SewMamaSew Giveaway Day - December 12 - 16, 2011

This year, I am offering up two prizes to win. The awesome people who run SewMamaSew coordinated all of the  blog writers who want to giveaway cool items and you can enter as many as you have the stamina for.

I have the snap purse (on the left) in black & red plaid. It snaps open with a unique closure and snaps back shut. Lined with red plaid, this little purse can hold art supplies, a CD,  cosmetics, or gold coins. It measures about 6" wide x 5" high.
This snap purse comes with a "Letters To Santa CD - A holiday Musical Collection" , published by the USPS, compiled by Gregg Field

Really - you have a complete gift here, the holiday CD which fits perfectly in the snap purse- a great gift to keep or give!

The second small purse snaps shut (with a snap this time) and will hold a small sewing kit, business cards or gold coins as well. This purse is about 4"w x 3"high. Featuring some organic bamboo fabrics as well as quilt cottons, it's a darn cute small purse.

Rules are simple: It starts Monday, December 12 and ends Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 5pm PST.
Enter my giveaway by leaving a comment:

 I have two prizes to give away, so in the comment form, let me know your preference and your favorite Christmas Carol.
My annual "What's Your Favorite Christmas Carol?" survey is probably important only to me but I will share the results Saturday on my "We Have Two Winners" blog post on Saturday.

Giveaway is open to everyone - I don't mind shipping internationally as well as domestic.
If it is domestic, the USPS should be able to get the item to you before Christmas.
***{If you haven't enabled your e-mail to show (behind the scenes), you might leave your email in this format: your email(at)wherever(dot)com}

If you feel the need to follow me on Blogger, or like me on Facebook, you can do that too. I prefer to grow my blog organically so I just need your comment to enter this giveaway.

I will tally up the favorite Christmas Carol responses and let you know the winner sometime Saturday. Winner to be chosen by my randomness.

Go look at all the other cool blogs and see what people are making.



For those who are here visiting, my hobbies include sewing and crafting as well as anything airplanes. I live in Oregon, currently own five sewing machines (why not?), and named this blog after my dog, Rocket, who was a total character, rambling around,  letting me use him as a model. He passed on this last October and is sorely missed. His buddy, Rusty, isn't about to allow me to wrap a scarf around his neck and likes to stay home with his people.

I like to try projects, learn what I can, then move on. It's difficult for me to make 36 of anything so you will see a bunch of eclectic creations here as well as really beautiful biplanes and lovely flowers. You can see my etsy store here.

SewMamaSew Giveaways

I am having so much fun with this giveaway. There are a lot of talented seamstresses, sewers, & crafters out there and it a pleasure to be able to find them so easily from this list.
My GIVEAWAY is here.

SewMamaSew has put together another winner of a major worldwide giveaway.
I've only been to a few sites but I thought I'd share some of my favorites so far.

This is my absolute favorite (so far) from Portlander  Mama Jean Kind Threads:

   

This Fairy Doll from Miss Aine  from Ireland:

I loved this handmade journal/book from Salamander Dreams.

And this Japanese wash cloth - a tawashi by Yngeltankar in Sweden.

And, finally for today ( got to go back to work), this lovely purse with the huge flower from BumblebeeBliss in Seattle.

I've already bookmarked several interesting-looking blogs to linger over later.

And the Angel Winner Is...

Wow - deciding  on who wins the giveaway was interesting. As someone who owns and plays a lot of Christmas piano music, the angel giveaway commenters covered just about every song. Although I must say, Australia's   Christmas Where The Gum Trees Grow is a new one for me.

So - on to the giveaway.
The most popular carol was O Holy Night. Closely followed by Jingle Bells, Silent Night and Elvis!
Making me choose one, and only ONE carol depends on the time of day, where I am at and who I am with. I like them all.
I have been collecting O Holy Night versions these last few years so I am going with that carol   This nicely narrows my choices down to a handful -- and I choose:

TaDa: (Tiny fireworks here)
Skooks   who wrote;
"O Holy Night is my favorite . . . especially sung by a choir. I don't know why exactly, but it always touches my heart when I hear it and I can't help but get teary eyed listening."

Thanks to everyone who left a comment. I very much enjoyed reading some of your blogs and profiles.

And a big shout out to the special people at SewMamaSew who pulled all of these giveaways out of their magic hat.

Tie-Dye Scarf

I was inspired to make this scarf after seeing it on the SewMamaSew blog in the Handmade Holidays for November  17, 2010. Category: Hipsters. 
It's so cool to be hip.
Here's the link to the tutorial.

Here's how mine turned out. I used a length of tie-dyed cotton sheeting that my friend, pencil girl, whipped up. I believe she wanted me to look at it and tell her how she could make a scarf for me but I turned it around when I saw the above post. My original tiny thoughts about this tie-dyed material was to make it straight and narrow and somehow fringe the ends into somewhat long spirals. Maybe add some beading. I am so glad I didn't see that idea through. This sewing with elastic in the bobbin is so much more rewarding - and faster.


 You start with a thin material. This cotton sheeting, well washed and re-purposed, is almost too thick. Measure and seam together a piece 90 inches x 17 inches.
You could either use your serger for a rolled hem on the edges or use your iron and fold over 1/4" and fold again 1/4". Sew down for a neat edge.  
Leave the ends unseamed for now.

 

 Next, spread the 'scarf' out and mark, lengthwise, three lines evenly spaced. I folded my side edges to hem so my finished width was 16". I laid my quilter's ruler out and saw easily that my three lines would be at 4", 8" and 12" (4 inches between lines). It's not rocket science and they don't necessarily need to be exact. Random, undulating lines could be on the next scarf I make.

Grab an extra bobbin and nylon elastic thread. Wind the bobbin by hand trying not to stretch the elastic too much as you wind. The tutorial said a longer stitch length (4)  and higher pressure foot tension is key. Use your regular thread on the upper spool. The elastic thread is only on the bobbin.  Sew as normal down each of your chalked lines.

 

To finish, hem your scarf ends with a narrow 1/4" hem by folding over 1/4" and folding a second time 1/4" and sewing it down.

Proudly modeled by Rocket. Or,  fill in the blank space for what Rocket really thinks about being abused like this. "________  _________  ______________  ____  _______  _________"