happy halloween

The photos above are from the Vintage Halloween Flickr pool and can be found here. Now the kid in the pumpkin suit isn't me but I wore something very similiar for years that my mom had made out of a pillowcase. Being the crafty mom that she was she dyed it orange, used one of her permamarkers for the face, made me a green stem felt hat and even got me green tights.
At some point I rebelled and she stayed up all night making me a clown costume, without a pattern! She made me a one piece clownsuit and a hat, and the thing is though, is that she had to cut up a sheet and hand draw the polka dots on it because she didn't have any fabric to use! Is that not awesome! What a mom!
Halloween is on the rise here, too, and so I thought I would post a list of Halloween tutorials I have found online. There are costume ideas, masks to download, decorations and all kinds of other goodies here. Have a scary, creepy happy halloween!

Halloween Costumes

Martha's Halloween Tips

Downloadable Skeleton

Free Halloween Embroidery Patterns

Halloween Crafts

Fairy Wings

Free Downloadable Halloween Masks

giveaway, new fabrics

First of all I wanted to tell you all to get over to true up as soon as possible and leave a comment in Kim's under Giveaway post! I am a regular reader and a sponsor of True up,(if you are a fabric fanatic, this blog is a must)and Kim is celebrating her first six month anniversary and to celebrate she has organized a fab giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment about what you would like to see featured on true up. We decided that the Volksfaden giveaway makes more sense ecologically to confine it to European entries, it makes more sense to me to not send fabric that is coming over by boat from the USA back to the US by plane! So all you Europeans out there go over and enter and one of you may win a 50€ gift certificate from Volksfaden or a certificate from one of her other sponsors! You may,of course enter both giveaways!

Alot of new fabric and some old faves have arrived to Volksfaden over the past week. The long awaited Alexander Henry shipment with "Frida's Garden" great new pear prints form Robert Kaufman, organic cotton prints from Westfalenstoffe, Organic Solids from Pondicherry, India and some incredibly vivacious corduroys from Stenzo.

So if you have a minute, drop by!

yes, we can!

So how cool is this???? Denyse Schmidt and friends have created a "YES, WE CAN" quilt that will be raffled off to raise money for Obama's campaign. If you donate at least $10 your name will be put in the pot and you could just win this DS original. At the moment it looks like only people stateside can participate which is a bummer. Maybe this will change but if you are stateside and you are interested , go here. Love all the grassroots participation in this campaign.

corduroy galore

The promised apron tutorial is yet to come, at the moment I have to answer the call of my accountant and do the bookkeeping, which I usually put off until it can no longer be avoided...so sewing come to a halt, projects have been put on the back burner and my nose put to the bookkeeping grind....
Quick reminder, the Trendmafia opens it's doors again tomorrow, info here.So here's your chance to support indie designers!
I have added corduroy fabrics this Fall to the Volksfaden collection. Pictured above are new cords from Stenzo, true to their style of vivacious prints!! They can be found here.

rad apron

Here is project #11, a rad apron for all of us rad Suzy Homemakers. This is a very easy project, just right for beginners so I thought that tomorrow I would post a heavily pictured tutorial....stay tuned.
(the fabrics used were "Peace" from Alexander Henry and "Funky Flowers Black" from Robert Kaufman.)

sew hip

travel tissue holder from craftapalooza
pillow project from "Sew Hip"

End of October the first issue of "Sew Hip" hits the newstands, you can pre-order the first issue here. I can't wait, and have of course pre-ordered. I think it looks pretty exciting, chock full of patterns, ideas and interviews with queens of creativity like Amy Butler, Sandi Henderson and many more. I think it is great that a moderately priced European sewing magazine will be available to all of us and I do hope that it will really help the sewing/crafting community connect here.
I didn't even go near my sewing machine today so here is a link for a travel tissue holder from craftapalooza, just in time for runny nose season: go here.

cookies reversible smock

Here is project #11- the Cookies reversible apron
I used the "Cookies Pink" from AuntyCookie and the "Apple Dot Pink" from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market for this little reversible smock. This smock also keeps the little one's back covered just in case some of her nursery mates start a paint or femo fight.
Enjoy your Sunday!