A few hot sewing tips

I'm always on the lookout for ways to save money on sewing supplies ... the needles, scissors, blades, etc that we NEED to sew with, but aren't necessarily too much FUN to buy. A few weeks ago KarrieLyne had a great tip that the carpet cutter replacement blades you can buy for cheap at Harbor Freight fit into some of the sewing rotary cutters. It just so happens that there is a Harbor Freight pretty close to us and my Dad was generous enough to stop by there and buy me a few packs. (How convenient it's one of his favorite stores ;] ).



On the left is the 2 pack from Harbor Freight, 2 blades for $1.49. On the right is the 5 pack from Joanns, 5 blades for $31.99. The blades seem the same and are virtually the exact same size - 45mm. You can see the Joanns blades have those 3 little notches in the center, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in my Olfa cutter that the cheaper blades don't have them. I can't wait to cut some serious fabric to see if they last as long as the more expensive ones do!

The other thing I found last week that I was super excited about were ..... quilting gloves in the dollar spot at Target! Ok, so technically they're "gardening gloves" but I've always used gloves with the grippy stuff on them for free motion quilting and have been looking for a new pair for a few months. Unfortunately, gardening stuff hasn't been in the stores until just recently and I just spotted these perfect ones at Target. These are perfect, tight fitting and the grippy stuff on the fingers and palms. And hello, one dollar!



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Weekend Archives : Wanted! Crayon Bandit

One of the new things I'm going to be doing here every weekend is reposting a blog entry from my archives. I thought this would be a fun way for my newer readers to get a glimpse at some of my favorite posts from the past without having to read thru years of archives, and for my longtime readers to be reminded of some oldies-but-goodies. This post, Wanted! Crayon Bandit, was originally posted October 26th, 2008. Giveaway winner has been chosen and will be announced tomorrow! See you then. I'm off to watch the Oscars! :]

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My Sewing Room : a tour

This past Sunday morning I looked at my stash of fabric and got annoyed at how they were all haphazardly folded and stacks were falling over. I had folded them all nicely awhile ago, but with sewing and pulling them out and sticking them back in, they had gotten messy. I thought, "hmm, Jeni just did some awesome videos of how to fold fabrics, I think I'll look at those and try out that method of folding."



So then suddenly it's about 7 hours later in the afternoon. My sewing room is an absolute disaster area because folding fabric had turned into moving my desks around and that turned into moving some DVD shelves in because they fit fabric perfectly and that has turned into moving my other shelves to another wall.

At the end of the day, I had this:



I don't have a good before picture, but this set up is way more efficient then I had before. I love my cutting table being right next to my sewing machine in the L shape.



On the opposite wall is another desk that I put my laptop on when I'm working in my sewing room. My thread holder might need to move, it's still hanging where it was when my sewing machine was right next to it.



I have this awesome wooden crate that I store my works-in-progress in. I have a thing for pears and Marc saw this guy on the side of the road for me one day and flipped around to bring it home for me. It's in great condition!



I went through my huge buckets of scraps I had accumulated and *gasp* actually threw a lot away, the ones I couldn't bear to get rid of were sorted by color and are in these buckets.



See - another pear! My sister in law gave me this one that I spray painted white, and now I use it to store my selvedges in.



I seriously LOVE my sewing room now. I know I'm super lucky to have a room all to myself that I don't have to share with anything else and that I can just close the door to at the end of the day. Right outside my door is the playroom and so the boys are always nearby and of course are allowed in my sewing room too. They both love fabric scraps - Mason dumping them out and color sorting them, Grahm throwing them up in the air and putting them on his head. My room also has a huge closet that spans the wall where I store all my wrapping paper and bows, packing supplies and boxes, scrapbooking supplies and other miscellaneous crafting stuff.



And just to keep it real, and because it is kind of a "before" picture, here's a snap of my sewing room about a month ago. You can kind of see the arrangement of the furniture. This was right after the rush of making Christmas gifts and it had become a disaster area. Grahm wasn't allowed in there then because I was afraid I'd never find him again. ;] You can see I've since also painted the one wall turquoise and taken stuff down off the walls. It's SO cheery and happy in there now!

a Mug Rug week & no reply blogging

I love super quick & easy projects.  I always have lots of bigger projects going on but sometimes a fast one is just what I need to get reenergized and have that awesome feeling of sewing the last stitch of binding on something.

I have had this idea for a mug rug in my head for awhile now and this morning I got it out onto fabric.  Does it look familiar?  Grey background ... orange and blue squares .... no?  OK, maybe it's just me.  I should have done the background fabric a plain grey instead, maybe, to make it a more literal interpretation.





(If you don't get it, it's the Sewing Summit logo that inspired this layout/color scheme. I feel like I've been staring at that logo multiple times daily for the past 7 months.)

I had been having a hard time lately with bindings on some of my smaller items and so for this mug rug I tried a new-to-me technique found here at VeryKerryBerry. It worked awesome! It was weird to cut binding strips at a scant 1.25 inches, but it worked great! Although handsewing the 2 binding pieces together to join them made me realize that I really need a refresher course on handsewing and needles. My needle felt like it was too fat for the job I was doing, but I have no idea what the different #'s for needles mean.






I have had mug rugs on the brain a lot lately and am getting ready to do a series on them - Mug Rug Week! A lot of people get to my site through searches asking "what is a mug rug" and "size of mug rug" and "how to make a mug rug" which is funny - because all it is is a little mini quilt, right? But I figured we could cover some basics and have some tutorials to get you inspired to make a mug rug and even the chance to win one!

Speaking of winning, there's still a few more days to leave a comment on this post for a chance to win these pretty fabrics. I've had the best time reading through all your comments, getting to know you a little bit better, and hearing what you like to see on a blog.  Thanks for leaving such fun comments!  Oh, you should try to make sure that you're not a "no-reply blogger" (aka someone that doesn't have an email addressed associated with their profile) because I try to respond personally to every comment left and I can't do that if I can't email you!  If you need more info on if you're a "no-reply blogger" then read this excellent post that Jodi wrote.  She explains it well!

Monday Buisness

- My friend Allison said the other day that reading blogs was bad for the bank account. Yes, yes it is! I loved these Metro Living circle fabric from the start, but after I started seeing them pop up in projects and on blogs I had to have them -- in every color! They're such a good basic, and in such bright, fun colors.  I spent all yesterday cleaning out and rearranging my sewing room, I think I'll get some good pictures when the light is better down there and do a little sewing room tour this week.





- Did you hear about the Bloggers Quilt Market Meetup? Some great local sewing bloggers Amy, Nanette & Calli are planning a get together the night of May 14th since so many sewists will be in town for Quilt Market. You don't have to go to Quilt Market to come to their fun meetup! I'll definitely be there.





- My best friend, Darci, interviewed me for her Sewists Interview Series. Some of you know that Darci and I have been friends for over 10 years, because our husbands were best friends in high school. We both married our husbands within a month of each other and so it was like built in best friends. I'm so lucky to have a friend that loves sewing and great fabric just like I do. She asked me about my sewing history and what I like to sew, it's a fun interview, go read it and let her know I sent ya ;]

- My friend Amy that I'm planning Sewing Summit with - well, she wrote a book!  A quilting book called Modern Basics.  She's doing a blog tour where lots of people reviewed her book and will be writing about it, as well as giving you a chance to win a copy.  It kicks off today at Piece N Quilt.

- And are you reading Delish Magazine yet? It's an online magazine that covers fashion, crafts, cooking, travel, among LOTS of other stuff. The editors describe it as:

"Delish is all about living this life — truly living it. Living it like you mean it.
Delish is also about traditional values in a modern mindset, and so in our pages you’ll read stories about very modern women who revel in pretty traditional activities like sewing, baking, canning and homemaking."

It is a beautiful, inspiring read and so beautifully laid out and edited. One of my favorites, for sure. Their winter issue had a gorgeous interview with fabric designer Anna Maria Horner.

Weekend Archives : Intruder!

One of the new things I'm going to be doing here every weekend is reposting a blog entry from my archives. I thought this would be a fun way for my newer readers to get a glimpse at some of my favorite posts from the past without having to read thru years of archives, and for my longtime readers to be reminded of some oldies-but-goodies. This post, Intruder!, was originally posted May 16th, 2008.

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So this morning I was giving Mason a bath upstairs and I could've SWORN I heard chirping coming from down in the kitchen. SWORN. (Note: we don't have pet birds. Marc is TERRIFIED of birds.) I thought I was just hearing things from lack of sleep or just general going craziness when I heard more of it ... chirp, chirp, chirp. I decided bath time was over so we could go investigate.

I went downstairs to first see Newton cowering in the corner shivering and shaking and whining. This is the not-so-bright dog that thought it would be a good idea to take on the large Dalmatian next door to disastrous results, so I knew that something must be up if HE was scared out of his mind.

See anything wrong with this picture, besides and overflowing stack of coupon mailers and junk on my mail table?





Um, yeah. Bird in the house. Again, we don't have pet birds, Marc is terrified of birds (as is apparently the dog) and I'm not too fond of birds and definitely don't want a bird in the house. Mason on the other hand spotted it immediately and ran towards it frantically doing the sign for "duck" (close, right?), pointing, and giggling. What do you do when you've got a tiny, terrified little bird in your house that keeps slamming itself into the windows in a desperate attempt to get away? Grab the camera, of course!





He hung out in the laundry room for awhile (probably because it has a big window in there) and then flew over to the big window and window sill I have above my kitchen sink. That window holds my collection of Mason jars and a few plants, and currently it's holding about 8 extra pots of California Poppy's I'm growing from seed along with some herbs. Little Bird thought it was the perfect place to hop around and hide from me.





Oh, the kitchen window also holds a fake rubber chicken that, um, emits a gross, slimy egg out when you squeeze it's belly. Don't ask. Or do ask - Marc or my mom.





I tried everything I could think of to get him to fly towards an open window, but he wasn't having any of it. Probably partly because of the chubby short kid laughing loudly and pointing at him. I put the kid in his high chair and distracted him with a banana while I finally sort of shooed the bird over to the living room, where I had another window open, and where he finally, finally figured out how to fly through the open part instead of ramming in again to the glass.





Poor little bird. I hope you're not too traumatized by the experience in our house this morning. It made for an exciting start to our day!

This is Me!

So as I've mentioned before, I've been at this blogging thing for a long time. I started "journaling" / blogging in .... 1998 I think? I've been on Twitter since March 2007 .... Flickr since it was in beta testing in March 2005. I guess you'd call me an early adopter ... either that or a Gramma of the online world. And with anything that you've been doing for a long time ... you tend to get burnt out on it, right??

Well that's how I've been recently about blogging .... tweeting .... the online world in general. It's changed SO much since I first started ... both in good ways and in bad. I see lots of cool events popping up and things happening because of relationships that have been formed online. I have some very good friends that I've only ever met online. And so I'm trying to get back in it. I WILL get back in it because I kinda have to!





Some of you know I am 1/2 of the awesome duo that is planning The Sewing Summit. (I'll blog more about that soon). I kinda NEED to put myself out there so people know more about who I am and what I'm about. Otherwise why would they want to come to this awesome conference that I'm putting my heart and soul (and every second of my free time) into?

So, in the spirit of transparency here's a little bit about who I am: (stick with me to the end for a chance to win something cool!)

- I'm Erin. I am married to the most amazing boy in the whole world who is currently getting his Phd in genetics. How awesome is that? I have two little boys that are crazy, hilarious, explosive, as smart as their Daddy, born 3 years apart (same due date even!) and perfectly, genuinely loving all wrapped up into little kid sized raucous packages.





- I make things. I sew mostly. I am not an artist in the traditional sense at all (I can't draw or paint or anything worth a darn) but I do like to put pretty fabrics together. Especially for other people. You can see some of the other stuff I've made here.





- I do like to blog (despite my off-and-on-ness with it recently). I blog about things I sew, food I cook, fun things my family does, trips we go on, my goals, books I read, music I'm listening to, things I buy or want to buy. It's kind of a blogging stew around here, I guess.

- I like goals. I made myself a list last summer of 32 things to do before I turned 32 this July. I need to update it again - I've done quite a few and am pretty close to finishing a few more!





- In the spirit of goals, I up and registered myself for the Disneyland 1/2 marathon in September basically on a dare from my father-in-law. I have never run a day in my life. I kind of despise it. But, I suppose it's a good goal to have! I'm planning on breaking my new Nike Free's out of their box annnyyy day now.

- I like to take pictures. I used to a lot more, but I am getting better again, thanks in part to my Project 365 this year. It's mid-February and I haven't missed a day yet! You can see the whole set here.

- Favorite food: cheese! cheese chips, fried cheese, fancy cheese and crackers, cheese on a stick, mac & cheese, cheese layered, cheese melted, cheesecake. Any and all! Followed closely by donuts and a cheeseburger from In N Out.





- Favorite color: green all the way

- Favorite guilty pleasure: trashy TV I have on while I'm sewing

- Favorite fabric line: Katie Jump Rope





So that pretty much sums me up. At least it's a start. So, what I want to know is who are YOU? Who's my reader? What do you want this blog to be? Do you like funny stories and pictures of my kiddos or pictures and tutorials of things that I make?

If you take a second to answer me, just say hi or whatever else you want to - you'll be entered in a drawing for your choice of 2 things: this pretty fat quarter stack of some pretty fabrics from my stash, OR if you don't sew, I'll make you a mug rug in your choice of colors. If you become a follower you can get an extra entry. So one comment to say hi. A separate comment to say you're a follower. I'll keep it open for a week, so will close it sometime next Thursday night (the 24th).  And it's nice to meet you :]

----- GIVEAWAY IS OVER -----

Saturday Night Thoughts

Making: these "sandwiches" for the boys tomorrow
Drinking: diet Coke
Reading: my RSS reader
Wanting: a Kona starter pack
Looking: at Pinterest
Playing: Fruit Ninja on my iPhone

(Grahm, asleep in his carseat)

Wasting: -
Sewing: about a million things: bee blocks, swap items
Wishing: I hadn't started ripping out that quilting again
Enjoying: my Nutella + salty crackers snack
Waiting: for my fabric to come in the mail
Liking: my heating blanket on my feet
Wondering: how I am going to ever start running
Loving: my new glasses
Hoping: this is really the time they make the Arrested Development movie
Marveling: at how good Grahm is getting at signing
Needing: this kink in my neck to go away
Smelling: the baby powder scented vaseline on my hands from when I put Grahm to bed



(donuts from our trip to the bakery on Thursday)

Wearing: my sweaties
Following: Twitter
Noticing: I need to dust the baseboards
Knowing: I won't dust the baseboards for awhile
Thinking: of all I need to do for Sewing Summit
Bookmarking: these cookies to make sometime soon
Giggling: at the Star Wars VW commercial, the boys must have watched it 100x's this weekend
Feeling: tired