That’s right! Three winners today!
The big winners will be receiving:
And without further ado:
I will be contacting you each later in the day for your mailing information. Congratulations!
If you weren’t a big winner today, don’t forget my SewMamaSew Giveaway from Stitches N’ Giggles is still open through tomorrow evening! Good luck!
Did you notice I said “still sewing” and not “still quilting”?!? No, I haven’t given up quilting, I am just adding a little something new to my repertoire! With the encouragement of a very wonderful friend who I have truly come to treasure I have not made just one dress, but I have made 2 dresses in the last month! Kristy from Hopeful Threads has been encouraging me to make a dress for Anne for months now, and last month I took the plunge and made a dress for her Dress A Girl challenge.
I read Kristy’s review on the Little Comet Tails – Gemini Jumper and I thought to myself…”I can do that”. Before we came down to California, I ordered the pattern and shipped it to California so it would be here waiting. Now, keep in mind the only dresses I have ever done have been all straight line sewing AND neither have had pattern pieces! I have to say, Kristy got her review spot on, I was actually able to do this pattern. Now don’t get me wrong, I had to email Kristy with a slew of questions and at one point uploaded a picture to Facebook and tagged her in it just to make sure I was doing everything correctly. She is so wonderful for helping me like she has! What do you think?
The fabric is from 2009 and is Alexander Henry – I just love his fabric and I have to say I have been drooling over at Contemporary Cloth on the Alexander Henry that Sondra has in stock right now!
(Here’s Anne sitting in my Aunt’s garden!)
And now for the quilting! Since I have been here for the last 2.5 weeks, I have managed to get 3 quilts finished – the tumbler Flock quilt, my mom’s Mother’s Day gift, and a special gift for a special friend.
Please don’t ask me the fabric line…I have no idea, sorry!
This is my May Care 4 Caregivers project from Hopeful Threads. Oddly enough, the caregiver that I chose to give this beauty to, is Kristy. The parameters were to pick a caregiver in your community and use your sewing talent to find a way to honor them. This community has become a huge part of my life and while I have only participated in 2 of Kristy’s challenges, I have been following her blog since last August and she just blows me away. I decided to recognize Kristy for all she has given to not only our community but to communities around the world. She has literally impacted lives around the world. Thank you Kristy for all you do!
What have you been sewing? This week I have been working on a Feathered Star block, it is going to be the center for a mini quilt I am working on, hopefully pictures for you next week!
I have said a few times in the past that this blog is my happy place. It is a place where both my daughter and I are perfectly healthy and we spend the days playing and I spend nap time creating. This is because in reality that is not always how it is, we both have health issues that we deal with daily and they are not easy to deal with. That is why this is my happy place.
Now, I’ve known for several months now that I was going to need to take a break right around when I disappeared. I have mentioned before that we are a military family and as often happens with military families, the time has come for another deployment. My husband left for Afghanistan 2.5 weeks ago. This is never easy, no matter what age your children are (I’ve now done it with a 6 week old and now a 2.5 year old), and I wanted to make sure that I could completely devote my time to our daughter. Anne is still adjusting, WE are still adjusting. I like to say that we are looking for a new temporary normal, because whatever normal we land on it will only be temporary, and then we will have to find a new normal once again.
I would like to share a few pictures, the first 2 are from a photo shoot we had done before my husband left. My goal was to surround my house with pictures of husband and my daughter so that wherever she went she would see her daddy and see the 2 of them together. Here are 2 of my favorite pictures:
Here are 2 pictures of the day he left:
Now, I don’t think this would have hit me nearly as hard as it did except for the fact that Anne’s health and my health both took nosedives in the week leading up to his departure. Not easy stuff to deal with, actually to be perfectly honest it was one of the scariest weeks of my life. A lot of words were tossed around by specialists like Cancer and Stroke. I am OK now, more monitoring will be needed on some ongoing issues, and Anne is also ok, she too needs more close monitoring than before. Needless to say it has been stressful and scary. My husband has arrived safely at his destination and we actually mailed him his first care package yesterday. I didn’t want to write about any of this until I knew that he and his unit had gotten to their final destination and were indeed safe. You never know who might be reading, and writing about troop movements is NEVER a good idea in a public forum.
Regardless of all that, I continue to count my blessings and remind myself that I am part of an amazingly wonderful community. I had countless people offer to guest post for me (having no idea why I was taking a break), I had my sponsors in my corner throughout the last several weeks, and most importantly I had all of you in my corner. I can’t tell you how much your caring and supportive emails have meant to me. The next 9 months will not be easy for my family, or any other military family for that matter, but being part of this community I know will help get me through.
So there it is, nothing cataclysmic (though it certainly felt that it was heading that direction at one point), just another life adjustment. Anne and I are in California right now, I thought it would be good for her to be surrounded by family while we get used to daya (that’s what she calls her daddy) being gone. Ok, enough! Tomorrow I will show you a couple of the things I managed to sew the last couple weeks. Back to my normal happy place 🙂
Don’t forget to go enter the 2 giveaways I have open right now. One from Superior Threads and the other from Stitches N’ Giggles.
P.S. Did anyone watch the House Series Finale last night? Loved it!
Happy Monday Everyone! If you are new to Sew BitterSweet Designs, welcome. This is my happy creative place, where most everything is right with my little corner of the world. I hope you will take the time to become a follower and feel free to check out my tutorials and product reviews while you are here. I have lots of great quilting tutorials available!
Today I am lucky to have a wonderful giveaway from Lori at Stitches N’ Giggles. Lori is a stay at home mom to 2 wonderful little boys and she is also a fabric addict – thus a store is born. She has been sewing for over 20 years and 3 years ago, she decided to launch her own shop. She carries all of your favorites: Michael Miller, Moda, and Superior Threads King Tut.
Here are a few of my favorite lines that Lori has IN STOCK right now:
Coming in June, Lori is expecting…
And just in last week:
Today you can win a Layer Cake of Lucy’s Crab Shack by Sweetwater from Stitches N’ Giggles! In order to enter, you must be a follower of this blog, so check out your options in the sidebar, it is really easy and there are lots of ways! Leave a separate comment for each entry.
This giveaway will be open until May 25th at 9pm Pacific Time, I will announce the winner on May 26th. You have four chances to win. Good luck! (I normally reply to all comments left on the blog, but giveaways are difficult because I get inundated, I do read every comment you leave!)
UPDATE: Lori is offering a giveaway code just for the SewMamaSew Giveaway week! Enter sewmamasew for 10% off on all fabric yardage and the code is good through the 27th of May! So get shopping!
PS. I also have a giveaway open through Wednesday, May 23rd from Superior Threads! Make sure you check that out while you are here!
In March I attended the Puyallup Sew Expo and I stopped by the Superior Threads booth. I had asked them if I could review their hand quilting thread on the project I was making for Mother’s Day. The nice thing about going to the booth was I got to meet Bob Purcell. If you have never met Bob, I highly suggest taking one of his Threadology Seminars. They are worth every penny of your money and every second of your time! The other reason it was nice to be in the booth was that I got to bring my current project with me to color match Treasure to my quilt. I love doing that! It is perhaps one of my favorite steps in the quilting process.
Here’s my wall hanging before I quilted it.
As you can see, with the exception of the prints, it is a bit Plain Jane and I wanted my quilting to not only brighten it up, but to be the standout feature. I got two different spools of Treasure Thread and started quilting. I used #560 Knick Knacks (tone on tone med. and dark teals) and #568 Legacy (med. and dark purples). Let me pause here to tell you that the pictures you are looking at on the Superior Threads website (GO LOOK!!!) are exactly how the threads look in real life – which is a relief when you cannot see and feel something in person! I did some straight line quilting and then I decided to try my hand at some curves and added four butterflies.
What do you think?
Here’s a close up of the stitching:
This is only my second time hand quilting and I have to tell you, I am hooked! It took me literally two months to finish this project, mostly because life happened and kept getting in the way. My last project was done with Perle Cotton, so all my review will be based on that experience. I should also mention that I used John James Quilting/Betweens – JJEG120 Size 9/10 needles by Colonial Needles.
Things I liked:
Recommendations:
I would love to see Superior Threads either carry needles or have a recommended brand or two listed on their site. I would also love to see even more color choices available, although the fact that there are variegated choices already puts them miles ahead other brands!
Have you done any hand quilting? Would you or have you tried Superior Threads Treasure?
Here’s one last picture for Mother’s Day:
Sew Much More!™