Tag Archives: fabric

Recent packages in my mailbox and more fabric swapping

Posted on May 28, 2011 by SewTara| 1 Comment

My treasury worked! My hubby got me this, from here.

And these! Only they say ‘Tara’ and not ‘Stephanie blahblah’.

I also took advantage of a Heartsy deal and ordered some packaging supplies from this shop.

If you missed my fabric swap, or want to see scraps before you get them, my friend Tabatha is looking to part with some lovely pieces in return for some new to her fabric. I was with her when she bought most of these recently and it’s great stuff. Head over if you’re interested in taking a peek.

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Posted in fun finds, gifts, scraps

Tagged Etsy, fabric, gifts, shopping, swaps

Swap buddies buddied

Posted on January 27, 2011 by SewTara| 1 Comment

Using the very high tech system of writing names on pieces of paper and picking them out 2 by 2 I assigned partners. You should have an email from me to you and your swap buddy. Please email your partner at the email I’ve used and give them a mailing address for your goodies. Let me know if you didn’t get an email, or if there’s a problem.

Kait & Erin S

Janee & Wendy

Janet & Ashley Ann

The Mama & Grace

Wendy & Melissa

Andrea & Amber

Jessica & Tara

Wendy is in here two times, since she said she’d play twice. She’s so awesome. Some of you mentioned throwing bits of other things in your package and that’s totally cool but please make sure you have at least 10 oz of usable fabric bits and pieces.

I’m going to be posting project ideas to use these, and other scraps, as well as links to scrap busting ideas.

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Posted in repurposing, scraps, sewing, vintage

Tagged fabric, scraps, swap

Scrap Swap anyone?

Posted on January 21, 2011 by SewTara| 16 Comments

If you’ve been sewing for any amount of time you’ve already noticed how quickly scraps can accumulate. If you’re anything like me, afraid to throw any little bit out in case you can use it later, you have a bunch lying around of various shapes and sizes. Soooooooo I thought why not share the scrap love and do a little scrap swapping!?

Recently I went through my scraps and sort of organzed them into little piles. I’ve been saving 4×4 inch japanese fabric scraps, well and to be honest I’ve ordered some from Etsy here and there, in hopes I can make a fun quilt some day. I also spent some time cutting my scraps into 2×2 squares for some projects I have in mind. I plan on featuring some fun tutorials to help you make use of your scraps, as well as link to some of the ideas already out there and maybe, just maybe, a source of two in case you have a little scrap collecting problem like someone I know.

If you would like to participate just sign up here, I’ll keep taking names until Wednesday January 26th. Then I’ll spend some time matching us all up while you prepare your bundle. Make sure your correct email is in the comment, or enter it with your name when you say you want in. Also, it might be fun to know where you live so we can mix things up a bit. Probably won’t be too exciting if someone is matched with an almost neighbour, just in case you shop at the same fabric store! Be ready to commit to shipping your scrap bundle by the end of the month, we’ll go with the 31st just to make it easy. This will be open to everyone everywhere so please let me know if you object to international shipping and I’ll match you with someone in your country.

Ok, so the guidlines:

- scraps must measure at least 2 inches by 2 inches, there is no maximum size but it is supposed to help you destash your scrap bin so sending fat quarters probably won’t help with that.

- scraps must be unwashed, clean, and in usable condition

- scraps can be new fabric or vintage reclaimed pieces

- fabrics should be of relatively the same weight, cottons/linens/light canvas so allow for quilting and use in the same project

- send 10-ish ounces to your partner mailed by January 31st

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Posted in other crafts, repurposing, scraps, sewing

Tagged fabric, scraps, swap

Wheee new fabrics and some Japanese ribbon!

Posted on January 7, 2011 by SewTara| Leave a comment

Spent some time just before the holidays shopping for myself, as I’m sure many of you did. I’ve become addicted to checking Etsy’s front page a few times a day, sometimes even before it’s had a chance to change. I’ve also been in many treasuries lately which has led me clicking around the handmade heaven that is Etsy. Here are some things that arrived last week.

These lovely fabric ribbons from boqinana. The fabric was just bonus!

Fun fabric and ribbon from DoodooShop. I have plans for that air mail ribbon, I’ve been busting with excitement waiting for it to arrive so I can start the project.

These arrived a while ago and I just didn’t get to posting about them yet. Fabric scraps from starlitnest. She apologized for a delay in shipping, which I hadn’t really noticed, and said she added some extra fabric to the mix to make it up to me. Isn’t it bad enough I have my own stash of scraps but I have to keep buying other people’s!?

I also have some pretty masking tapes coming from kimamaya. Should be here shortly. It was probably evil of me to be ordering ‘just because’ things during the holiday shipping rush. Ooops.

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Posted in fun finds, sewing

Tagged Etsy, fabric, japanese fabric, ribbon, scraps, tape

The fabric love continues.

Posted on January 5, 2011 by SewTara| Leave a comment

Isn’t this the cutest little print ever?!

Available at DreamingOfSewing. I’m trying really hard to resist buying it.

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Posted in fun finds, sewing, vintage

Tagged Etsy, fabric, vintage

Organizing galore!

Posted on December 23, 2010 by SewTara| 8 Comments

Last weekend I procrastinated from completing some last minute orders by organizing my craft area. Time well spent I must say.
When Nate was born I gave up my sunny upstairs craft room to move down into the basement, known as The Man Space at that time. First I had 1 table and my IKEA computer desk/wardrobe thingie. Then I had to buy another table . . . Then piles of things started to form. Then because my husband wasn’t using his desk down here I sort of started to rely on that space, ironing and such. He wasn’t happy. So I’ve been hard at work purging and tidying and cleaning up so we can both have a much more workable space that isn’t an eye sore.

These are the pretty parts. I can’t show the rest of the inside of the wardrobe, it’s a bit of an avalanche of disaster. I took this advice and folded and wrapped my pretty and larger pieces of fabric onto comic book backings to make these little mini fabric bolts. It was $10 for 100 so they went pretty far. For some I used 2 pieces of cardboard just to give it a bit of added stability. Definitely one of the best little pieces of advice I stumbled upon this year. Beats stashing them in a fabric crush drawer!

Now when you look through the little windows in the top of the doors to the wardrobe you can see my lovely fabric, books and the basket looking all ready to go. Luckily the windows end before the messy madness can be seen.

Sorry for the less than stellar photos, I really need to crack the code about taking pics in my gloomy basement.

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Posted in fun finds, repurposing, sewing

Tagged fabric, mini bolts, organizing, storage

Stocking swap goodies!

Posted on December 19, 2010 by SewTara| 4 Comments

Wheeeee!! I recieved my wonderful package of goodies from my stocking swap buddy on Friday. Strangely enough, it’s not the first time I’ve swapped with the lovely Amy. We’ve randomly sent each other packages before. We keep taking the same online classes and courses. So I just laughed when I saw we were paired together again.

She sent me so much fun stuff, here’s a glimpse, starting with this super fun necklace she made.

Then I got these cute frames.

Some fun bits and pieces of fabric.

AAAAAAnd all this fun stuff too!!

Amy you rock! Sorry I’ve been a bad swap friend and sent my stuff late. Don’t worry it’ll be awesome too.

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Posted in gifts

Tagged amy cluck, fabric, frames, mail, necklace, stocking, swap

How come no one told me!?

Posted on October 30, 2010 by SewTara| Leave a comment

So there’s this whole obsession with 1930′s fabric for quilts. While at the Creativ Festival I couldn’t resist picking up a . . . few fat quarters. I looooved these prints and the jelly roll thingie, which I have no idea how I’m supposed to use but I’ll figure it out.

Top trio is from Hamel’s Fabrics and the bottom stash is from Garden Thyme.

Then here’s the other things I picked up that are just fun really, not 1930′s ish.

First haul if from Sew Sister’s Quilt Shop in Toronto. I also had no idea just how many cool quilting shops are relatively nearby.

This fun stash if from Country Concessions. I plan to use it for crayon and car cozies, and the fun Dick and Jane print will be my ipad cover (once I save up enough to get it).

Here’s the neat prints I grabbed at the Quilter’s Palette booth. Again for fun kid projects.

Last one, I said there were many, is from the Quilters’ Line. More fun kid themed things, and some woodgrain because that’s just cool.

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Posted in sewing

Tagged 1930s, fabric, fat quarters, quilting, quilts, stores

“Hi this is Heather Ross”

Posted on October 20, 2010 by SewTara| 3 Comments

So I was giving Nate a bath, which is strange because I usually have both kids in there, when hubby brought me my cell. So I say “Hello?” while multitasking and the noise of a splashy bath is going on around me. “Hi Tara. It’s Heather Ross“, and I reply, “Oh! . . . Hi”. It was so strange.

She had a sale on September 15th, thanks Keyka Lou for the heads up. Somehow I actually remembered and popped online to fill out the little request form. Apparently she sold out in 2 hours last year so I figured it must be good stuff and I was going to be part of it. So I filled out a form and said I’d like odds/ends/scraps to have fun with. Somehow something went wonky with my form, hence her phone call.

So Heather says, “There’s a problem with your address on this form. It starts out with a house number and street name and then it says blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah California”.

“Oh” I said, “well that’s strange. Wait, it actually says ‘blahblahblah’?” I ask.

“Yes” she replies. Then she told me how her wonderful assistant was talking to her from behind his computer and said to her, “Hey this address is weird it says blahblahblahblah. . . ” and Heather said something like “Can you read what it really says? I might be able to help if I know what it actually says” Then he told her that was in fact what it said.

Guess there was something silly going on with the form, maybe because I said Ontario, Canada or something. I have been tired lately but I’m pretty sure, as I told her, that I didn’t actually type 12 blahs into the form. Good thing the phone number field worked. Now I realize I was on the phone with someone kinda famous, fabrics, cool items and books. She makes cool stuff.

Now to await my fun package!

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Posted in crafty books, papercrafts, sewing

Tagged fabric, heather ross, weekend sewing

Super cute kawaii contest.

Posted on September 24, 2010 by SewTara| 1 Comment

Over at Spoonflower they’re having a kawaii fabric contest. The wonderful Wild Olive has her fun bacon fabric in the race for first place.

Since I already own some it’s a given I like that one but here are a few of my other favs. Click images to be whisked away to the listings. Head on over to see all the entries and vote for the one you like best.