really big project that I need to make myself work on, but then I can pick things just for me for a little bit (or at least I hope so).

While being a librarian is a big part of my life, I think that it would be more true to say that creating is my life. Even when I'm doing other things I am thinking about designs and seeing patterns in architecture and the objects around me everyday. I feel extreme satisfaction when I can help people with research and answer their questions, but I feel an even bigger sense of well-being and accomplishment when I see people using my designs or when they tell me that they love something I've made. I am a nervous person by nature and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder a few years ago - I sometimes become awkward in social situations (which is not helped by the fact that I am partially deaf) and have a hard time talking to people I don't know. This is easier with the quilty people though because there is automatically something that connects us to each other and something that can be innately understood - I feel much more myself and accepted with people who craft even if it is still sometimes hard and difficult to join in with the group. Like every other area in life quilting and sewing also has an "in-crowd" or a popular group, and they are darn intimidating let me tell you!

So that, just in case you wanted to know, is a little part of me.

Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays

So remember a few days ago when I said I had some news to share but I needed photographic evidence? Well I've got it and...I'm in a book and stuff...

Yup, that's right! Awhile back John asked me if I'd like to contribute to a book he was writing - of course I said yes! The result of this is the above book Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays! It is currently available as an e-book and will be released in print in the summer of 2012...which means that I will of course be blogging about it again when that happens! The book is full of really amazing projects and designers (I'm sure you will recognize most if not all of them) - contrary to what you might think not all of the projects are Christmas-related... there are also projects for Hanukkah and Thanksgiving as well as variations for even more.

This is the project that I designed for the book - the Countdown-to-Christmas Advent Calender! The tree is made using paper pieced hexagons and the letters are stamped onto the fabric using number stamps and an ink pad suitable for fabric. The pockets are just big enough for a small toy or small chocolate and are very simple to make.

Jeni (who also had a super-cute bunting project in the book) has already actually made a variation on my pattern and blogged about it - it's so awesome! You  can buy the e-book here if you'd like and one neat feature is that you can actually flip through the whole book before buying and see all the project - did I mention there over 30 of them?!

Geez guys, I'm so excited! It's so awesome to finally see it and I know I'll be even more excited when the print version comes out - you can be guaranteed there will be some goofy picture of me holding it in a bookstore (I mean, really, have you guys seen the pictures of me from Quilt Market with the Sample Spree sign?)! So what do y'all think?

Pam Kitty Morning Winner!

Well, it seems that the weekend got away from me there! I originally intended to announce the winner of Pam Kitty Morning's Designer Select on Saturday, but evidently that did not happen! Better late than never though, right? Okay let's get right to it! The winner of the bundle is...

Tracey of Traceyjay Quilts

Congratulations Tracey! I really hope that you like this bundle and make something gorgeous with it. Please email me with you address and the folks from Fat Quarter Shop will get that out to you!

Now I do have some kinda big/fun/exciting (at least I think it's uber-exciting) news to share with y'all but I'm waiting for some "photographic evidence" to surface that I can show you! It should be very soon though so keep you eyes tuned here!

Sewing this past week...

A couple of weeks ago Kelly of kelbysews (who I know mainly from Twitter) asked for some volunteers to help her out testing her new paper-pieced wonky alphabet pattern, I jumped up and said that sounds like fun! Kelly sent me three of the harder letters to test - B, G, and (surprise, surprise) K. It was good times let me tell you!

Okay, I have a bit of a confession to make the B was actually supposed to be a D but I totally screwed up on that one and sewed the fabric to the wrong side of the paper, but hey, it worked out since I think I might be making the whole alphabet anyway and least it came out as another letter that's still usable *wink*. Like my house socks?

This block uses prints from Tula Pink's Parisville Collection and Laurie Wisbrun's Tufted Tweets. I have a lot of scraps left over from my Tula Pink Parisville fat quarter bundle (because I made something quite big that I'll be sharing soon) so they feature in every block.

The G features prints from Tula Pink's Parisville, and Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet and Meadowsweet 2.

And finally the K features fabrics from Tula Pink's Parisville, Denyse Schmidt for JoAnn Fabrics, and Oliver + S' City Weekend. And in case anyone is interested the background fabric used in all three is Kona White (at least I'm pretty sure it's White and not Snow).

Kelly blogged about her Wonky Alphabet pattern both here and here and it is now available for purchase from Kelly's shop if you guys are interested. Just as an FYI Kelly's pattern is available only in PDF format and does not include paper-piecing instructions.

Now I'll leave you with a little sneak-peak of what I've been working on for the last couple of days...

It's Giveaway Time - Pam Kitty Morning!

So who's ready for a giveaway? Since it's November (Movember!) I'm once again teaming up with Fat Quarter Shop to offer up one of their special designer select fat quarter bundles - this time we have Pam Kitty Morning's Designer Select Bundle!

This exclusive bundle features 12 prints from the Pam Kitty Morning collection by Pam Vieira-McGinnis (aka Pam Kitty Morning) and three coordinating tonals all in fat quarters!

This is such a fun collection! I'm loving the prints and I must admit that I'm rather partial to the Yellow on White Precious Dot and the Blue Gingham (well really, all the ginghams) - they are just such great basics!

So I guess you want to know how to enter right?! You have two chances but please be sure to leave separate comments for each entry. Alright here's what you've got to do:

1. Leave a comment letting me know which collection in the Coming Soon

section at Fat Quarter Shop is your favourite.

2. Leave another comment if you are a follower of my blog.

That's it - two very simple ways to enter! I will close the comments in a week (on the 26th) and announce the winner here on the blog. International entries are, as always, welcome! Also, please remember that I have comment moderation enabled so if you don't see your comment right away it just means that I haven't had the chance to approve it yet (duplicate comments will be deleted).

Okay, I gotta go! I have some major-sewing to do and I'm am all in a tizzy to get going! Paper piecing, quilting, and patchwork - oh my!

*the giveaway is now closed*