I Won Amy Butler Fabric!

I've told you how I never win drawings. I know it's too early to think my luck is changing, but first it was the Cardinal baseball tickets that I won at work in April, and now I've won a fabulous fabric giveaway from Flamingo Toes!

Do you know Beverly's blog? Surely you do! If not, you need to rush there as soon as you're done here. She has great tutorials, a weekly link party, and tons of fun feature posts. She even has a Flickr group for you to post pictures of things you make from her tutorials. 


And this isn't just fat quarters. I won 2 yards of each of the six pieces of Amy Butler fabric! 12 yards of Amy Butler fabric! I know!!!


So now.. what to do with it? I've been perusing the web and have so many ideas. The nice thing about having 12 yards is that I don't have to pick just one project. Here are a few that have caught my eye. What do you think?


I just adore this Zip Organizer from the Zakka Style book. This fun mermaid version was made by Sara at Sew Sweetness. I think I might add a wrist strap if I make it. I love the mermaids, but I think the Amy Butler fabric would look great too.

 

I like this Butterick tote pattern. It would be a great flea market bag for the weekend.

I keep thinking I need to make a cover for my sewing machine. I like this one with the pocket on the front. I found it at Sew 4 Home.

I found this cute skirt at Pinterest. It's a McCall's pattern. Wouldn't it be darling with the Amy Butler fabric?

I like this notebook cover that I found at The Cottage Home. She has a great tutorial for it. I love all the slotted pockets on the one side. This would a be a great project to mix some of the prints together.  

Here's another Pinterest find. It's a repin from someone else's board. The link seem dead, but I think I could wing this easily enough without having a pattern. Wouldn't the Amy Butler fabric be cute where this floral print is against a coordinating solid?

                                                        

One of the ladies in the purse sewing group I belong to posted this cute tote bag tutorial. Isn't it darling? It's from All People Quilt, and while I don't quilt I really like this bag. I think the fabric I won would be great for this. Maybe use two that coordinate, just using a band of the second fabric around the bottom where they pieced a strip in their version. I really like the grommets and little bows on the sides.

Here's a couple more apparel patterns I found at the Simplicity site. Wouldn't that fabric make up the cutest summer tops with these patterns?

 So to say I'm inspired by the fabric prize would be an understatement. I just have to decide what to make first. What would be your first project?

Thanks for stopping by!

Potholders

I'm relatively new to the blog world. I know.. I can be slow about things at times. I had heard about blogs, but all you hear about in main stream media are the radical political types who go too far complaining about someone of some importance, or the occasional news story about the person who got a little too mouthy in a negative way about their employer and got fired for it. To be honest, it was the movie Julie and Julia where I really learned about the blog world. I love that movie! I wish I had found her blog as she was writing it and followed along, but I'm not sure I hadn't even heard the word blog back then.

When I discovered I could make purses, that lead to internet searches and the wonderful discovery of all the sewing and craft blogs. After a quick lesson from Mr.ShowMe on how to subscribe to a blog I was on my way. Imagine my surprise when I then discovered that these talented blog creators give stuff away! I've yet to win anything, mind you. I'm horribly unlucky when it comes to drawings, but it's still fun to enter.

One such blog, had a potholder making contest. Now I knew I'd never win, I'd never made a potholder, in fact I'd never even quilted anything, but we need potholders, so I thought I'd give it a try. I did this one by quilting some scraps together. It turned out ok, but a little wonky.

It's not quite as wonky as it looks in the picture. I propped it up on something and it wasn't sitting level. Here's a picture of the back.

Not bad.. but not great either.
I went back through my fabric stash and found a piece of fabric that I had fallen in love with. It was one of those fabrics that I didn't want to use because I was afraid if I cut it, I would mess it up somehow. You've had fabric like that, haven't you? But I got brave and used some. I did a fussy cut and quilted around the pattern on the fabric.

I liked the effect from the quilting like this, but it was still wonky. So after a bit more tweaking, I ended up with this.

I know! Right? I backed it with a rust colored corduroy fabric and seemed to conquer the wonky factor. Oh! And I almost forgot. For quilt batting, (since I didn't have any), I used an old mattress cover for a bed size that we don't even own anymore. And if you're wondering where the loop is, I didn't forget it. I don't hang up my potholders anyway, so I didn't put one on it.
So I figured out how to make a decent potholder, and I also learned that even wonky potholders will keep you from burning your fingers when you're taking a hot dish from the oven!