T-minus 6

Since Wednesdays seem to catch me by surprise every week or so, you can probably imagine how it happened that I woke up yesterday morning and realized that Christmas -- along with all the necessary planning of gifts, mailing cards and presents to far-away relatives, not to mention planning all the activities needed to keep young boys on school holidays out of trouble -- was only seven days away! And in the afternoon, I suddenly recalled that one of my boys' teachers was finishing her term today. I had plans of gift cards, with simple little gift card wallets for all the children's teachers. So I whipped one up - I just enough time from the moment of realization, to the moment of school pickup! Did I take a picture of it? Nope. But here are two other wallets, yet to be sewn together.

In other, more photogenic, news, I finished the tree skirt!

I did the star quilting with silver thread. It was definitely the easiest and most satisfying part of the quilting.

I added some swirls in the middle, mostly just to try them out, because they will never be seen under the tree. They were fun, and I love the look of them, but quite time-consuming. I filled in the outer edge of the skirt with loopy free motion lines.

The original pattern from Fat Quarterly included only houses and trees, but I wanted to throw in a few other whimsical little buildings -- castles and onion domes...

Chapels and Dutch roofs...

Here is my inspiration - these little papier mâché ornaments that my partner and I made for one of our first Christmases together.

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday, so come on over and check out all the awesomeness!

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, happy holidays to those of other persuasions, and I hope you all have a great Mayan apocalypse!

Thanks for visiting!

 

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Starry night.

Hmm, almost didn't realize it was Wednesday today! What does that tell you?!

I have finished cutting out and placing all the little appliqué pieces for my tree skirt.

Did a little FMQ experimenting, and hope to have this quilted and bound and under the {naked!} tree by the weekend.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday, and am off the browse the rest of the links :)

Thanks for visiting!

 

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Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Winner

I just want to say that I am sorry that I have not been able to respond to all of your fabulous comments on the giveaway post - so many of you were so sweet!! I was so happy that so many people were interested in adopting the tote - way more than I ever would have thought! And welcome to all my new followers -- I am flattered that you want to stick around, it makes it so much more fun to share things, when you have people to share them with :)

I visited random.org this morning to determine the winner of the giveaway, and the RNG says:

 (There were 436 comments, but unfortunately the final comment was posted after the 5pm PST cutoff.)

The winner is Kat from Diary of a Flutter Kat in Australia - congrats Kat! I have emailed you.

Thanks so much to everyone for entering - I can't believe how much fun it was to participate in the Sew Mama Sew giveaway - mostly because of reading all of your awesome comments!!

Our family is heading off this morning for a ride on the Polar Express, a vintage steam train ride, run by the Westcoast Heritage Railway for two weekends in December - it involves snow, PJ's and hot chocolate!

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Wednesday.

Whew, it has been a busy week, what with Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day (my giveaway is here), and life in general. We are moving into school concert season starting next week - it's so fun to watch my kids performing in these little concerts and recitals, I am charging up my video camera to be ready! Most importantly this week I finally bought the DVD of Elf. My Most Favourite Christmas Movie Ever!! So I am beginning to feel super Christmassy! Once again, not a lot of sewing, but I did start my item for the VMQG scrap swap. Here's a little peek...

Yep, that's my seam ripper. This is my first time making something for someone else, with their fabric - yikes!

I also pulled out all my Christmas fabric (much more than I thought!) to get started on some time sensitive projects.

I'd love to make a bunch of Christmas gift bags so that we can cut down on wrapping paper. I'm also planning to make one of these "The Hood" Christmas tree skirts, it's so cute, and it looks like the little papier mâché ornaments that my partner and I made for our tree twenty years ago (they are still some of my favourite ornaments, of course).

So, I guess I should get moving! I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody else has been up to on Lee's WIP Wednesday, if anybody got anything done what with all those giveaways to enter!

As always, thanks so much for visiting and have a great Wednesday!

 

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Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

Welcome to my Sew Mama Sew giveaway!

If you have never been here before, welcome! My name is Yzo (sounds like Izzo), and I am a parent to three young children -- what you see here is what I do to make myself feel sane. I really believe making things that combine beauty and function is both therapeutic and reflects/contributes to the culture around us. As an added bonus, we crafters are totally gonna rule the world when the zombie apocalypse comes!

Now on to the giveaway!

I made this Cut Out and Keep 241 Tote many months ago with no real recipient in mind (and while I love the design, it's not really my style) ... Now I realize that I must have made it for one of you, I just didn't know it at the time!

It is made with some Cut Out and Keep fabric (I couldn't resist Anna Noodlehead's original tote!), with It's a Hoot ovals for the side pockets and lining.

It has an adjustable strap, an inner pocket, and a key fob. Not to mention two side pockets and two zipper pockets on the front - that's a total of five pockets, people!! You can never have too many pockets to root through in search of lip balm, I always say.

Rules for entering:

• Leave a comment before the giveaway ends on December 7th at 5pm PST.
• If you leave a comment after that time, but before I close the giveaway, it will not be counted.
• Please make sure that I can contact you if you win.
• International entries are welcome.
• You can earn a second entry if you are follower by commenting and letting me know.
• A winner will be selected with the Random Number Generator and announced here after the giveaway is closed, and emailed.

Thanks for visiting and good luck!

Ps., our home is pet and smoke free, in case you were wondering.

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Speechless. (No, not really.)

December. I am speechless.

November was not bad, considering I was single parenting for half the month. I'm hoping December will be a little more productive! And I delivered my taxes to the accountants today, so that deserves a big old fashioned YAY!

I know most of you had a brilliantly productive month, I am almost caught up on reeder, but I look forward to seeing anything I missed over at Fresh Sewing Day on Lily's Quilts.

Thanks for visiting, and don't forget to stop by on Monday for my Sew Mama Sew giveaway! (See here for a hint...)

 

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Death and Taxes

Let's be honest. Taxes are no fun. For us it is business tax time. They are draining me of my will to live, people!!

Not much happening on the sewing front. Here's a little update.

Compiled a little menagerie, in varying degrees of stuffedness.

Picked up some onesies from H&M, so that I can applique some of the world's most expensive fabric for my future niece or nephew to drool on.

Dug this sweater out of my closet. That's a Kaffe Fasset pattern that I knitted almost twenty years ago, and accidentally felted almost ten years ago. 

 
I still love the design, and there is a fair amount of fabric in it -- could be a good handbag, or knitting basket? Maybe a cushion? Any suggestions?

Pirate quilt? No progress.

Eleventy thousand other christmas-related projects? No progress.

Sew Mama Sew is having their December giveaway day next Monday, and I have a little something that has been waiting for a loving home -- I am thinking giveaway day is the perfect occasion to find one...here's a hint:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday. As soon as I have uncrumpled enough receipts to justify a little break/procrastination, I will be checking out all the awesomeness of WIP Wednesday!

Thanks for visiting, and for your thoughts in this taxing time. (Sorry. It was funny in my head.)

Chez Shea

My biggest accomplishment this week was finally getting to attend the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting - so fun! I have to say, the show and tell was dominated by a lot of ridiculously talented quilters. Seriously, people were pulling out two, three or more quilts of amazing quality. I felt like a serious underachiever with only one (not even a quilt!) item! Just kidding, I was thrilled to be able to show my cathedral windows pillow, all sewn up.

Now it is living on my sewing chair, to keep it away from my crayola-graffiti lovin' children. I think I probably have another cathedral window project in me, but I will never be making a full quilt out of them!

Work continued on the pirate quilt:

I'm kind of making it up as I go along, but my son wanted his name on it, so I paper pieced that this weekend. (And now you know part of the origin of my blog name - Chez rhymes with Shea!) Hopefully this top will grow some more over the next week.

I also made a couple of these Orla Kiely inspired scrappy sprout blocks for Traceyjay.

This week there is a great blog hop going on featuring Canadian quilters, Blogathon Canada

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and Plum & June's Monday link up.

Thanks for visiting y'all!

 

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Surf, snow and cathedral windows. (And a giveaway winner!)

I believe that only Canadians will go out and surf in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean in November ... and so I guess my boys are true Canadians.

That's my boy getting up for his first time on a surf board with his instructor cheering him on, and his dad watching in the background. Yay!!

Yes, it was pretty spectacular weather for November, but the next day was back to normal.

And we saw our first snow of the year driving back home.

Brrr!

Now back to the topic at hand -- after being bitten by the Cathedral window bug a couple of weeks ago, I had to give the cushion a go. I have a little Ikea bolster with a cover that has seen better days, so I thought it would be a good pillow to window-ize, as it's smaller than your average pillow.

It's obviously not finished yet, but I kind of love it.

Hellooo, baby!

And, before I forget (seriously, if I get up and walk away, I will forget!), mr. Random Number Generator says that, in this case, the early bird really does get the worm... The giveaway winner is #1

Congratulations, Elaine! I will be emailing you to get your address.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and everyone who follows or subscribes or reads Chez Roo on a semi regular basis. Elaine is right, it is awesome to have this little community -- I heart you guys.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

 

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Chop chop!

That's what I have been up to.

I saw this at the fabric store, while I was on a completely unrelated mission, and immediately thought of all the birthday and Christmas gifts coming up for little people, and the stuffies/pillows on Sewlandia's blog. Chop, chop, and the next thing I know, it's coming home with me.

I also made a secret something for somebody secret... (sssh, Xmas related). Here's a peek:

That little guy is so cute.

But I can show you these little lovebugs:

Head on over to my giveaway (over here) if you'd like the chance to win this earbud/coin zippy case, and a charm pack of Nancy Drew fabric! You have until Tues Nov 13 at 9pm PST. It's a little thank you to celebrate reaching 50 followers - thank you all so much for visiting and for coming back :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

 

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Follower Appreciation Giveaway!

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

In appreciation for reaching over 50 followers (!), I'm having a little giveaway for this charm pack of Moda's Get a Clue with Nancy Drew fabric. You can see all the fabrics in the pack here. I love the book print most of all!

And I broke out my Heather Ross Spoonflower fabrics to make a little earbud/coin case to accompany Miss Nancy Drew. I hope you like it!

This giveaway is open to followers, old and new. I am so appreciative of you all stopping by and reading, it is so wonderful to be able to share my crafty obsessions with you. My husband tries to be supportive and appreciative, but he still refers to knitting stitches as "knots" - I know I can count on you guys to speak my language!!

To enter, leave a comment to let me know that you are a follower - just one comment per person please. That's it. Please make sure I can contact you if you win - if you're a no-reply blogger please leave your email in the comment -- eg., nancydrew (at) email (dot) com. International entries are welcome, giveaway closes at 9pm PST on Tuesday November 13.

Thanks again! I will announce a winner on Wednesday November 14.

Other than that, so far this week I just did a little blog revamping ... it's a work in progress, but it does feel like there's a little more room to breathe now. If you take a peek at the top of the page you'll see I added a tab for patterns and tutorials. You can find my Tea Squared Tea Cozy tutorial, and I just uploaded the shark pattern for those people who mentioned that they might like it. I hope to add to that section in the near future.

In other news, here are the latest bloggers in the Let's Get Acquainted blog hop:

Nov 1

Kelly at Live. Love. Create
Wendi at Bethadee Zoo

Nov 6

Gertie from Quilting for England

Christa from Christa Quilts

And there is a new blog hop for Canadian bloggers, Blogathon Canada, from Sew Sisters. Check it out!

Thanks for visiting, y'all, and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

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