Hey there! Just wanted to check in for a minute and show you what I've been up to. I'm currently taking another 4 day Staycation. My Staycations involve lots of sofa sitting, t.v. watching, hot tub sitting (more on that later!), sewing, wine sipping, eating, baking and sleeping late. Basically.....all the things I love to do but never have enough time to do. For some reason I've had to force myself to take scheduled Staycation "down time" lately. I can't seem to flip the "off" switch at nights and on weekends......I always find myself working or thinking about working. Well, at least I do that when Mr. Sew Fab (a.k.a. John) is away on work trips which is.....a lot of the time! When he's home he forces me to quit working. And I mean "forces" in the nicest possible "lures me away from the computer with a glass of wine" sort of way. Anyway.....where was I? What was the point I was trying to get to?
Oh yeah.....I finally made time to sandwich and pin the quilt that I started 6 months ago! You know the one....the quilt that I wanted to have finished by October 1! And of course Bailey had to photo bomb my little photo shoot! But I think he definitely makes the picture better! And Bailey has already claimed this quilt as his own so it's only fair that he should supervise the making and photographing of it!
So now I get to start quilting it and binding it! Yay!
Before I head back out to the hot tub with a glass of wine I've got to share a few important lessons from today:
-Always make sure you have enough of the curved jumbo safety pins before you start pinning your quilt. This is the largest quilt I've ever made and I ran out of jumbo pins and I had to resort to the normal/little ones. And let me tell you something - The little pins HURT! I finished pinning over an hour ago and my finger is still throbbing!
-Think twice before using a difficult to match plaid for the backing of a large quilt. I had a heck of a time matching the plaid and I ended up hand piecing the backing because I couldn't figure out any other way to do it. And I know, I know....it's the backing...who's going to notice if the plaid isn't matched? But I'm a wee bit OCD so I couldn't let that one go! Plaids. Must. Match.
-Make sure you remember the "measure twice, cut once" rule when cutting your backing. I didn't realize I'd need so many extra inches to get the plaids to match! And now I have to add about an inch to the backing on one side because I "lost" so much length matching the plaids. Oops! And that takes us back to Plaids. Must. Match. I now have to add a sliver of fabric to the backing AND make sure the plaids match. Is anyone else out there this obsessive about small details?
Gotta run! The hot tub is calling my name (seriously....more on that later!).
Happy Sewing,
Jenny
Soooo....the economy sucks. We've all heard this a million times over. And we're all sick of hearing about it. And while the economy keeps going down, down, down the price of cotton keeps going up, up, up. The average price of fabric is now $10.50 - $11.00 per yard! Kind of annoying, huh? So we've decided to create the Retro Pricing Plan and apply it to every single fabric in the shop. Older collections. Brand new collections. Japanese imports. Everything.
What's the Retro Pricing Plan, you ask? Well, we miss the days when quilting fabric was $9 per yard or less. I know it wasn't that long ago (maybe two years) and that it's not really "Retro" but I just thought it sounded cute! And I think it will get the point across. I hope it does......
But we decided to go even a little lower than the "old fashioned" $9 per yard. Every single fabric in the shop is now $8.75 per yard or less. If you find a fabric that is more than $8.75 per yard please let me know.....It just means I missed that one when I was lowering all the prices. And if I can have a moment of radical honesty here let me tell ya something.....it was a HUGE undertaking to do this. It took just a wee bit longer than I thought it would! And by "wee bit longer" I mean that I thought I would be making this announcement in November or December!
And I should also mention that this is a semi-permanent price change. This isn't going to last for just a few days or weeks or months. I plan on keeping this around until the economy starts getting better. And then I'll slooooowwwlllly start raising prices back up. No sudden or big jumps here.
And what are all these pretty fabric photos, you ask? Well, one reason they're there is because I think a blog post with no photos is boring. But the more important reason they're there is because these are the new collections that have been pouring into the shop during the last two weeks. In order of appearance (on this blog post) they are: Fly A Kite, Breeze, Backyard Baby and Lush. And yes, they're all $8.75 per yard.
O.K. I'm going to stop talking about this now. I hate talking about businessy stuff in the blog. And I hate sounding sales-pitchy on the blog. But I just had to take a moment to let you all know the great news.
Soooo, Happy Sewing and Happy Shopping,
Jenny
We Have A Winner!
The winner is JuneBug who said "That fabric is so gorgeous, especially when you see it all together like that! I love Kate Spain.
I'm one who likes to have only one or two projects going at any given time. I used to be a strictly one project at a time girl, but that is unrealistic when working on a big project and you have to get little ones done in the mean time :)"
Congratulations JuneBug! And I'll let you know the results of the poll in my next blog post!
Just leave a comment and you'll be entered to win. I'd love to hear your answer to this question: Do you finish one project before starting another or do you have many, many projects going on at the same time? If you've read any of my previous blog posts you probably know which category I'm in - I have about 20 unfinished projects going on right now!
Be sure to leave your comment by Sunday, Feb 5 at midnight. We'll pick a winner on Monday, Feb 6.
Good Luck and Happy Sewing,
Jenny
We Have A Winner!
The winner is Sallie who said "I like it the way you have it. I'd definitely use blue. Thanks for the great giveaway!" Congratulations Sallie! Send me an e-mail and I'll send your Hooterville pattern to you!Happy January! I meant to post this Giveaway on the 1st......I really did.....but did anyone else have trouble getting back into their normal routine after the holidays??? I'm still just a little bit lost and out of sorts and can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing! But I'll figure it out eventually. Anyway, this month we're giving away a Hooterville Quilt Pattern. It's the most popular pattern we've ever had in the shop! Everyone loves those wide eyes owls!!!
And instead of having the Giveaway run for the whole month it's only going to be open for one week. I guess in the past I always wanted to give people plenty of time to enter.....but then I realized that there weren't many people entering the Giveaways after the first week. So, we'll make this one short and sweet. Just leave a comment to be entered to win. I'd love to hear what colors or fabrics you would want to use in the Hooterville quilt. And if you blog about this giveaway or tweet about it or do a Facebook post about it you can leave additional comments to receive extra chaces to win. I'll pick a winner on Friday, January 13, 2012. Last day to enter is Thursday, January 12, 2012 at midnight.
Good Luck and Happy Sewing,
Jenny
P.S. Be sure to check last months Giveaway to see if you're the big winner.
Merry Christmas from our house to yours! We hope you're having a wonderful holiday season full of health, happiness and love!
Big Hugs,
Jenny, John, Cassi, Daisy, Bailey, Emma and Sammy
So how's your Christmas prep coming along? I'm so happy to say that I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping, Christmas cards and all that other anxiety inducing prep work! And because I'm really trying to simplify my life this year I decided I was going to cut back on the massive amounts of homemade Christmas cookies that I normally make to give as gifts and try to do something a little different: Hot cocoa mixes in pretty jars.
After much taste-testing (it was a rough job but somebodies gotta do it) and recipe tweaking I finally found what I consider to be the perfect cocoa mix. Here it is:
-1 cup granulated sugar
-1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-1 cup powdered milk
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
-1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
You layer all of the ingredients in a pretty jar, tie it with a bow and attach a tag with the directions.
This recipe was supposed to fit in a 1 quart jar but for some reason it wouldn't fit in the 1 quart jars that I bought. I'm reallllyyyyy glad I did a test jar before I started my assembly line of cocoa jars! I would have had a major cocoa-tastrophe if I hadn't tested things first! So, for the remaining jars I just reduced the amount of each ingredient a little bit but kept the proportions the same. For my jars, I had to remove 1 tablespoon for each 1/2 cup of ingredient in the mix.
I downloaded some cute, free tags here, printed them on cardstock and wrote "Classic Hot Cocoa Mix" on the front and the directions on the back:
-Mix contents together in large bowl
-For each serving place 1/4 cup of mix and 1 cup water in saucepan and whisk together
-Heat over med-high heat for 3-5 minutes stirring occasionally
-Store remaining mix in jar
You can also make this in the microwave. You just have to stir 1/4 cup mix and 1 cup water together in a mug. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, stir well, microwave for an additional 30 seconds. Stir for another minute after microwaving. It takes a while for all those mini chocolate chips to melt!
I DO NOT recommend placing the mix in a mug and pouring hot water into the mug. It turned out pretty gross and chunky when I tried it that way. It's definitely better when the mix and water are combined before heating.
And voila! I now have a bunch of adorable, semi-homemade gifts to give out. But a few warnings if you're going to attempt to do this.....you will most likely get COVERED in cocoa powder as you make these! That stuff was not agreeable about going into the jars and I had to "funnel" it in using a baggie with a corner snipped off. And if you have a Golden Retriever, please lock him/her up while you make this. Otherwise you will be pulling marshmallows out of their fur for DAYS!
And now it's time to start making some sugar cookies. I said I was cutting back on the cookie making.....not eliminating it. I haven't gone completely mad! A girls gotta have some homemade Christmas cookies every year!Happy Sewing,
Jenny
Hey there! How've you been? I've been up, down and all around......First, I had my Staycation which was AMAZING! It was absolutely heavenly to take a few days to relax, recharge my brain and just veg-out. The only rule was to do whatever I felt like doing at that moment. And eat lots of wonderful food. On my first night of Staycation I made a new dish which I'll call "Lobster a la Jenny." It was lobster tail on sushi rice with spinach and beurre blanc sauce. Mmmmm.....
And then my afternoon snack on most days of the Staycation looked like this......
Fancy cheeses with a drizzle of honey and a glass of champagne. And while we're on the subject of champagne, I want to thank whoever started putting wine and champagne in those little single serving bottles. It's pure genius!
And I had to make one of my all time favorite dinners for my last night of Staycation.....The Cowboy Roll. It's a sushi roll made with Filet Mignon (which I cooked first of course!), avocado and that slightly spicy Japanese sauce that you make by mixing mayo with sriracha until it tastes right to you....
And I actually finished piecing the quilt top for the Living Room Quilt....
If you've been following along you know I started making this very simple quilt about 6 months ago....and it's still not done! I'm great at starting projects.....but finishing them is another matter entirely!
And after a few days of "catch up" work after the Staycation I came down with a wicked, evil, mean and nasty sinus infection/flu type thing. It's now 10 days later and I'm just starting to feel normal again. Whew. Being sick is no fun! I'm actually looking forward to doing laundry, ironing and dishes simply because I feel good enough to get off the sofa!
I hope you're having a healthy and happy holiday season so far! Be back soon....
Happy Sewing,
Jenny
P.S. I have a confession to make.....I may have started watching The Vampire Diaries on NetFlix while I was sick. I may have spent a few days watching it all....day....long. I may be having strange dreams involving vampires these days. Do you think less of me now? If you do, just pretend I didn't say that. I actually meant to say that I was watching a Masterpiece Theater marathon, o.k.?
Hey there! Just wanted to check in for a minute and show you what I've been up to. I'm currently taking another 4 day Staycation. My Staycations involve lots of sofa sitting, t.v. watching, hot tub sitting (more on that later!), sewing, wine sipping, eating, baking and sleeping late. Basically.....all the things I love to do but never have enough time to do. For some reason I've had to force myself to take scheduled Staycation "down time" lately. I can't seem to flip the "off" switch at nights and on weekends......I always find myself working or thinking about working. Well, at least I do that when Mr. Sew Fab (a.k.a. John) is away on work trips which is.....a lot of the time! When he's home he forces me to quit working. And I mean "forces" in the nicest possible "lures me away from the computer with a glass of wine" sort of way. Anyway.....where was I? What was the point I was trying to get to?
Oh yeah.....I finally made time to sandwich and pin the quilt that I started 6 months ago! You know the one....the quilt that I wanted to have finished by October 1! And of course Bailey had to photo bomb my little photo shoot! But I think he definitely makes the picture better! And Bailey has already claimed this quilt as his own so it's only fair that he should supervise the making and photographing of it!
