Weekender Jewelry Pouch

I'm super excited to announce I have a new pattern available in my shop!

I don't know if you guys remember me posting about this a few months ago, but I've really been trying to focus on getting my Etsy shop off the ground as part of my master plan to transition from corporate job to eventual stay-at-home mom.
Part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much of late is because I've been working on several different behind-the-scenes patterns & projects, and I haven't had as much time to work on outside things that I can share with you guys :(

I'm really jazzed about this pattern because not only does it require minimal materials (3/4 yd interfacing and a total of 3/4 yard of fabric), but it comes together in a snap. Including cutting, it usually takes me less than an hour from start to finish. 
And since it doesn't require a lot of time or materials, I'm making these as my go-to gift for Christmas this year - my goal is to whip up about 20 or so to gift to friends, co-workers, and as stocking stuffers for my family :)

It's great for travel - especially weekend trips (hence the name) when you only need to stash a couple necklaces and a few pairs of earrings. Its size makes it perfect for storing in small carry-on bags (or in your purse if you're like my grandma and think everyone's out to steal your jewelry, lol!) [Completely random side story, but my grandma was occassionally known to hide valuables in her bra because she'd had a double mastectomy when she was in her 40's and there was nothing in her bra but padding anyway. One of my favorite memories about her is that she would always slip my sister and I a $20 when we were leaving her house, and many times those bills were discreetly pulled from her bra as we were getting in the car...LOL! Now you guys know where I get some of my delightful eccentricity from *wink*]

And I actually use mine on a daily basis to store my jewelry for work - since I exercise in the mornings and shower + dress at the gym, I coordinate my outfit and accessories the night before and tuck my pouch in my gym bag with my clothes.

The finished pouch measures 13.5" in diameter when laid flat, and I'm selling the PDF pattern for $6. You can purchase it on Etsy, or if you'd prefer to download the pattern immediately after purchase, you can also get it from my Meylah shop. 

Here are some other cute versions you can check out! A big thanks to my friends Kristie (bottom left pouch), and Kelly (bottom right pouch) for pattern testing, and also to Ali for being Queen of Adobe Illustrator and putting the templates together for me. I heart you ladies!

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Cosmos Pillow Winner

Almost forgot! Mr. Random Number Generator has spoken, and the winner of the Laura Gunn Cosmos Pillow is...

Comment #26 - legato1958!

"Crossing my fingers for that beautiful pillow!"

I've emailed the winner, and if I don't hear back from her within 4 days, I'll re-draw for a new winner. Thanks for playing everyone!



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State Love Pillows (aka Pillow Mania)

I blame my friend Cherie for this new bout of pillow mania that's slowly spreading throughout the greater New Orleans area. She recently posted some cute Louisiana & Mississippi patchwork pillows on Facebook, and I latched right onto the idea because I needed a nice present to send my mom for her birthday. I even decided to add a little heart over my hometown (and their current abode) - London, Kentucky.

Well...after posting it on Facebook myself and showing a few people the goods in person before mailing it, I had a mini-epidemic on my hands. State pillow mania had spread from Cherie, to me, to my immediate friends & family.

And within the span of one weekend I managed to whip up 2 more for friends, with orders for several more on the way - yay! I'm really excited about them because it gives me a great chance to use up the scraps in my overflowing bins, they match just about any decor, plus they're super fun to make (my favorite part is appliqueing the heart over their hometown)

Here's one I did for my good friend & former college roomie, Dana (yes - she's the same Dana I have annual craft swaps with). She hails from Cincinnati, Ohio - home of Skyline Chili and goetta. Mmmm...goetta....

And of course, no true Texan is going to sit back and take it while someone makes pillows of states besides Texas (I think state superiority must be engrained in every Texan's DNA at birth), so I had to whip one up for our good friends that live two streets over (lest they and their beloved state feel slighted...lol!).

They hail from Odessa - home of dust, tumbleweeds, and scary thunderstorms.

In case you know of anyone that might be interested in ordering one for their home (or early Christmas presents), I have listings up in my Etsy shop now! I have a listing for a 12" x 16" custom State Love pillow sham for $35, and a listing for an 18" x 18" custom State Love pillow sham for $50 - all you need to do upon checkout is specify which State and City you'd like on your pillow :)

I'm also going to start offering Country pillows soon, using the exact same design. (I'm currently making a pillow of Wales for my husband's coworker and his wife - he's Welsh and moved to the States a few years ago after meeting her.  They're getting ready to move into a new apartment and I thought it would be a nice housewarming gift :) )

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Craft Book Month: Patchwork Pot Holder

It's Craft Book Month over at Craft Buds! All month long Lindsay has been celebrating all things craft book related, and I hope you guys have been following along, because there have been some really great projects and prizes popping up on her site!

I don't know 'bout you, but I love craft books. Yes, pdf patterns are super cheap and convenient for all involved, but there's just something about having a book in your hands. Touching the smooth pages, admiring the beautiful photography...sometimes when I want to relax, I'll curl up on the sofa and flip through my sewing books with no real intention of picking out a project - I just like to look at the pretty pictures!

So when Lindsay first contacted me about participating in Craft Book Month, I had grandiose plans of finally picking one of those super complicated and gorgeous projects I'd dogeared in my many sewing/quilting books...but in the end, I went with something much more practical.

You see, shortly after I received her email, I had to do a lot of baking (remember the great birthday cake disaster of 2012?). And as I pulled out my go-to pot holder (see above), I took one long look at it, and had an internal dialogue: "Self? Why do you continue to use such utterly disgusting pot holders?"  I've published two patterns in magazines for pot holders/oven mitts, and yet I have the most abhorrent ones known to man. Pot holders so grotesque, that I sometimes hesitated to touch them. If I could invent an adhesive that was half as strong as the bond of food bits that had managed to cling to that pot holder through years of repeated washings, I'd be a millionaire.

So I finally decided to make a pot holder, and not give it away for a change. I'd been drooling over some pot holders from Zakka Sewing for a while, so yanked out my copy and flipped to the pattern. Ahhhhh...so pretty....want to touch....



And now when I make my morning tea, I have something pretty to look at :)
 

This week ends the blog hop, but make sure you guys continue to check in on Craft Buds through the end of the September, because there are still some great giveaways going on until the 30th!

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Cosmos Pillow {giveaway!}

A few weeks ago Laura Gunn was kind enough to ask me if I'd like to whip something up with a charm pack of her newest fabric line, Cosmos. Since Magnolia Lane makes appearances in several rooms of our home, I was practically foaming at the mouth over her offer!

I'm a little later finishing this project than I'd like, but that's what hurricanes and vacations will do to your schedule ;)

(...well...and let's not pretend I'm not a severly Type B person who tends to shun schedules in favor of seat-of-my-pants flying)

Anywho, my scatterbrainedness aside, here's the spiffy new pillow I made with her charms! There were 28 squares in my charm pack and I wanted to find a way to showcase each and every one, so taking a cue from one of my favorite pillows of all-time (received it from Relish Australia in the Pillow Talk Swap a few years ago), I chopped them up into parallelograms, sashed them with a little Essex Linen in Sand, and decorated the linen with a little bit of navy purl my friend Michelle sent me a while back ;)

To make the parallelograms, I cut each charm into a 3" x 5" rectangle. Then I turned the rectangle and from the long 5" side, I placed my ruler at a 60 degree angle from each corner and cut.

The backing is a print from Denyse Schmidt's Daisy Mae line for Joann's. 

It's always so hard to determine what colors truly look like on a computer screen, so in case you'd like to pick up some Cosmos for yourself and are wondering which fabric lines it plays well with, I'd recommend pairing it with Daisy Mae or Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line. I especially like how it pairs with the mustards from Echo, and I think you could make some great Fall projects for your home by pairing Cosmos + Echo!

SO. How would one of you lucky readers like to win this pillow? Fall is just around the corner (this Saturday the 22nd), and I think it would add some nice Fall flair to any home :)

Leave a commen to enter! I'll draw a winner this coming Monday, Sept. 24th - good luck!

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Extreme Sewing

Two weeks ago when we were getting everything prepped for Hurricane Isaac, I decided to round up a few extra things for a special project I'd been putting off for over a year. I figured I was already pawing through my precious Heather Ross fabric hoard anyway in my 'desert island fabric' frenzy, so why not? Plus I knew the power would go out at some point and I'd be bored out of my gourd without something to pass the time, so I printed and cut a pile of 2" hexie forms and got my scraps in order.

Between sewing by flashlight in the middle of a hurricane, and sewing in the passenger seat of our car during a 10 hour car trip to Orlando, I managed to finish all but one row. I'm going to sash it in linen, do a little hand quilting with purl thread, and hang it on my sewing room wall to make me happy while I work!

Nothing revolutionary...just another HR hexie mini arranged in a color gradient...but sometimes simple is nice. Plus rainbows make me happy. As do whimsical HR fabric snippets :)

Lately, I find I'm looking forward to a lot of simple pleasures now that Fall is on its way...cool weather, crunchy leaves, the sights and smells of holiday baking, the new squash plants popping up in my garden, and maybe an early screening or two of Elf *wink*

I love Fall.

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Giveaway Winners!

Just got home about 2 hours ago and I've done about all the relaxing I can stand, so I'm already running on all four cylinders, so it's time to draw the winners for the giveaway I posted last week before I left :)

The winner of the metal frame pouch is...

Comment #51 - Denise in PA!

And the winner of the custom Fat Quarter bundle is...

Comment #27 - **nicke!

I will be emailing the winners shortly. If I don't hear back from them within 5 days, new winners will be drawn. Thanks everybody!!!

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Craft Book Month!

Due to hurricane power outages and fabulous Disney World vacations, I wasn't able to post this on September 1st, but here's a little info on a cool Craft Book Blog Hop I'll be participating in later this month :)

Back-to-school season means its time to hit the books. Craft books, that is! We love craft books for their inspiration, stunning photography and crisp, glossy pages. Hard covers or soft, we just love craft books, and we know you do, too!

All month long in September, our friends at Craft Buds will celebrate sewing, quilting and all kinds of craft books by shining the spotlight on new releases, interviewing authors and editors who make the magic happen and giving you a chance to win.

Blog Hop

Week One

Sunday 9/2: Hopeful Threads / The Jolly Jabber
Monday 9/3: Stitchery Dickory Dock / Me Sew Crazy
Tuesday 9/4: Olive & Ollie / Sew Sweetness
Wednesday 9/5: Fabric Seeds / The Busy Bean
Thursday 9/6: CraftFoxes / Stitched In Color
Friday 9/7: Katie's Korner / A Prairie Sunrise

Week Two
Sunday 9/9: Sweet Diesel Designs / missknitta's studio
Monday 9/10: Sew Tara / Clover and Violet
Tuesday 9/11: Sew Fantastic / amylouwho
Wednesday 9/12: Projektownia Jednoiglec / Two More Seconds
Thursday 9/13: Ellison Lane Quilts / Don't Call Me Betsy
Friday 9/14: Live a Colorful Life / LRstitched

Week Three
Sunday 9/16: Fairy Face Designs / Canoe Ridge Creations
Monday 9/17: Inspire Me Grey / Freshly Pieced
Tuesday 9/18: Lindsay Sews / The Cute Life
Wednesday 9/19: The Littlest Thistle / Sew Crafty Jess
Thursday 9/20: Urban Stitches / imagine gnats
Friday 9/21: Sew Bittersweet Designs / The Plaid Scottie

Week Four

Link up your craft book project at Craft Buds from Sept 23-30 from your blog or Flickr account, and enter to win prizes. Winners will be announced on Monday, October, 1!

To participate in the month-long contest, just link up any project you've made from a pattern in a craft book. That easy! You'll tell us a little about the book, the project, how you personalized it, etc.

Rules:

1) One entry per person.

2) Your craft book project must have been completed in 2012.

3) Create a new blog post or Flickr photo (dated September 1, 2012 or later) and link back to Craft Buds/Craft Book Month in your post or photo description.

No time to create a project? This month, just follow Craft Buds and comment to win some new craft books and lots of giveaways! We'll also have expert Q-and-As to show you what it takes to write a craft book, from the initial idea to the layout, photography and the actual printed product.

To help kick off the Craft Book Month contest in style, Fat Quarter Shop is helping us celebrate with a big giveaway! One winner will take home a $100 gift certificate to shop for some new fabric, craft books and notions.

Ten winners will get a new craft book to help work out that creativity! This is the perfect excuse to make that project you've had your eye one, but haven't carved out the time for.

Fat Quarter Shop is giving away 1 copy each of Quilts from the House of Tula Pink by Tula Pink, Sewing ModKid Style by Patty Young, Skip the Borders by Julie Herman, Stop Go Quilt Sew by Angela Yosten and Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkison.

Craft Buds is giving away 1 copy each of Modern Basics by Amy Ellis, Reinvention by Maya Donenfeld, We Make Dolls! by Jenny Doh, New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry by Margot Potter and More Teach Yourself VISUALLY Jewelry Making by Chris Franchetti Michaels.

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