Catching Up With Sewing {Craftsy BOM Progress: May}

Here's some more Craftsy BOM progress!  Today I'm sharing my blocks from the May Lesson.

{Craftsy BOM: Wonky Log Cabin}

While I liked learning how to make these blocks, in the end I'm not exactly sure how I feel about them.  You can see that I used my blue scraps for one and green for the other, my whole Craftsy BOM quilt is blue and green, on gray.  My background fabric is Kona Ash.

 I like that the center of this block can be a fussy cut piece.  I also decided to use two different fabrics for the outer framed edge, I like the contrast of the light and dark corners.

This is the wonky five-side log cabin, I had issues with this block... you can see my Kona Ash background fabric as the center square, but it's obvious that I didn't have the whole "wonky" factor down until after the third row of scraps... then it all got a little crazy; my log cabin surely has more than five sides!  If you need a scrap-busting quilt, this is the block to make... I cleared out most of my green scraps on this one.  Although it was a challenge, I'm still happy with how this block turned out.  I'll have to make a mental note to not place it near my March Broken Spider Web block, as they may cancel each other out once the quilt is put together.

I'm getting caught up, more progress posts to come! 

XxOo~ Melissa

Catching Up with Sewing {Craftsy BOM Progress: April Blocks}

It's been a while for sure since I have sat down to sew with my Free Craftsy BOM Lesson.  I don't mind playing catch up, though, so I hope you don't mind reading about it!

To recap about the Free Craftsy BOM Lesson, you can read any of the posts, here.

Today I'm sharing my blocks from the April Lesson, enjoy!

{Craftsy BOM: English Paper Piecing}

These blocks were a lot of fun! I enjoyed the hand sewing aspect for the hexies... especially that I was able to sit with my husband and watch football, while sewing, true story!  Needless to say, I can easily see how one could get hooked on hexies.

The first block for the Craftsy BOM: April Lesson, was a Hexi Stripe; here we just stitched our hexies in a row and then appliqued to our background square.  I used temporary spray adhesive to hold my hexies down, I love temporary spray adhesive; one of these days I'll tell you all about spray basting a quilt with it!

The second block in the lesson called for us to make a scene with different sized Hexies.  In the lesson, our instructor, Amy Gibson, made a sun with rays and grass (Sunny With A Chance of Hex), but I decided I'd do a flower; only after piecing it together did I realize it looked like a snowflake... oh well, it works.

I'm so excited to get all of these assembled into the quilt at the end of the year, you'll be seeing quite a few Craftsy BOM Progress reports as I get caught up and share them all.

Are you doing the Craftsy BOM Lesson?  Did you know you can still sign up?  If you haven't been over to Craftsy.com, you should totally check it out.  Read why I heart it, here!

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Be sure to stop by tomorrow for Feature Friday to learn about my friend Ashley's Shop, One In The Hand, and a SALE!

XxOo~ Melissa

My Life in Photos {Fabric, Sewing, Kids and Retail Therapy}

Heyyy... so, it's been a while.

  

I'm here; working hard at being a Mommy, Wife, and indie business owner... it's quite the juggling act, I tell ya!  This week I am photographing pretty fabric so I can re-open the Shop and you can buy it up.  You will LOVE it, I'm sure!  I'll go into a post later this week about what you can expect from SoChick! Handbags ~ The Shop, the shop is in maintenance mode right now as I fill it with fabric fabulous-ness.  

For now, grab a cup of coffee and check out what I've been up to:

I love sending out pretty fabric packages and i'm looking forward to doing it much more often.

These Sunglasses Cases were sent as Swag for the Fairly Fabulous Crafting Slumber Party... I'm making more to add to the shop, using the new fabrics... yay!  I love these because they fit the big shades us Chicks like to wear *wink*; their soft structure allows them to form with any pair of sunglasses and the little magnetic tab keeps them secure... I LOVE THEM.

Some more Sunglasses Cases, at the Farmer's Market, featuring Art Gallery Fabrics. (Shown with the Mini-Tote I made a little while back.)

 I made some of these little zippy cases for the Farmer's Market, using some of the Soul Blossom fabric that'll be in the shop... great for pens/pencils, makeup brushes, travel, etc.

Pearls and a Tee with Jeans was the outfit when a spur-of-the-moment trip to the Apple store at the mall in Raleigh, NC was in order this past weekend. My husband's iPad crashed and I needed to have the camera fixed in my iPhone.  We were happy to have both fixed under warranty. Whew! (This means no more white dot in all of my iPhone photos!!!)

 What's a trip to the mall without some retail therapy?! I am SO happy to have walked past Lush Cosmetics... the lovely sales gal gave me a demo and I needed this cream, I love it!  Thanks to Reggie who packaged it in April of this year... his photo is on the side of the container. 

For Mother's Day, I've discounted my SoChick! Market Tote sewing pattern to $6.00 (from $9.50).  You can visit my Craftsy Pattern Shop to purchase the PDF download.  This pattern has full color photos, printable pattern pieces (which are easy to put together and shouldn't require resizing), and extra tips to encourage you to be creative.  I'm working on getting a button up over here on the blog to make Pattern shopping much easier. 

 Yesterday afternoon was spent in the doctor's office checking on my almost-9-year-old's ears, which were fine... she got a day off from school, but had to miss out on gymnastics practice and outside time with her friends... becuase if you are too "sick" to stay in school, you shouldn't be outside playing, right? Right!

Exciting news for my oldest Daughter, though: She has been invited to join the Compulsory Gymnastics Team at her gym... this means 12.5 hrs of practice weekly, and eventually competing in meets.  We are SO proud!!!!!!  Of course this means more juggling for me, but I'm glad to do it, she loves gymnastics... probably as much as I love fabric. Almost.


How do you juggle blogging/business/work/family?  Any tips?  Are you looking forward to shopping fabric from SoChick?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

XxOo~ Melissa

Weekend Wrap-Up & Craftsy BOM Progress

Time to get back into the swing of things around here.  Last week got a little hairy as I have been finishing-up custom orders; this week is full of them, too!  I did take a creative-break to finish up some hand towels I embroidered, sew a mini-tote and work on my March blocks for the Craftsy BOM Lesson... here's the proof:

I really enjoy machine embroidery and applique, mostly doing it during the holidays, but I am thrilled with how these all came out... I may have to start doing them more often!

I really love the Hawaiian shirt print in the ruffle of this "Beach Bum" towel.

The "R" appliqued towel has a pleated fabric border, instead of ruffles.  "Mel's Cafe" is for my kitchen...  I'm a coffee lover, so it's retro coffee fabric ruffle is perfect for me.

And, who doesn't love a sassy little "Bite Me" cupcake?  I paired that with a retro cupcake print ruffle. 

A few weeks ago, the awesome folks at Art Gallery Fabrics announced on their Facebook page that they had scraps to give away... of course I was like "Me, Me, Me.. pick me!!!" and was lucky enough to get in on it.  (Pssst, I saw they were doing it again, so you may want to start following them on Facebook... or not, more scraps for me! *wink*)

I was super pleased with the awesome scraps I received and used some for a new Mini-Tote:

The prints used here are both from the scraps I received, the lining and handles are from the Floral Elements line, but I'm not sure which line the outer print belongs to... if you know, tell me in the comments!  Either way, they pair so nicely and of course are super awesome to work with... like AGF says, you can "Feel the Difference", for sure! 

Finally, I got around to working on my Craftsy BOMs for March... yes, I know that I did them on April 1st... but what can I say, I'm a busy gal!  In my defense, I did watch the lesson in early March, that's the joy of it, though... easy to go back and re-watch/catch up on Blocks!

The March Blocks worked on Foundation Piecing, and as with the past lessons, we tried two different methods:

Top (Block # 5) is a String Block and Bottom (Block #6) is a Broken Spider Web.

I'm doing blue and green as the colors for this quilt with Kona Ash as the background fabric; so far I've used all scraps and fabrics that I've had on hand, with the exception of two I purchased when I went to GA a few weeks ago... but I didn't buy them specifically for this project... not that it matters if I did.  *wink*

Also, I made a second version of the first Craftsy BOM Block, the Asterisk Block.  I felt that my first version (right) wasn't doing anything for me color-wise.  I'm much happier with my new fabric choices (left block) and think it's going to fit into my end quilt much better.  Honestly, though, I think I'm just not a fan of this block in general... though I think it's a great beginner block! 

Okay, that's all for today. Tomorrow will be the Interfacing/Interlining post for The SoChick Chick's Guide to Fabric! See you then! 

XxOo~ Melissa

GiveAway Winner Announced! [Crafsty BOM Blog Tour]

Wow!  You are all so awesome, thank you for the great feedback on the Craftsy BOM Blog Tour & FQS GiveAway post!


I love, love, loved reading about all of the fabric you all would buy!!


From the Ninety comments, here is our Randomly Drawn Winner:

Comment # 88:










 Woo Hoo!! Congrats! Your husband will love the awesome quilt you are going to be making for him! *wink*



There is still a chance to get in on on the GiveAway Action, check out the Blog Tour Calendar to see where to visit today!


Thank you to Craftsy.com for having such an awesome free lesson, Amy Gibson for being a super instructor, and Fat Quarter Shop for Sponsoring the Blog Tour!


Coming Soon:
- My Sewing Expo Weekend recap, better late than never.
- [Part 3] of The SoChick Chick's Guide to Fabric: Fat Quarters & Pre-cut fabrics
**You can read [Part 1] and [Part 2] of my Fabric Guide now.**


XxOo~ Melissa

Craftsy BOM Blog Tour [Plus, A Give Away]

Yay!! Today is my stop along the Craftsy Block of the Month Blog Tour, if you are new here, welcome to my SoChick! Blog!


(If you're looking for The SoChick Chick's Guide to Fabric, you can find it here.  Part 2 will be up on Tuesday!)

I had planned to talk about how I was getting together with a friend of mine to make my February blocks, but life gets busy and sewing time this month was a bust (good thing we have nine more months to plan for sewing).  Instead, I've held out on sharing my February BOM's on the blog for today's post.  To recap, I joined the Craftsy BOM Lesson to learn some quilting skills, it being a free lesson was an added bonus, and to set aside personal sewing time for myself each month.

Here are my February Blocks:

#3 Balkan Puzzle Piece

#4 Chunky Chevron

As you can see, we are learning traditional blocks as well as modern blocks and this month's lesson had us making Half Square Triangles that were cut on the bias and straight grain!


**You can see my first month's blocks Here, and visit me on Craftsy, Here.**

Here is our super sweet instructor, Amy Gibson, showing off January's BOMs (The Asterisk and Wonky Pound Sign).

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again... I l-o-v-e that Craftsy allows you to learn at your own pace... with running a business and little chicks to look after, I can't always sit and watch a complete lesson, but I know I can go back to it whenever and that they will always be available!  You could totally sign up right now and still view the January and February lessons.  


If you have some fabric lying around, and a few hours to spare one day a month, this is SO what you need to sign up for!  Plain and simple: a few hours sewing once a month and you'll have a nice lap quilt by the end of the year... aaaand a ton of skills for other projects!

If you don't have fabric lying around (shame on you... *wink*) you need to enter now to win $25 from our Blog Tour Sponsor:

That's right, Fat Quarter Shop has been super generous to offer a $25 gift certificate at every stop along this Blog Tour!


Here's what you need to do to enter (on my blog):


-Leave a Comment on this post telling me what fabric you'd love to buy if you win the GiveAway


Yep, that's it, easy peasy.  Here are some rules:


- GiveAway will end on Thursday, March 15th at 11:59pm EST
- Be sure to include an email address (in your comment) where I can reach you if you win!
- Open to everyone, FQS ships Internationally, too.
- GiveAway winner will be drawn via random.org random number generator based on the total number of comments at the close of the GiveAway.


Thanks bunches for stopping by today!  Be sure to check out the other stops along the Blog Tour... you can enter to win GiveAways at each!

Feb 24 - Miss Print

Feb 25 - Hoosier Toni

Feb 27 - Fresh Lemons

Feb 28 - Qubee Quilts

Feb 29 - Amy's Creative Side

Mar 2  - mon petit lyons

Mar 3  - Mel's Own Place

Mar 5  - Breakfast for Dinner

Mar 7  - Sew Paint Create

Mar 9  - SoChick!

Mar 10- Spin the Bobbin

Mar 12- Diary of A Quilter

Mar 14- Ellison Lane

Mar 16- Old Red Barn Co

XxOo~ Melissa

Insta-Friday {Feeling Better}

So, about this mini hiatus I took from blogging... It wasn't intentional, really, I promise.  You see, the kids had a nice three (and a half) day weekend from school and my oldest chickie ended up bringing home a nasty stomach virus, which hit her on Sunday, to share with the rest of us.  I'll save you all of the details and tell you that we are all feeling much better after a few days of rest.  Whew!

Anyway, where has the week gone?!  I'll share the highlights (which are few) via an Insta-Friday post... linking up with Life Rearranged.

I was able to sneak in some sewing earlier in the weekend, prepping for new items... here's a sneak peek of some swirly pink fabric straps:

I also stitched up my February Blocks for the Craftsy BOM, but I'm going to wait to share those on the blog... you can visit me on Craftsy.com (TheSoChickChick) and you may have caught a peek if you're following me on Twitter or Instagram (Both @TheSoChickChick).

Next up is my Nan's grandfather clock, this is a seven day clock, meaning I need to "wind it" (raise the weights) once a week.  Every time I do, I open the front of it, take a breath in and am hit with all kinds of nostalgia of growing up and my Nan's home.  This was her clock, and all those years of being in her home have been sucked inside, they greet me every time I open that door... warm fuzzies. every. time.

Marilyn Louise, our 5 yo Boston Terrier, is always up for napping and snuggling... she's happiest snuggling under the covers snoring her brains out, so naturally she got some enjoyment out of us all being sick and resting.  Very recently, the pups have started sleeping in the girls' room again; they think they've gone to heaven every night when we say "time for bed", 've never seen two dogs run up stairs, jump in bed and lay still so quickly.  No, they are not spoiled... 

Well, there you have it... my week in photos.  This weekend I will be busy playing catch-up as there are lots of orders to fill, lots of projects going on and an upcoming trip to Sewing Expo (I'll tell ya more about that next week)... all of which means lots of coffee and maybe a late night, or two.

Don't forget that the Craftsy BOM Blog Tour kicks off today with Miss Print!! Pop over to say hi, you may find that you'll want to stay a while! Want the list of stops on the tour?  Visit my "Save the dates" post, Here.

Have a great weekend.

XxOo~ Melissa

Ready for a Blog Tour?! [Save the Dates]

Not long ago I introduced you to my New Sewing Friend (Craftsy.com)...  I told you about the awesome Free Block of the Month Lesson I signed up for (click that button in the right side-bar) and even shared the progress of my January Blocks. Soon, I will be sharing my blocks for February, but even more exciting is this awesome Blog Tour my SoChick! blog is going to be a part of:

The Craftsy Block of the Month Blog Tour starts on February 24th and will take you through 14 fabulous blogs!  Not only are you going to have some awesome new blogs to follow, you will learn more about the Free BOM Lesson, see different interpretations of current blocks, grab some sneak peeks at future blocks.. oh yea, and have a chance to WIN a $25 Gift Certificate to Fat Quarter Shop at EVERY stop along the way!

You read that right... Fourteen chances to WIN $25 to Fat Quarter Shop!  Wow!

Here are the stops and dates for The Craftsy Block of the Month Blog Tour:

Feb 24 - Miss Print

Feb 25 - Hoosier Toni

Feb 27 - Fresh Lemons

Feb 28 - Qubee Quilts

Feb 29 - Amy's Creative Side

Mar 2  - mon petit lyons

Mar 3  - Mel's Own Place

Mar 5  - Breakfast for Dinner

Mar 7  - Sew Paint Create

Mar 9  - SoChick!

Mar 10- Spin the Bobbin

Mar 12- Diary of A Quilter

Mar 14- Ellison Lane

Mar 16- Old Red Barn Co

Be sure to save the dates, you wont want to miss a single stop along the way!  Want to share the excitement with your friends/blog readers? Grab a Blog Tour button to the right!

See, I told ya I had lots to share! *wink*

XxOo~ Melissa

Weekend Wrap-Up [Craftsy BOM Progress]

I hope you were able to enjoy the three day weekend... my 8yr old is back to school today, getting her up and ready this morning was a bit of a task.


I didn't take a full three days off, I decided to work on Saturday and also was able to send out SoChick's first newsletter of the new year! Are you signed up?  If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the newsletter; if not, feel free to subscribe under the "Newsletter" tab to the right.


On Sunday I worked on my personal sewing projects, my After Christmas Sew Along and my Craftsy Blocks of the Month (BOM).  I'm really enjoying the time spent on these two projects.  Because I spent time with the BOMs, I didn't get the entire top of my Sew Along project finished, but I'm sure I will this weekend.. then I can layer it and start quilting it! Woo Hoo!

I watched my Craftsy lesson earlier in the week and printed the instructions for the January blocks so that I could work on them Sunday.

Here are my Craftsy blocks for January:

Asterisk Block

Wonky Pound Sign Block

If you haven't checked out the Free Craftsy BOM Lesson, and are interested in learning to quilt... you need to sign up! (Click on the Craftsy block to the right, under "What's Stitchin'", that will bring you to the sign-up page).  I'm really enjoying the discussions and seeing everyone else's progress as well.  Also, you can check out my Craftsy Profile and follow me, HERE.

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It's going to be a busy couple of weeks of sewing, sewing, sewing, at SoChick! Handbags!  

I finally received my wholesale order and am getting busy finishing up the products for The Shop's re-opening (Monday, January 30th)!!  I am SO excited for you to see the fabric combos and designs I've picked, fun and fresh inventory for "Everyday Chicks"!  I'm also anxious to get the shop opened so I can move onto my next SoChick! project of 2012... but, I'm not telling you what that is yet; I promise it's exciting stuff! (Especially if you currently sew or are learning... okay, that's enough hinting! *wink*)

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I have a fun "Featured" post planned for tomorrow,  I urge you to come by and check it out, you may find the next blog for your reader or some great handmade goodies!


XxOo~ Melissa

Meet My New Sewing Friend [Craftsy.com]

Yesterday I mentioned that I am participating in an After Christmas Sew Along. That will get me through my project in four weeks.  Today, however, I'm introducing you to a fabulous opportunity to sew something for yourself in 2012!


Meet my new sewing friend, Craftsy.com.


I received a nice little e-mail the other day from Quilters Club of America which told me about Craftsy.com and their Free Block of the Month Lesson!  Eeeek!


Craftsy is a great site with loads of Online Classes and Workshops for a variety of crafts, from knitting and crochet to sewing and quilting.

Source: blog.craftsy.com via Melissa on Pinterest

I have signed up for the Free Block of the Month Lesson, where we will make 20 blocks through the year and learn some great techniques as well as brush up on skills.  I have been told, via our Intro video, that I will have a completed lap quilt by the end of the class.  We will learn new takes on traditional blocks as well as some brand new block patterns.


I can participate in discussions and have already had a question answered in the discussion forum.  What a great way to 'meet' others who are working on the same project while getting personalized help from the instructor!!


The videos will be opened monthly and I can go back as needed... this is key for me since I am also running a business and this is merely a personal agenda... or is it?


Please go check it out... if you have wanted to try a quilt for yourself but never seem to find time to learn or fit a class into your schedule, this is totally something for you!


Enjoy and let me know if you sign up so we can chat about our progress!! Of course I'll share here, as well!


XxOo~ Melissa