Swaps

Purse Palooza 2012

June 4, 2012 By Sukie 3 Comments

Well I finished my mini NY Beauty Swap. . what do you think??

Next project. . Purse Palooza 2012 baby!

What’s Purse Palooza 2012? Here’s the details:

1. Every weekday in June, there will be 2 amazing guest bloggers scheduled to share with you a purse sewing pattern review. The review will contain detailed information about what they thought about the sewing pattern, modifications they made, what kind of interfacing they used, and more! Get inspired!

2. Even more exciting…THERE WILL BE A GIVEAWAY EVERY WEEKDAY IN JUNE! That’s right, 20 GIVEAWAYS! Your Giveaway Fairy Godmother is Kim from My Go-Go Life - she has some unbelievable giveaways planned!

3. At the end of the event, you will get a chance to show off your purse in order to win some amazing prizes!

Pretty simple right?

I’m starting on a pattern that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. It’s by Amy Butler’s Sophia Carry All:

Pattern Review Schedule:

June 4 – Sara @ Sewsweetness (tutorial: bag interfacing)
Kim @ My Go-Go Life (Urban Jungle Bag)
June 5 – Meg @ Fashioned by Meg (Anna Maria Horner Art Student Tote)
Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews (Posie Rosie Little Things Jane Market Bag)
June 6 – Kaelin @ The Plaid Scottie (Oliver + S Day in the Park Backpack)
Colleen @ The Busy Bean (something from Amy Butler’s Style Stitches book)
June 7 – Bree @ My Crafty Crap (Jenna Lou Designs Mabel Bag)
Ayumi @ Pink Penguin (Signature Bag from Kumiko Fujita)
June 8 – Tamiko @ Patchwork Notes (Hexagon Patchwork Bag from Playful Patchwork)
Jessica @ A Little Gray (Pat Bravo Verona Bag)
June 11 – Jessica @ Sew Crafty Jess (Amy Butler Spice Market Tote)
Amy @ amylouwho? (V. and Co. Favorite Bag)
June 12 – Sara @ The Pretty Pickle (Charlie’s Aunt Casablanca Clutch)
Lindsey @ LRStitched (Noodlehead Envelope Clutch)
June 13 – Erin @ 2 More Seconds (Keyka Lou Bucket Bag)
Caroline @ Sew Can She (V. and Co. Carry All Tote)
June 14 – Ali @ a squared w (bag from I Like Orange Too)
Rachael @ Imagine Gnats (Jen Giddens Pocket Tote)
June 15 – Holly @ Bijou Lovely (Noodlehead Go Anywhere Bag)
Katie @ There and Back (Sweet Pea Pocket Purse)
June 18 – Monique @ Sew Fun by Monique (Millie’s Market Tote from Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli)
Katie @ Swim, Bike, Quilt! (Green Bee Scoop Tote)
June 19 – Jennie @ Clover and Violet (Lunch Bag from Pink Penguin)
Joanna @ Shape Moth (Emmaline Bag)
June 20 – Jen @ Bettycrockerass (While Baby Naps Metal Clutch)
Krista @ The Spotted Stone (The Sometimes Crafter Amanda’s Knitting Bag)
June 21 – Katy @ The Littlest Thistle (Noodlehead 2-4-1 Tote)
Terri @ Sew-Fantastic (In Color Order Lined Drawstring Bag)
June 22 – Elizabeth @ Don’t Call Me Betsy (Amy Butler Weekender Bag)
Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs (bag from the Bag Making Bible)
June 25 – Amy @ Sukie Don’t You Know Who I Am? (Amy Butler Sophia Bag)
Heather @ {House} of a la Mode (Retro Mama Granny Bag)
June 26 – Julianna @ Jednoiglec (Charlie’s Aunt Kitchen Garden Bag)
Jeni @ In Color Order (Bari J. State Street Tote)
June 27 – Kerry @ Very Kerry Berry (bag from Suzuko Koseki)
Michelle @ I Like Orange Too (Left Bank Granny Bag)
June 28 – Kay Whitt @ Sew Serendipity Studio (tutorial: adjustable strap with metal slider)
Amy Barickman @ Indygo Junction (tutorial: installing grommets/magnetic snaps)
June 29 - Melissa @ Bittersweet Designs (Bella Nonna Boutique Shoulder Bag)

Contest Rules
1. Check out all the purse pattern reviews throughout the month and get inspired to sew up a purse of your own!

2. Join the Purse Palooza 2012 Flickr Group.

3. Link up your completed purse to the Flickr Group BETWEEN JUNE 4th and JULY 11th. Your purse must be created and photographed between those dates; purses made prior to June 4, 2012 will be disqualified. The purse may be of your own design, or made from a sewing pattern.

4. You may link up to 2 views of the same purse. More than 2 photos of the same purse will be removed from the group.

5. There is no limit to how many purses you may enter, as long as they were made between June 4th and July 11th, 2012.

The Prizes

First off, there will be a team of lovely judges that will choose 1st through 6th place. ALSO, 3 randomly chosen winners will be picked out of EVERYONE who completes a bag! Some great chances to win!!

1st Prize

* $50 gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop

* 3-pack of books from Martingale Publishing
* $50 gift certificate to Zipit
* $70 Pellon gift pack
* fat quarter bundle and sewing pattern from Art Gallery Fabrics

2nd Prize

* fat quarter bundle and sewing pattern from Art Gallery Fabrics
* 3-pack of books from Martingale Publishing
* fabric bundle from Sew Fresh Fabrics
* $30 gift certificate to Spoonflower

3rd Prize

* fat quarter bundle from Art Gallery Fabrics
* 2-pack of books from Lark Crafts Publishing
* $20 gift certificate to The Quilted Castle

4th Prize

* fat quarter bundle from Art Gallery Fabrics

3 Randomly Chosen Winners

$20 gift certificate to Pink Chalk Fabrics

The Sponsors
Thank you to all of the lovely and extremely generous sponsors!
Art Gallery Fabrics // Artsy Crafty Babe // Noodlehead // Izzy and Ivy // Serendipity Studio // Martingale & Co. Publishing // Betz White // Sis Boom // Atkinson Designs // Mommy’s Thimble // Lila Tueller // Sew Fresh Fabrics // Bari J. // C&T Publishing // Keyka Lou // Clover and Violet // Indygo Junction // Marie-Madeline Studio // Pellon // Pink Chalk Fabrics // Lark Crafts Publishing // The Quilted Castle // Fat Quarter Shop // Craft Apple // iThinkSew // Emmaline Bags // Bag Purse Frames // Zipit // Oliver + S // Ellen Medlock Studio // Charlie’s Aunt Patterns // Spoonflower

Get to your favorite online/local quilt shop and pick a pattern and follow along!

Filed Under: Purse Palooza 2012, Swaps

NYB Swap progress

June 1, 2012 By Sukie 8 Comments

I’ve been really chugging away at my NY Beauty mini/pillow swap (when I mean mini/pillow, I’m thinking of making it into both and letting my secret partner decide what she wants to do with it). Remember the NY Beauty sewalong. . .I thought it might be fun to organize a small group swap among some of the gals I know. Plus, I was thinking I wouldn’t do anything with my blocks that I made with my tutorial so why not put it in something. That soon changed because I really liked how it turned out and I thought I should actually put it in a quilt or something. (Waffling due to sewing curves is a biotch!)

So if you’re following me on the Instagram (user name sukie80) twitter, or facebook – then you’ve might have seen my progress pictures:

(May 27th First block – Pink Block#7)

(May 28th Second block – Blue Block#8)

(May 29th Third Block – Green Block#1)

(May 30th Fourth Block – Orange Block#9)

I finished all the blocks pretty late but I had to sew them all together and then since the 3 colors that recur in each block is yellow, white, and grey – I thought I would add those as borders.

I needed to add another grey border, but had to force myself to go to bed!

I’m racking my brain on how to quilt it. . . . . I’ll keep ya’ll posted!

Oh but the best part. . I happened to receive my pillow from my secret partner, Melissa! It’s super gorgeous!

THANKS MELISSA!!! The extras and the card was my totally my style.

Filed Under: New York Beauty QAL, Swaps

Vintage

December 7, 2011 By Sukie 7 Comments

You know how you lose readers fast? Try not blogging for a while. . ha! Yeah I don’t mean to neglect my blog but it’s been a little crazy. I fully blame myself for the craziness.

You know how you go through life and you one day realize that you have a calling. . yeah I got struck in the head yesterday, while I was sending out my company’s rules for the “White Elephant Gift exchange.” One of the rules I dropped the word “swap” and felt deju vu. It seems like my calling is organizing people for swaps or gettogethers. Yeah, I think I come up with the idea and I just can’t wait there to act. That’s right I get my sick jollys from other people’s enjoyment in swaps. I’m sukie. . I’m sick.

On top of organizing swaps. . I’ve been really busy at my day job. . since it’s the end of the year and I have to make sure all the books are on the up n’ up.

I have one christmas gift that I have to get done so I can send it out. I just need to finish hand binding it. . .because I’m still not confident about machine binding. I’ll get pictures of that shortly. . promise!!!

Ah yes. . another swap that I started. . the Secret Santa Swap on Twitter. It’s been pretty awesome if you ask me. My partner’s really into the vintage things so I got her/him some vintage buttons and trim. I’m also pairing it with some vintage Pyrex. It’s going in the mail tomorrow. I love vintage things but I really never thought of vintage trim and buttons. I hope I nailed her/him down. . .

Filed Under: Swaps

Pillow Talk Swap

November 13, 2011 By Sukie 12 Comments

Ah yes, if you remember from a couple blog entries back I signed up for a Pillow Talk Swap. Well lets just say the 1st attempt had a little accident and I had a redo in my future. . .

My good buddy Lee from Freshly Pieced had this great quilt along on her blog, the Supernova. Which my other good buddy, Brook from Pitter Putter Stitch asked for her month of our local bee to make Supernova blocks. And looking at my partner’s mosaic, I thought: “Hey, I can make that block smaller with thangles!” (Cause I have like every size)

So after some late night tweeting. . Lee told me if I did 1.5inch finish then I could make a 4×4 panel = 20×20. Now here’s the funny part and why you should really pay attention, when Lee said, “1.5 finished” my brain translated it to “1inch finished” because I started out with 1.5inch blocks. Yeah so each block ended up being 7×7. . meaning the pillow would be 14×14.

Not so bad just add a couple borders right? So here’s the finished 18×18 pillow. . what do you think???

With the binding, I was hoping to have Kati show me machine binding at our sew Saturday – but there just wasn’t enough time so I did some hand binding on Sunday and felt a little paranoid stuffing a pillow in there so I did a 2nd around of binding with the machine around the edge.

I’m sending my partner some extra goodies because of the tardiness. . . I’m glad it’s done and I think it’s looks pretty great. What do you think???

I got a great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, pillow from the lovely Mrs Kelly from Kelbysews!!!!!!

Filed Under: Swaps

Secret Santa via Twitter

October 21, 2011 By Sukie 15 Comments

Okay okay it’s not like I’m busy. . I’m hella hella busy! A lightbulb fell on my head earlier this week and I thought shoot lets see where this goes.

Secret Santa through Twitter:

Rules:

1. Limit for the gift is or up to $15. If you go over you’ll make us all feel like douchebags.

2. Must have a twitter account. This is how we’ll communicate to each other.

3. Deadline for mailing is 12.10.11

4. Please make sure gift is wrapped.

5. Must be able to ship overseas

Other stuff that’s relevant but not really rules. . . Once you’ve signed up, I will send you an confirmation email.

I. This does NOT have to be a handmade item. That’s right you can just buy fabric, notions, or whatever suits your partner’s fancy.

II. Wish list keep it reasonable. . that’s right you can make a wish list and if you wish to blog about it please do and add you link to the bottom.

III. Use twitter to communicate to others in the group and try to follow everyone’s twitter account so you don’t miss a beat.

IV. If you signed up and something came up and you need to drop out, please let me know!

Makes sense? Should add deadlines for sign-up 10/31

Filed Under: Swaps

How big?

September 13, 2011 By Sukie 2 Comments

Or how small. . . . so I spent a good hour last night making 40+ of these 3/4 hst (half square triangles). I’m apart of another flickr swap and I thought this might be a way to go. But it’s one the fence right now for a couple reasons.

1. 1/8 seams might be the death of me.
2. I think the print kind of gets lost because it’s so small.

Any suggestions???

Filed Under: Swaps

Scrappy Mug Rug Swap. . .

August 28, 2011 By Sukie 5 Comments

About 2mos ago, I signed up for a Scrappy Mug Rug Swap on flickr. It’s a group for active flickr users that like to make mug rugs (a mug rug is a bit bigger than a coaster meant for a snack and a drink) and secret swap to each other.

Let me rewind a little here. . . just last week I was bitching about how I hate being in swaps. . .it’s really hard to make something for someone you hardly know. You upload pictures hoping they comment on it and like it. But sometimes they don’t and then you’re stuck sitting there wondering if you’ve made the right choice or not. And to add to the craziness. . I’m an only child – and I have this constant need to seek for approval. . . so I kind of stress out when it comes to secret swaps.

So I decided to work on my mug rug a little everyday and here’s the process:

Last Monday night, I started out this these little pastel japanese 2′ squares to which I thought weren’t “modern” enough for my partner and scrapped that idea quick!

Tuesday night, I thought, “Scrappy Mug Rug Swap”. . . I’ll go to my scrap bin and start pulling out bright fabrics for the mug rug and whatta ya know it had a “flower” theme to it. I added grey fabric to make the fabric pop more. I didn’t want to go with white. . . I think I’m done adding white to my projects for awhile.

Oh and the swap has a haiku theme. . and here’s my haiku:

haikus are easy
but sometimes they don’t make sense
refrigerator

Wednesday night, I had to add something to that middle grey line. . kind of boring without something. . . how bout a bee? Isn’t he cute??

Thursday night, it’s binding time. . again looked at my fabric stash and had left over binding from another prj so added it to the mix. I don’t bind a lot and it’s always a p.i.t.a (pain in the ass) – but in my crzy research, I think I finally found a good technique.

Friday night, finished up the binding and the mug rug and I really liked how it turned out:

Thinking to myself. . how the heck am I going to incorporate the dang haiku. . hmm. . . . how bout printing it out and adding to a coffee mug since I know my secret partner likes coffee too. . yeah that works!

Here’s the other side of the mug:

There’s a bunch of other goodies. . . so I won’t ruin the surprise. Hope you like it partner!

Speaking of. . . I got my mug rug on Saturday. Yeah we were getting back from a grocery shopping and I noticed that our mailbox was open with a huge priority mail package sticking out. I thought to myself, “I haven’t ordered any fabric.” Did I? You know you have a problem if you forgot you bought it right? Looking at the from: the Intrepid Thread . . . seriously did I order fabric???? Then it hit me like a train. . IT’S MY MUG RUG!!!

Julie spoiled the crap out of me (again another trait of a only child)!!! I saw her finished mug rug last Thursday and thought, “I hope this ones mine!!”

I loved her haiku too!!!

She send a ton of goodies my way:

(9 fat quarters of the new Promenade by Stitch Studios and Taza By Dena Designs)

THANKS JULIE!!! I LOVE MY MUG RUG AND ALL THE GOODIES!!!

And with that . . I remember why I love being in swap. . . .

Filed Under: Sewing, Swaps

Worst Swap Partner ever!

August 23, 2011 By Sukie 6 Comments

Who’s got two thumbs and is the worst swap partner ever? (ME!)

Yeah a good online buddy of mine – Mrs. Fiona from the UK was the victim. Back in January we decided to swap potholders and fabric with each other. The due date was the end of February. Well Mrs.Fiona held up her end of the bargain and sent me these lovely potholders!

When I got them in the mail I was happy and felt like shit at the same time because I didn’t finish hers yet.

But I finally got them done like what. . . .6mos later. . . yeah the horribleness is oozing out of my eyeballs at this point. I did email her a couple times and of course she’s so sweet she could riot your teeth with just a smile. Here’s what I sent her:

Yeah again, I didn’t try anything orginal with this and used Mrs. Fransson’s tutorial on her blog. Again . . if I had the brain power to come up with something my own. . then I would. . but again I’m like 90% lazy so it’s super hard to combat that right?

I did send Mrs. Fiona a fat quarter for every month I was late. . . I hope she can use it in her awesome projects.

Mrs. Fiona – SO SORRY!!!

I am trying to be better about deadlines and such. . . I’ve got this great system down. Don’t over commit and under preform. Yeah I think it’s kind of fool-proof. . . . I’ve even got this list going of stuff I owe people:

Filed Under: Sewing, Swaps

Emasiado Ocupado! (hopefully I got that right)

August 9, 2011 By Sukie 1 Comment

Yeah if you’re handy with the Spanish. . then you know the titles says: Too Busy

(Just a small glimpse of my sewing table today)

Where do I start? Recap: Me and Elizabeth are managing a online flickr modern quilt bee aka 4×5 modern Quilt Bee. Things were crazy trying to get that up and going and making sure all the ducks were in a row. Meaning other things that I was managing were pretty much going on the back burner.

A good example of that is the “hive” (group) of gals in my other bee – the 3×6 Sampler Bee. Yeah, I don’t want to trash anyone online and I’m not going to point fingers but basically we had someone drop out. What does that mean for me? Well since it was so late already, and I didn’t want the other girls to suffer – I made them “angel blocks.” What are “angel blocks?” Well basically if you make 6 blocks and mailed them out and one person decides to flake out then you’re only getting back 5 unless someone awesome makes you an angel block. I love my group so much that I didn’t want one little hiccup to ruin things or leave a bad taste in their mouth.

My angel blocks are based off Mrs. Fransson‘s tutorial she did on Sew Mama Sew – wonky cross. If you don’t know me. . I usually don’t try to reinvent something. . . maybe that didn’t sound right, but since I didn’t have a lot of time, I didn’t want to come up with a new pattern for the 12.5×12.5 block. So here they are:

My favorite one would have to by Lydia (which I didn’t get a good picture of):

Do you guys remember the Fenced In quilt? What’s the status with that? Well I still need to start the back. . . yeah I have this super awesome idea and need to hammer that out.

I had to put that on the back burner because my Kona Solid Challenge is due in a couple weeks. Robert Kaufman generously has donated the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild Bright Kona Solid charms packs. The rules are you have to make something that is purely solids anything from a pillow to a quilt. It’s kind of funny but I’ve been leaning more towards solids anyway. If it’s more dominate in a pattern it makes the print you choose kind of POP. I’ve got a awesome quilt idea. . . and I know you’re all dying to see what I made here’s a sneak peek:

I promise to blog more . . . at least once a week so ya’ll don’t think I’m dead.

Filed Under: 4x5 Modern Bee, Fransson Quilts, Sewing, Swaps

Fat Stack & Grand Opening!

March 31, 2011 By Sukie 1 Comment

I starting to gear up to do another Tokyo quilt. Oh yeah baby! Kati from the Blue Chair was kind enough to drop me a reminder of a sewing Saturday coming up. I think that means I should have all my blocks cut up so I can just sit there all morning sewing up blocks.

Here’s a couple of special fabric I purchased off etsy for the quilt. . it’s got some Japanese theme going on:

I’ve done really good for the month of March. . . I didn’t buy too much fabric. I think I swapping with other people have really help. My yellows and oranges are pretty good! I think that my purples are still weak.

I think I have most of the shop figured out for the Pyrex Explosion Sale. . . Grand Opening will be Monday, April 4th @ 10:00am MST. If you want to see what’s up for sale, please look over my flickr photostream.

Filed Under: Pyrex+Fabric Swap, Swaps