Category Archives: Christmas

Sparkles and Sequins

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with my son and his family. They were spending a long weekend in Colorado while my daughter-in-law interviewed for a job she is interested in. Since moving and changing jobs is a huge decision, the kids wanted time to look at the area without the added help of their two year old daughter. So I got to be the nanny for a few days.

I had not been to Denver until this trip. Denver is at an altitude of nearly 6,000 feet and I usually avoid high altitudes because of my issues with migraines. But it seemed like a reasonable decision to go and spend time with the kids and hope for the best with my head.

Fortunately, it was a wonderful trip and my head only gave me a bit of grief one evening. We stayed in an Air BnB in the perfect location. We were walking distance to a little park and coffee shop. Across the road and just down a little ways was the Denver Zoo and a great natural history museum. We kept ourselves very busy!

Right before I left, I put together a little project for my grand daughter and I to do together. I wanted to make a Christmas ornament with her using what I had around the house. I gathered some green felt and a little piece of green velvet. From these, I cut some triangles to make Christmas trees. Then I went outside to find a branch that might work for the trunk of the tree. I topstitched the triangles together and put the tiniest bit of stuffing inside. Then I used hot glue to affix the branch/tree trunk. I had a container with an odd mix of sequins and shiny things in it which would make perfect decorations for the trees.

We had so much fun decorating these little trees. I squirted a pool of Tacky Glue on a piece of waxed paper and gave my little one a q-tip to apply the glue to the tree. Then she carefully picked out a sparkle or sequin to put on each spot of glue. I was impressed with her attention span and how carefully she chose her decorations. It was so hard not to tell her where to put something!

When she was done, we had four sweet trees.

I kept one to hang on our tree here at home and she took the other three back to Vermont. I just love this age. We really had a wonderful time together.

Now I am back at home and catching up on things. I am also enjoying a cold that I caught during the trip. Yuk. Doesn’t it seem like this happens all the time – fly somewhere and then catch a bug?

Thanksgiving is this week in the US and I am getting ready to cook. Julia came home last night on the train. Yahoo!! We are hoping to spend lots of time baking and hanging out over the long weekend. She will also be studying a lot – end of quarter projects are due soon and then she has her first round of final exams. Busy girl!

Finally, make sure to come by the shop this weekend! I will be holding a 20% off sale starting on Small Business Saturday lasting through Cyber Monday. All yardage, precuts, patterns and notions are all on sale! This is a great time to stock up for yourself or to choose some gifts for those special people on your list. All orders of $10 or more will receive a free fat quarter tucked in with your order. Happy shopping!!

Handmade Christmas Gifts

45 Replies

Now that Christmas is done and gifts have been given and received, I thought I would share what I made with you. Usually I try to find a fun project to make and give during the Christmas season. In recent years I have made purses, zip pouches, table runners and hot pads. This year I decided to make an apron for my Vermont daughter-in-law. Also, I made hot pads for my California son and his girlfriend as well as my Toronto son and his wife. These projects were quick and satisfying.

For the apron, I upcycled a duvet cover that I had bought a while back. I was thrilled to find this cover in a tan and cream stripe. The neutral colors and the feel of the fabric assured me I would easily find many uses for the fabric. I had a vintage pattern from 1975 that I have been holding on to, thinking it would make a really cute apron.

Originally the pattern was designed for a wrap around dress and let me just say, I would have totally loved wearing this dress at age 15 (not that I was necessarily 15 in 1975… oh wait, I was.) Anyway, I had a really similar dress that I made out of a green striped seersucker fabric. I was so cool.

Ok, back to the apron. I had seen these Japanese work aprons and really liked them – this pattern is a bit of a compromise between a standard apron and the Japanese wrap style. This one is more fitted with darts in the bodice.

It wraps around the back with the tie coming through an opening left in the side seam.

I finished the interior seams by folding the raw edges in and top stitching them for a clean look. This fabric would likely fray in the wash so this will prevent any issues.

I even remembered to put a little label on the inside.

Overall, this was a fun project and hopefully my daughter-in-law will get lots of use out of it. She is a great cook so I suspect she will use it.

On to the hot pads! I wanted to make something with the Maker Maker fabric I have in the shop. I cannot even express how much I love this fabric!! I made Chemex Cozies out of the Grid fabric and the gray and black Lines fabric. They were far and above, my top sellers for the Christmas shopping season.Anyway, I thought I would make some hot pads using the Grid fabric and the cats. The linen has such a nice texture and weight, making it perfect for kitchen accessories. These finished at at eight inches square and are filled with two layers of Insul Bright, making them nice and thick.

The next gift I want to share was not made in the sewing room! My husband decided he wanted to make a gift for each of the kids. The boys and their spouses received gorgeous rolling pins made with pieces of walnut and oak that he laminated together. He turned them on his lathe to make a one piece rolling pin. I just love them! The kids were taken with the wonderful finish and really appreciated the work that went into these.

Each piece is different from the next with the stripes and color variations making them unique.

Since Julia isn’t really in need of a rolling pin just yet, he made her a piggy bank. She had such a great time with Daisy and Ella last year, he thought this would be a fun way to remember that summer.

This was a challenging project but it turned out so cute!I love the shape of this little pig’s body and her curly tail. It was so much fun to watch Ray making these projects during the months before the holidays. I love having a few handmade gifts under the tree. I also made some placemats for my parents but didn’t think to take pictures. I will take some the next time I am up at their house so I can share them. Were you able to make any of your holiday gifts this year? If so, share in the comments. I would love to hear about them!

Linking to my favorite parties, including Finished or Not Friday hosted by Busy Hands Quilts. Check the Link Up tab at the top of the page for more info! Have a great weekend all. 🙂

The Busiest Time of the Year

23 Replies

Tis the season to be busy, right? This week has been packed with a variety of things. Much of my time has been centered around my Etsy shop. I have had a nice number of sales so that means packaging and shipping items. I greatly enjoy this, so it’s all good. I decided to start including a little freebie with my orders this year. I made a bundle of little book marks with cute buttons, large paperclips and a bit of hot glue. What do you think?

I get a kick out of getting the shipments ready. For one thing, check out the cute dispenser for the twine that I use to wrap orders. 🙂 I love it – I received it as a birthday gift from my father-in-law a couple of years ago. Secondly, I love helping my customers. This week I did a custom Chemex cozy for a customer who wanted rooster fabric. Love the colors in this piece of material.

Besides Etsy work, I have done about 75% of our Christmas shopping. I am feeling pretty good about my progress up to this point. I have a strong hatred for shopping malls and have thus far avoided stepping foot in one. It remains to be seen if I can finish without hitting the mall but so far, it’s looking good! I also found a dress to wear to my son’s wedding in January. The wedding is in Toronto, Ontario so we will be trekking to Toronto in a few weeks. As always, when they announced their engagement a year ago, it seemed like it would be such a long wait for the wedding. Then, suddenly, we are a few weeks out. Crazy the way time buzzes by.

Truly, I have spent very little time in the sewing room this week. I did make a little fabric bucket for a gift. I think I have mentioned that Julia joined 4-H this year. She wanted to learn about raising market hogs to show and sell at the county fair. It has been quite a project for her. She is committed though and has made time for the meetings and is learning all a girl needs to know about market swine! Ray is reinforcing an existing pen on our property and Julia is helping. They have been setting posts and running wire fence.

I have been very impressed by her 4-H leader for the swine group. Tracy puts in a lot of time with these kids and it will be even more once their piglets are born. (Julia should bring her piglets home in late March or very early April.) I wanted to give her a little gift for the holidays. I searched for Christmasy pig fabric and wouldn’t you know… there is such a thing! I wasn’t terribly surprised. I think there is fabric out there for everyone and every possible theme!

Aren’t these guys the silliest thing ever? It cracks me up. I lined it with a vintage holiday print I had in my stash.

I made the bucket with two 11″ squares of fabric for both lining and outer fabric. I fused a thick fusible interfacing to the outer fabric before sewing this up. Once I fused the interfacing, I sewed the perimeter of the two outer fabric squares, leaving one long side open. Next I boxed the corners. Then I repeated the process with the lining. However with the lining, I left an opening of three inches on the bottom seam so I could turn it right side out when I sewed it together. Nest the outer box inside the lining box, with fabric right sides together and stitch around the top. Turn right sides out and press. Hand or machine sew the opening in the lining. Fold the top over to the outside and you’re done! If you want pictures or more detail, this tutorial from Dear Handmade Life is quite good. The size of the bucket in the tutorial is much bigger though. Mine finished at 5 1/2″ square – so basically at 5 1/2″ wide, tall and deep. Perfect size to fill with a few treats. Perfect gift for any pig lover. 🙂

I have also been making blocks for the Sew Fresh Quilt Bee, hosted by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts. I have two finished but haven’t taken any photos yet. I’ll show them to you soon. They are very cute, improv log cabin blocks.

Ok, that is it for now. I have to pick up Julia soon. She is in the midst of finals and has been studying like crazy. She has a few more next week so she will likely have her nose in her Chemistry book all weekend. Ray and I will drag her away to pick out a Christmas tree but other than that, I doubt very much that she will be doing much besides studying. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Remember that my giveaway for Sew Mama Sew’s Giveaway day is open through Sunday evening, December 12th. Pop over and enter. Be sure and head over to Sew Mama Sew as well. There are so many fun bloggers participating in this and tons of great giveaways!

Finally, C&T Publishing is having another $5.00 blowout sale this weekend. Of note, they are offering adult coloring books for $5.00 – buy one get one free. So, two gifts for $5.00 plus shipping???

My favorite of the books is one by Valori Wells. She designed the amazing elephant fabric that I made a whole cloth quilt from recently. If you were as smitten with that fabric as I was, this might be fun for you! There are several nice books listed on sale this weekend.

(Note: I am an affilliate of C&T publishing and will receive a stipend if you click through my site and order from them.)

Christmas Giving and Receiving

21 Replies

About a week before Christmas I decided I wanted to make a few gifts. My self-imposed parameters were no trips to the store, no spending money on fabric and something quick, easy and fun. I decided on the thirty minute zipper pouches that I found at Kelby Sews. They are a lot of fun to make and very satisfying.

I do follow the basic tutorial that Kelby posted as her method of making these bags is wonderfully simple. However, I don’t strictly adhere to her dimensions. I have a large zip lok bag of zippers that I have collected from various thrift stores. Many, really most, of the zippers I have are very long, 16-22″ or so. It doesn’t matter as the ends are cut off once the bag is assembled. In addition I, like most quilters, have a large drawer full of batting scraps. The long pieces that are trimmed from the edges after quilting a project are stored there and are perfect for this project. With the zippers and batting on hand, I just had to pull large scraps that went well and coordinated with the zippers. That was probably the toughest part of the process, matching fabrics to whatever zippers I had. Looking at the photo below, you will see fabrics from Kaffe Fassett, Henry Glass, Allison Glass, Amy Butler, and several by Kathy Davis. A variety of wonderful colors, to be sure; it felt great to use up so many scraps! The tutorial tells the maker to use adhesive and glue the fabric to the batting. I chose to quilt them together instead. I think it adds an extra touch, and also…I don’t have any spray baste on hand!

If you look at the picture you will see the bag that is the fifth one down in the stack, is made of multiple fabrics. I used an orphan block for that one. It was a practice block I used when I was trying to make a herringbone block. Fortunately it was long enough to make a pouch with, I just had to cut the width down. I loved that pouch because it looked like I had pieced it.

I put some yummy Evelyn and Crabtree lotions in the pouches and mailed them off to my sisters and a quilty friend in Michigan. I also gave them to my mother, my mother-in-law, and sister in law. For my two nieces, I filled the pouch with chocolate and a gift card.
In addition to making these zipper pouches, I made a couple of heat packs for my kids. These are filled with rice and can be heated in the microwave to soothe a sore muscle. (They can also be stored in the freezer and used for muscle aches and pains.) I made one for myself a long while back and love it.

While it is fun to make, and give, gifts, it is also fun to receive a quilty gift. This year I received three quilting books. I have a list of books that I want to add to my library and received three of them.

Since receiving it, I have already read Fifteen Minutes of Play, by Victoria Findlay-Wolfe, in its entirety. I love it and spent a few minutes yesterday creating ‘Made-fabric’. I am planning to incorporate her ideas into my projects for RSC16 and will post more on that later. Sunday Morning Quilts has some wonderful ideas for quilts using mostly scraps. Written by the quilt world’s scrappy quilting queens, Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson, it is filled with great ideas. Mary Mashuta’s recent book, Foolproof Walking-Foot Quilting Designs, is also wonderful. Mary has some great ideas for quilting designs other than straight lines with a walking foot. I have just taken a peek at that one and already learned a few new ideas that I will try soon. These three books will provide a great deal of inspiration and instruction for upcoming projects. If nothing else, just looking at the photos of the quilts made by these amazing women is so satisfying!

Happy New Year to all of you. May 2016 be a year of peace, good health, and many hours of stitching!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts, Freemotion by the River, and Let’s Bee Social.

Swooning over this finish

16 Replies

A few weeks ago we had a quiet weekend – Ray was up working on our house in Downieville and Julia and I stayed home. I pulled out my pile of Christmas fabrics, trying to think of an easy project. I wanted something that would come together easily and could be made entirely from my stash. After spending some time looking at ideas that I have collected on Pinterest, I made my decision. I would make a mini that consisted of one large swoon block.

I have been drooling over pictures of quilts with swoon blocks and minis made from swoon blocks for a long while now. I am not sure what it is about them, but I love them. The pattern for the swoon block was developed by Camille Roskelly over at Thimble Blossoms. She really started something when she created this pattern. The pattern makes a quilt with nine swoon blocks that measure 24″ square. For this project, I decided to just make one block and use it as a mini.

Using only minimal quilting, the fabrics and the pattern shine.

It turned out so festive.

I was able to make the quilt using only scraps I had on hand. The backing is a green and cream plaid that a neighbor gave me a long while back. I didn’t have enough of any one the fabrics to bind it so I made a scrappy binding.

Because it is made of rectangles, HST’s and Flying Geese blocks, the block was a breeze to cut and piece. Making a large quilt with them would be very easy. I love the oversized look of the block.

There you go. A really satisfying finish that was so fun to make and used up some stash.

Linking to Freemotion by the River, Let’s Bee Social and Finish It Up Friday. Links to all of these are located at the top of the page under Link Ups.

Odds and Ends

13 Replies

The weekend is just about here. Julia is going to her first high school football game tonight and we are not a football family. It is rare that you’ll hear any talk of sports in our house. But I am fairly certain that 14 year olds don’t go to football games for the sport – it’s all about the friends. She will have a great time and I will wonder how she got to be this age so quickly.

It was a busy week here in Grass Valley, CA (doesn’t that sound just like Garrison Keillor? I love him.) I decided I was tired of looking through filthy windows so I hired a couple of window cleaners to come and clean them. We have lots of windows (40 to be exact, I paid per window so I now know this number.) Turns out that having windows cleaned involves lots of prep on the part of the window owner. They asked me to clear any items near the windows so they could have access. Yikes. My sewing table, ironing station and cutting station are under a window. I am sure you can imagine. But after I got the house put back together, it was well worth it. Shiny clean windows. Just in time for fall colors… the maple trees near these windows turn a great shade of yellow-gold and now we will enjoy the changes that much more. (Well, that’s if fall ever comes, it is a balmy 98 degrees outside today.

Time in the sewing room was not plentiful this week. I did finish up one quick project though. Remember the block-hop that I posted about last week? When I was playing with the design for that block, I did a mock up first. I used some holiday fabric that I had (mainly because it was right next to the cutting area and saved me the long walk to the closet across the room where my stash is stored.) The block was pretty though and I wanted to use it for something.

I added two borders, one 2″ wide and the other is 3″ wide. With these borders I ended up with a pillow cover that is about 21″ square.

I used an envelope backing and stitched a seam 1″ in from the perimeter to make a flange. Straight line quilting with a fairly narrow gauge was done on an angle, dividing the pillow into four quadrants.

I used a Mettler variegated thread with shades of gold, silver and cream which I love with these fabrics.

When I quilt a pillow, I sandwich the quilted portion with plain muslin and pieced batting scraps. The quilting looks kinda cool on the muslin side.

It makes me want to try some sort of whole cloth project to really emphasize the quilting. Another addition to the list….

It will be fun to pull this out in a few months when the time comes to decorate for the holidays. Hoping everyone has a great weekend. Seems like it is hot across the country right now. Maybe this is the last blast of heat before wonderful autumn starts.

Linking to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict as well as Freemotion Mavericks (even tho this is quilted with a walking foot, not my darning foot.) All links to these link parties are available at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

TBT Except It’s Saturday

8 Replies

I have been reading posts that are linked up to a party hosted by Jen at Quarter Inch From the Edge this week and really enjoying them. (I also enjoy the name of Jen’s blog, isn’t it perfect?). She has been hosting a monthly link up where bloggers are sharing projects from earlier days and I love seeing how far everyone has come with their skill and creativity. Really interesting to read the posts and check out the pictures. Most of my earlier projects have been posted about already but I did think it would be fun to share the Tablerunner Craze of 2012.

The fall of 2012 was when the quilting bug really bit. I had recently finished a queen size simple patchwork quilt for my mother-in-law. I posted that story here. When I was finishing up that quilt, I had no clue how to FMQ so I stitched in the ditch along every block. Once that was finished, I really wanted to try some free motion quilting so I took a class at my LQS to learn the basics. Table runners seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice this newfound love. Glad for the excuse to shop, I shopped for holiday fabric so I could make table runners for my family as Christmas gifts. If you have been a reader for any length of time, you probably know I have a huge family. I made eight table runners in about a month’s time. One for each of my five sisters, one for my mom and my mother-in-law, and one for myself.

This was long before I started blogging and I am happy I thought to take a quick picture of some of them before giving them away. Definitely last minute pictures. I remember I was about to wrap them and get them in the mail and I tossed them over the back of the couch and took a picture with my phone. (Hence the superb quality of the pictures!) Here are three of the runners.

I did a basic, squiggly meander over the entire runner. Mitred bindings were not yet in my wheelhouse so the corners were just folded over and stitched (machine stitched to the front and hand stitched to the back? Maybe, maybe not….)

Here are three more.

These runners are on the small side. They are probably 13″ wide and maybe 30″ long? They were pretty though and I enjoy looking back at them. They were definitely my first foray into free motion quilting. Actually, it kind of amazes me that this was almost exactly four years ago. The time continues to buzz by.

We are spending the long weekend up at our Downieville house. It is gorgeous up here with crisp, cool air. If you live in California, you are probably hearing about this tremendous El Nino that is supposed to happen this year. Ray is cleaning all of the drainage paths and gutters this weekend. If it comes to be, then we could get some substantial storms this year. I am grateful that he is so good about preparing for this sort of thing. Our Downieville house is is a flood zone being so close to the river so we do need to be careful. At any rate, maybe this year will put an end to four years of drought. Here’s hoping!

Linking to Quarter Inch From the Edge (for the very first time!)

The Holy’s and the Jolly’s – Christmas Cards

19 Replies

When I was growing up (the 1960’s) it seemed like we received tons of Christmas cards. Maybe my parents were just incredibly popular or maybe, because there was no internet, email, facebook, blogging, instagram, or twitter, that was how people wished each other a Merry Christmas. Actually, it was probably both. But really, we received a billion cards each season. My mom would string them up and display them or keep them in baskets to look at. I loved checking the mailbox across the street and bringing in a veritable pile of cards. (I still love checking the mailbox which is 1/2 mile from my house and usually only contains junk mail or the occasional bill that can’t be paid on-line. Old habits die hard.)

The best part was after Christmas because then my sisters and I got to “play” with the cards. We hoarded them, traded them, and sorted them. Remember, I have five sisters and even so, there were enough cards for all of us to have some. This was a ritual for us and was something to do after the excitement of Christmas had mellowed and we still had that second week of school vacation. When we sorted them, we classified them in two groups; the ‘Holy’s’ and the ‘Jolly’s’. You probably know which cards fell into each pile.

The Holy’s:

or maybe –

These were fine. They were pretty and, attending Catholic school for the first eight years, we knew this was what Christmas was (supposed to be) all about. But then there were these – the Jolly’s.

In large part (no pun intended) isn’t this what Christmas is about to a kid? It was for me.

I wish people still sent cards in the mail. I know that the postage has become ridiculously expensive and usually I am up-to-date on the news and what everyone’s kids look like because of Facebook but I love the tradition of finding a card in the mailbox! Such a simple pleasure.

Christmas is just around the corner. As my family says, only three more sleeps and my boys will be home. Time for major grocery shopping and a bit of house cleaning as well as finishing up the gift wrapping. This will leave no time for sewing or blogging. I have still one gift that I am making and I am fairly certain it will not be done in time for Christmas. It is turning out so pretty and I don’t want to hurry it. The recipient will have to wait patiently and I think (hope?) it will be done shortly after Christmas. 🙂

Before I wish you all a Merry Christmas though, I have one bit of news. I am so excited! This is my 51st post and I just got my 51st follower (between email followers and Bloglovin followers combined.) Doesn’t that seem auspicious? Fortuitous? Just sort of cool? I had hoped to have 50 followers before the end of 2014 – that was a goal I had set when I started posting earlier this summer. I made it! I was so nervous when I first posted on Needle and Foot – that feeling of what if I have a party and no one shows up? But look, all of you showed up!! I have had almost 20,000 page views so far. Yikes!!! That makes me happy.

Giving thanks for the friends that I have made through this little blog of mine, I want to do a small giveaway. If you are a follower of mine, leave a comment as to your preference – tea or coffee? Easy peasy. I will draw a name in a couple of days and send the preferred treat off to a lucky winner. (Be specific – coffee – whole bean or ground? Decaf or Caffeinated? Teabags or loose tea? Have a special flavor that you love?) We have some really yummy local teas and coffees and I am looking forward to treating someone to this. Note: be sure that I have an email address to reach you if you are chosen.

By the way, I am not going anywhere close to the post office until after the holidays. Etsy sales were good this month and I have been going to the post office constantly so I will mail this off after Christmas.

Wishing all of you a wonderful holiday season. Hope you are able to spend it with your friends or family as the case may be. See you in the new year!

The Spirit of the Season

7 Replies

The holidays are crazy sometimes. I am one that can get all wound up about how much needs to be done, making lists and running around far more than is necessary. But over the last couple of days I had a couple of sweet reminders about what the holidays are truly about. Let’s just say there are loads of very kind people in this world and many of them just happen to be quilters!

Here is the first story: Last week I participated in the Sew Mama Sew Blogger Giveaway day. I asked people to enter by commenting with three words that come to mind when they think of Christmas. I loved reading through all the comments. They were heartfelt. My daughter picked the winner, number 48, who happened to be Mara from Secretly Stitching. It so happens that Mara lives in Greece and my giveaway was not open internationally (the postage to ship a bit of fabric internationally just didn’t make sense.) I emailed Mara and she explained that she was entering the US – Domestic only giveaways for a friend of hers in Texas. She thought that if she happened to win, she would ask the hostess of that giveaway to mail her prize to her friend in Texas. She said this friend could use something fun in her life right now and she hoped this would happen. And it did. I mailed off a package to Shirley in Texas on behalf of Mara, from Greece. Shirley, you have a sweet friend in Mara. By the way, if you haven’t read any of the posts on Secretly Stitching, take a hop over there. Mara has a fun giveaway posted today. I won’t spoil it for you – go take a look!

Second reminder came about this morning. I was reading some of my favorite blogs and opened the most recent post on Diary of a Quilter, blogged by Amy Smart (one of my quilty heroines.) Her topic today is three ways to give this Christmas season. Each of them is sewing/quilting related and each touched me. I supported all three. Amy describes a GoFundMe that she is running to finance a sewing machine or two for a village in Ecuador.

Amy also mentions a woman who is making quilts for chronically ill children and needs financial support. Finally she talks about a woman in New York who is teaching senior citizens to quilt and needs fabric donations. (I bet there isn’t a one of us that doesn’t have an extra piece to send off for the cause!) All of these are unique ways to help someone out that is working in our arena this Christmas. If you would like more information, check out Amy’s post today.

I hope you are all enjoying the holidays without succumbing to the frenzy that it can become. I am working hard to enjoy it and not let myself get overwhelmed with it all. My kids come home next week and for me, that is what makes the holidays. I can’t wait!! Julia and I did some crafting the other day. We have loads of pinecones around as we live in the Sierra Foothills. With a little white glue and a bottle of glitter we came up with these.

I haven’t accomplished a whole lot of sewing over the past few days. I am working on a small art quilt though and have been thread sketching a bit. Here is a peek. With any luck, I will post the finish just after the holidays.

Take care all and Happy Monday! Linking up to Anything Goes Monday.

Holiday Giveaway

138 Replies

I am so excited! Today starts the Giveaway Day sponsored by Sew Mama Sew. I have followed the Sew Mama Sew website for quite a long while. Twice each year they host a blogger giveaway. This is an event where bloggers will link up with a treat to give to one lucky winner. It is a way for bloggers to meet new readers and readers to discover some fun, new blogs. There will be so many giveaways to enter this week. It is really a lot of fun to check out all of the blogs and you just might win something. Many of the people linking to this giveaway will either have a handmade item or will be giving some sort of supplies having to do with sewing – might be buttons, fabric or a pattern.

In keeping with the spirit of the holidays and the kind, quilty bloggers, I wanted to join in and provide a treat to a lucky reader. I started this blog last summer and have been so fortunate to have met many on-line friends. It has been a great to get to know others that are involved in this quilting/crafting/sewing corner of the blogosphere. I have been inspired by the work of many and have learned much more than I had hoped. In thanks, I put together a little basket of treats.

If this is your first time popping over to Needle and Foot, welcome! I am a stay at home mom with a love of sewing. I work on quilts, small and large, as well as sewing some garments and bags. I love sharing what I am working on and learning what others are doing. Take a minute and check out a few posts. Hopefully you will enjoy your time here.

On to the giveaway! First of all, there is a set of eleven 3″ x 30″ (approximately) strips in vibrant colors. I had purchased a grab bag of strips and this set was part of that bag. Perfect for an upcoming project when you want to brighten up a dreary winter afternoon.

I don’t know what line(s) these pieces are from as the selvedges were removed when I got these but they work together well. POST UPDATE: According to Barb at Mountain Quiltworks these are from Kate Spain’s line called Terrain. Thank you Barb!!

I added a few holiday prints from my stash. They are roughly fat quarter size (18″ x 22″). It might be just the thing for a last minute holiday project.

Always nice to add a bit of fabric to your stash.

I’ve added a few fun treats to the basket as well.

No, I didn’t make the ornament. 🙂 It is so cute though and would be such a simple project.

Be sure to take a look at all of the fun giveaways on the Sew Mama Sew website. Check out a few blogs and meet somebody new! All giveaways, including this one, will be open for the entire week. I will pick the winner of this basket on Saturday, December 13th. The winner will be contacted via email and also announced on a later post.

So here is the deal – to be eligible for this cute little holiday basket all you have to do is leave a comment – just three words – that tells me the following:

“Three words that come to mind first when I think of the Holidays are:”

I apologize to any international readers but my budget doesn’t allow for shipping outside the US. Thanks for playing along! I am looking forward to reading your comments. Enjoy this giveaway and so many more over at Sew Mama Sew.

Linking to Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Update: The giveaway is now closed. At random, my daughter chose number 48 as the winner. We are very scientific here – I told her to pick a number between 1 and 137. Congrats to Mara. I emailed you and need your address please. Happy Holidays everyone!