Author name: Melissa Dunworth

Owner/Operator

100 posts…10 ways this blog has changed me

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Change is a good thing

This blog has meant different things to both Sunni and I. Here are ten ways this blog has changed me and my life for the better:

  1. I am more creative and adventurous
  2. Instead of just following patterns – I make my own
  3. I have become a “designer”
  4. I have taken risks
  5. I have worked with new materials
  6. I have worked with new (to me) concepts
  7. I have crossed three additional items off my craft bucked list
    1. Sew at least one outfit for Anne
    2. Publish one of my knitting patterns
    3. Take more chances
  8. I have more faith in myself and my abilities
  9. I am interacting with more people every day (through blogs) and I am putting myself out there to the world for both positive and negative critiques

And number 10:

I am happier – this has a lot to do with sewing and creating every day. I forgot what it felt like to have “me time” – this blog has given me the ability to have that time and it has done so much for my mom psyche. I think as a mom and wife I am a lot more fun now and I am certainly more pleasant to be around.

A happy Mama is a good Mama 🙂

How has blogging and/or reading blogs changed your life?

Web Faves of the Week

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No Work It Wednesday this week because the only thing I am working on is packing and cleaning my house for our big move next Friday. And let me tell you, keeping an 18 month old happy and entertained when you have packed 80% of her toys is NOT an easy job!

Making a packed up situation brighter 🙂

One of my favorite new blogs to follow is One Month To Win It.  This is a seriously fun crafting competition that goes over four weeks.  So far my favorite challenges have been the Under $5 Challenge from Season 3 and Wall Art from Season 2.  The bloggers who have competed are INCREDIBLY talented and have served as a major inspiration for me!
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If you think you will “make the cut” today is the last day to audition over at Country Chic Cottage.  Head on over all you incredibly talented bloggers and followers!

I have recently fallen in love with a new concept that I found on 15 Minutes Play.  The main concept behind this blog is to MAKE FABRIC.  How cool is that?!? The idea is that for 15 minutes a day as a warm up you sew scraps of fabric together at different angles and you cut them and sew them back together.  You are making your own fabric out of other fabric.

They are holding a challenge over on their blog to create 10 blocks from their “blocks of the month”.

The entire concept of “making” fabric is Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s, she is a quilter with an art background.  Her personal site, where she does sell her quilts, is Bumble Beans Inc.  I encourage you to go check out both the 15 Minutes Play site and her personal site.

Are you a fellow blogger? Do you host giveaways on your site?  Do you just like entering giveaways?  I am all of the above and I found a seriously cool site that has a linky party every week for giveaways!  Craft Buds is a collaboration blog of Lindsay Conner from Lindsay Sews and Mary Jaracz from Bugglebee. They post tutorials, like the one today for this beautiful Diamond Quilt:

 

Diamonds quilt hanging

 

In addition to all this is the giveaway linky.  If you like entering them or just want to get more exposure for one you are hosting, you should really head over and check it out!

What has caught your eye this week?

The Quilter Makes a Dress

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I don’t make clothes. I haven’t made any since I was 15 and made a pair of pajama pants. I used a directional fabric and cut everything upside down. Oops! This incident put me off clothes sewing for the second half of my life.  Things have changed…I’m turning 30 in 2 months and I have a beautiful baby girl to sew for now, it is time I try new things.

Anne is a natural beauty and I needed a very simple dress for my serious lack of seamstress skills. I found a pattern posted on Craft Gossip from Bramcost Publications. It was perfect for my skill set. I found this great patched plaid fabric at JoAnns.

Here are a few more gratuitously cute pictures:

Here is the two of us reading
Her playing – she can really move well in it 🙂
Back view
Uber cute baby view 😀

I still need to put in a hem, but in the mean time I am just so tickled pink with how it turned out!

What did you make for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge?

 

 

 


 

 

Along For the Ride 

 

Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special 

 

 

 

”Sewcountrychick” 

 

 

Work It Wednesday

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Woohoo! Hump Day yet again! This week and really the next two I will be working on the same project, which is so not like me. 

Do you see all those BOXES?!?  That’s right Brother Lover’s, we’re finally MOVING!!!  Our close day, bearing no more construction delays (we’ve only had one so far) is the 26th of May!  So it goes without saying that I will be doing a lot of packing and cleaning between now and then.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to let my creativity remain all pent up during this process. I will still have a lot of nap times between now and the 26th when I will need to be relatively quiet. Here is some fabric that I will be working with between now and then.

Yes, it is all bright and obnoxious. No, I’m not telling what I’m making.  That would ruin the fun of it.  I didn’t pick out these fabrics, these are from a kit that my mom bought YEARS ago and she gave it to me over mother’s day to help in the efforts of keeping me occupied during nap time.  The only problem is that at least 2 fabrics are missing along with one pattern piece 🙁  On the upside, I think it will be relatively easy to replace the fabrics with simple solids and the pattern piece I can remake out of paper, would have been nice to have the hard plastic one that came with the kit though.

What are you working on this week?

New Winner – Ryan DeBonville Knitwear Scarf

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Sadly we did not hear from Mary Jo over the weekend.

Happily, that means we get to give this scarf away to someone else.

And the winner is….

Number 11 is Evelene!

Evelene S said…

Hi, I liked Ryan on facebook and told him you sent me and that his work is gorgeous.

We think his work is gorgeous too!  Evelene, please send me an email at craftymamad at gmail dot com in the next 24 hours to claim your amazing prize!

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