My Patterns
100th Post Giveaway Winner Announcement!
Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment on my 100th post! I really enjoyed reading about everyone’s favorite patterns. I’ll be taking some time off from creating any new ones to enjoy our new little guy who is due in just two months now. Keep checking back in, though, because I have some fun tutorials in mind, and I have lots of Christmas and baby sewing to finish up and post!
Without further ado . . . .
. . . the winning commenter is Megan! Congratulations, Megan! I can’t wait to see what you create with the patterns and fabric. Megan has a great blog that I always enjoy reading at http://nadaletfam.blogspot.com/. I was just over there checking out her latest post and now I’m craving PW’s steak bites–at 7:30 in the morning.
Don’t forget that you’ve still got today and tomorrow to enter my Sew Mama Sew I-Spy Giveaway.
100th Post Giveaway and a Chance to Give!
Wow! Just over a year of blogging, and I’ve reached my 100th post! I love sharing my family, my ministry and my sewing with each of you, and I especially enjoy hearing from you and getting to “know” each of you. It’s exciting to watch how my number of blog readers is continuing to increase. (Of course, our family size is increasing a bit, too, as you can tell by the size of my belly in the picture to the right.) Christmas is quickly approaching, so I want to offer a gift to each of you, a chance to win an even bigger gift and the opportunity to know the joy of giving something to a family in need.
First, a way for you to give a gift to a poor family in Asia and maybe even mark off a few names on your Christmas list at the same time: Having trouble coming up with a gift idea for that relative who already has everything? Perhaps a gift in his or her honor for the poor in another country would be the perfect thing! 
As Gospel for Asia staff members, my husband and I often get to hear the incredibly heart-warming stories of how blessed people are to receive the gifts given through the GFA Christmas Catalog. Because I love to sew, the ability to give the gift of a sewing machine to a poor family in Asia brings me great joy! You can read for yourself a few stories on the GFA website about how much the gift of a sewing machine can help out a family in need: Christmas Gifts Warm Body and Heart and Stitching Her Garments with a Grateful Heart. If you’d like to check out how you can give a sewing machine, or other gifts like chickens, blankets, even a water buffalo, visit GFA’s Christmas Catalog online.
Second, a gift for all of my readers: This week only, from November 30th through December 6th, you can use the code “BlogPost100” in my store to receive a 15% discount on any pattern order. I’m even adding a preorder option for the new Little One Jammies Pattern which should be ready to ship by Monday, December 7th.
Finally, the big giveaway! In celebration of my 100th post, I am giving away a full set of all eight of my patterns and 5 yards of knit fabric to sew into beautiful clothing for your little one. The winner will get to choose from one of the two sets of fabric shown–either the boys’ set or the girls’ set.
For your first entry into the drawing, just leave a comment on this post with which of my patterns you like the best and why, or leave a comment about which of my patterns you’d most like to try and why. For an additional entry, blog about this post or blog about GFA’s Christmas catalog and email me the link to your post. You can enter anytime between now and noon central time on Friday (December 4, 2009). (Please note that I will cover the postage if the winner is inside the US. If you win and you live outside of the US, you’ll need to cover any postage cost above $10.)
Bigger Sizes of the Little One Layette are Coming!
I know, it sounds a little strange to have a layette pattern in toddler sizes, but so many mamas asked for it that I just had to oblige! As a mama of a little one who’s in size 3T, I’m thrilled with it already. The test version went out to my amazing team of testers this morning. If all goes well, it should be ready within the next few weeks. The pattern will fit sizes 18 months to 5T. Here’s a sneak peek at Jamie wearing the Jamie Jumper and the laptee and pants set.
Fun at Pirate Days!
We visited the annual Pirate Days celebration here in the town where we live yesterday and had a great time. We enjoyed Pancakes with Pirates which was put on by our local church to raise money for the local food pantry. The kids had a blast in the kids’ section which was full of mazes, jumpers and slides. We even watched a sword fight!
I thought it would be fun to sew up pirate-y shirts for the kids to wear–not really costumes, rather something that they could wear to the festival and then wear again and again. I did decide at the last minute to make a skirt for Samantha instead. I figured that if she just wore it this one time, I could recycle it into something else later.
The pictures aren’t great because my good camera is still broken, but I did get this one up-close picture of the fabrics and the embroidery on Sean’s shirt.
Ready to hang out with the pirates for the day! (The younger boys’ shirts are sewn from my Patrick Curved Raglan pattern. Samantha’s skirt I just made up as I went along. Sean’s shirt is just a simple long-sleeve t-shirt that I modified by adding the 2/3 strip of pirate fabric to the front and the pirate ship embroidery.)
Just some random shots of the fun:
I was most excited about that last shirt, the one that I made for my 16-year-old. It’s hard to make something that a 16-year-old boy is willing to wear in public! Sean had a few friends over the night before, and they were checking it out. One said, “Your mom made this?! I would wear this!” I think that’s the biggest compliment I’ve gotten in a while!
Knitting for Baby with Some Matching Sewing, Too!
I am so excited that I’ve learned to knit! I taught myself with the help of some of the wonderful ladies at DiaperSewingDivas.net and the awesome videos at KnittingHelp.com. I really like knitted wool longies with matching tops for the newborn to 6 months or so stage. All of the longies that I’ve done so far were knit using the Picky Pants pattern. Here’s what I’ve finished so far:
These newborn-size longies were knit with Fisherman’s Wool that was dyed by an online friend. I sewed the coordinating tops using my own Little One Layette lap-tee pattern.
I knit this pair of small longies using Honey Organic Merino dyed by Julie of Selah in her Mint Chocolate Zoo colorway. The lap-tee was made using my LOL pattern, and I drafted the snap-shoulder tee in a similar fashion. For the hat, I used the Welcome to the World Newborn hat pattern.
My third pair of longies was knit using o-wool that was custom-dyed by Stephanie of Morning Glory to match the goldfish print from Kumquat. The shirts and hat were done using the same patterns as above.
I also knitted two Sheepy Sacks to use for the newborn stage. The first one was knit using BFL from Earth Yarn in the Pat the Bunny colorway. The second one was knit using organic merino that was dyed for us by another online friend.
Big Kids Need Hoodies, Too!
The hoodie tutorial for the Big Kid sizes of my Patrick Curved Raglan pattern is all finished now, too. I can’t wait to see all that you create with it!
Here’s the link to the pdf tutorial: Hoodie Tutorial. Enjoy!
Tutorial for Converting the Patrick Curved Raglan to a Hoodie
Just in time for cooler weather! I’ve written a tutorial for converting your Patrick Curved Raglan to a hoodie. The hood pattern is currently just for the Infant/Toddler sizes, but the Big Kid sizes are coming next week!
You can find the printable tutorial here: Hoodie Tutorial. Please let me know if you have any questions!
The Little One Layette Pattern is Finished!
And, it almost sold out in it’s first day! And, I don’t even have it back from the printer yet! Can you tell I’m excited? There are a couple left in stock, but if you miss those, I’ll have more up in a week or so.
You can find it by clicking here: The Little One Layette Pattern
Some samples from my sewing:
This pattern contains sizes NB through 12 months. I’ve had a lot of requests for bigger sizes, so I’m working on sizes 18 months to 4T.
