Month: May 2012

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter my giveway and for all the nice compliments on my hats. In case you didn’t see the updated post, I added a link to the free pattern if you want to make your own. You can find it here:

Here are the winners, I will send you an e-mail to get your addresses:

#1 (small hat): Jacqueline, who wrote: “The smallest size would probably be still to big for my 8 month old son, but he will grow into it.”

#2 (medium hat): Michelle J., who wrote:  “I have girls who would love the red one!”

#3: (large hat): Jessica, who wrote: “Beautiful hats – so lovely and colourful. Would love to win the blue one, my little boy would love it!”

I can’t believe I completely forgot about Sew, Mama, Sew!’s Giveaway Day!

Since I’m posting this a few days late, I’ll leave it open until next Wednesday at 9 a.m., and I’m offering three items instead of one!

These are the adorable hats I made from the book “Oliver + S: Little Things to Sew.” Each one reverses to a solid color (the orange hat reverses to green, the red print reverses to yellow and the blue/spaceship print reverses to solid blue).

The orange hat is the smallest, the red is medium and the blue is large. The blue one fit my niece, who is a petite 6-year-old, so I’d say the others are infant/toddler size.

Even if you don’t win, you can still get this pattern free right HERE.

To win, just leave a comment saying which size you would like.

Check out all the other great giveaways here:

First, I have to announce the winner of my Flea Market Finds giveway. I had Parker pick a number out of a hat, and it was #1! So Lauren, I’ll send you an e-mail to get your address.

I spent a lot of this weekend finishing up another quilt for our camp, this one for our bed. Though it is smaller than I thought it would be, so maybe I’ll end up just folding it at the end of the bed. The pattern is “Metro Link” by Paisley Pear Quilts. I didn’t follow the directions exactly because I wanted to use the charm packs (pre-cut 5″ squares) of solid colors I had bought a while ago so I figured out a way to cut those in 1.5″ strips, sewed them onto long strips of the gray background fabric and then cut them apart to the specified sizes. And I had a lot of 2.5″ “jelly roll” strips leftover from my first camp quilt. My original plan was to use up patterned scraps, but my husband wanted solids instead. I think I should’ve gone with my instincts!

I really tried not to pay attention to which color was going where, other than to avoid putting two of the same colors right next to each other. I copied the straight-line quilting design from Alex at teaginny designs, though hers is MUCH nicer than mine. I had a ton of puckers on the top of the quilt and after awhile I was just sick of it. And then my sewing machine was acting up and the needle kept just FALLING off. (I think my walking foot was loosening the screw that holds the needle in). But as usual, once it was washed and dried, I liked it a bit more 🙂

Here’s the back: I didn’t have quite enough of the polka dot fabric so I used some of the leftover solid color strips.

It was funny, I have been spending a lot of time practicing my knitting … but when I switched to sewing the binding on this quilt, it felt SO EASY. My hands definitely are not yet used to knitting…

The talented Matthew Mead, who does the photography for my husband’s cookbooks and AP work, has graciously given me an extra copy of his latest work: Flea Market Finds to give away. As with his other books and magazine work, it is gorgeous. I particularly loved the feature on using the colors from maps as inspiration for paint and decorating.

I actually have not been to many flea markets, but we do like to go to yard sales. (Here’s a story my husband and I wrote years ago about the World’s Largest Yard Sale, We had a challenge to spend $100 each but failed miserably. ) Closer to home, we used to go to weekly auctions, and our best deal probably was our $5 dining room table.)

If you’d like to a chance to win, just leave a comment below. It can be anything you want, but if you have a good yard sale/flea market story, I’d love to hear it. I’ll pick a winner Monday morning.