Two More Seconds | a lifestyle & modern sewing blog

10 on 10 - May 2012

2012-05-14T14:18:00.002-06:00

The 10 on 10 photography project is one of my favorites - ten(ish) photos on the 10th of every month. Here's how our day looked on May 10th, 2012, Instagram style:

9 am - making the beds

10 am - new contacts: the best!

11 am - cuddles with a little guy that needed some Mama time

noon - off to run some errands

1 pm - refueling

2 pm - organizing some washi tape

3 pm - computer time for some Sewing Summit business

4 pm - there's 4 sticks of butter going in these puppies!

5 pm - chalking outside

6 pm - cookies out of the oven

7 pm - doors closed means bedtime for the boys

8 pm - watering my front porch flowers

Do you do any monthly photo projects?

Last minute Mother's Day gift ideas to sew roundup

2012-05-07T05:30:00.000-06:00

Mother's Day is in less than a week & if you're a last minute shopper / sewist like I am, I thought you might like some ideas for cute, quick & easy gifts you can make in the next few days for your mom or a special mom in your life. I rounded up a few great sewing tutorials for Mother's Day gifts that you can make with minimal time & fabric - but they're all super cute, fresh & fun.

Below find links to 9 great tutorials to fun & useful things like mug rugs, coffee cozys, aprons, towels, pillowcases or cute t-shirts! Happy Mother's Day!

Linen napkins, from Penny at Sew Take a Hike.

Selvedge mug rug, from Angela at Fussy Cut.

Embellished T-Shirt, from Darci at Stitches & Scissors

Coffee Cozy, from Jeni at In Color Order

Patchwork greeting card, from Megan at Canoe Ridge Creations

Pretty, quick pillowcases, from Ashley at Film in the Fridge

Floursack patchwork towels, by Heather at House of A La Mode

Quilted iPad cover, from Amber at One Shabby Chick

Zig zag apron, from me!

my SNAP! conference recap

2012-04-24T15:00:00.000-06:00

As I said in my last post, this past weekend I had the chance to attend the SNAP! Conference! I was so excited this event was happening right in my backyard (seriously Thanksgiving Point, where the conference took place, is about 10 minutes away, which was great because I left the conference on Saturday morning to go see Marc finish the Salt Lake City Marathon!).

SNAP is a conference for DIY & creative bloggers - the same type of event for the online crafting community as Sewing Summit is for the online sewing community. There were so many amazing bloggers & crafters there & I had a fantastic time. I was on Instagram most of the weekend, posting pictures of all the amazing details of the event. Here's some of my highlights:

I brought my Sewing Summit lanyard to use for my name badge | Standing room only at the blogging panel (you can read a great recap of the panel here)

My favorite type of swag: sewing stuff from Pick Your Plum! | You know you're at a blogging conference when ...

The conference founder Tauni telling us her blogging story | Meeting Ashley of Lil Blue Boo was a highlight of my weekend!

The Queen Bee Market was held on Friday night & Saturday, lots of amazing shopping to be had! Plus Mique & Jessica are two of the sweetest girls, ever. | A selvedge globe. I mean really, how could I NOT buy it?! I'll be blogging about this awesome thing more later this week.

The closing dinner & on Saturday night | Goodbye SNAP - you were so fun!

The fun girls I hung out with most of the weekend, Melissa from Polkadot Chair, Amy from Diary of a Quilter & Traci from Amazing Mae. | Saturday night I came home & I was dead tired - spent the rest of the night with my frozen yogurt & all my new business cards!

I had the best time this weekend & it makes me even more excited about the plans we have in place for Sewing Summit! Thanks to the amazing SNAP! team that made this weekend go off with out a hitch & lots of fun for everyone!

Catching up & then leaving again

2012-04-19T06:19:00.000-06:00

Life is just not going to slow down, is it? In the past few weeks we've been busy:

Going downtown to check out the new City Creek center mall.

Getting our little garden planted. Strawberries, basil, cilantro & mint - our summer staples!

Hanging out outside as much as we can in the nice weather we've been having!

Doing a little shopping - some fabric for a Tova tank, some cupcakes, and a darling teensy tiny pair of scissors.

Being adorable.

Eating our favorite burger & fries.

And of course sewing! I'm heading to the SNAP! Conference today thru Saturday night - well, actually it's happening only about 10 minutes away from my house, so I'll be coming home each night to sleep, but I couldn't resist sewing up a fun little pouch for business cards & chapstick & stuff. My friend Amber sells the CUTEST zip pouches & iPad cases, and I've been in love with the typewriters-on-text-fabric ones she does & I had to have one myself. I boxed the bottom corners of mine a little bit so it stands up by itself & used fusible fleece on the inside so it's nice & squishy. The yellow and aqua polka dot fabric is what's on the inside.

I'm super excited to attend SNAP! - I'll get to meet a bunch of blogger friends that I've been talking with on Twitter & Instagram for years now, I know that the SNAP planners have put together an amazing conference with great classes & events and I'm in definite need of a few kid free days to relax & get re-energized before the big push of the end of school, 4 races in 4 weekends straight, a quick family weekend trip & then Quilt Market! Super exciting stuff on the way - see you on Monday with a SNAP! recap!

Zig Zag Apron Tutorial

2012-04-09T14:15:00.000-06:00

It's my day on the Festival of Half Square Triangles blog tour at Canoe Ridge Creations & I have a fun Zig Zag Apron tutorial to share with you! This apron is great for a housewarming or hostess gift because it doesn't use very much fabric and comes together really quickly.

As usual, this is a picture-heavy tutorial, since that's what helps me to learn the best. If you need clarification, leave a comment & I'll leave an answer in the comments as well - so everyone can see.

What you need:

- a fat quarter of a solid fabric (I used Kona sand)
- 4 1/2 yards bias tape (I made my own, but you can use pre-made)
- ten 4 1/2" squares of print fabric, to make your half square triangles

First, let's take care of your half square triangles. To make mine, I used Christina's method of pinning two squares (one yellow and one green) right-sides together, sewing around the perimeter, then cutting on the diagonal twice to make 4 half square triangles. She shows it very clearly at this guest post here on WhipUp.

You should end up with 20 half square triangles. I trimmed mine down so they were all the same size. Arrange them however you'd like - I went with a yellow zig zag. Sew them together into two strips of ten, then sew the strips together so you have one big zig zaggy rectangle that's approximately 5"x23". Press well, then set it aside & let's work with the fat quarter for a minute.

A fat quarter of fabric should be approximately 18x22". Cut yours into three pieces, 4x22", 9x22" & 5x22". Fold in 1/4" and iron both of the long sides of the 4x22" piece, then fold it in half & set aside. Piece your zig zaggy rectangle in between the 9x22" and 5x22" pieces, with the bigger chunk at the top. Center the zig zaggy rectangle in the middle of the two solid pieces as best as you can, it will be a little bit longer than 22". Here's a picture showing my 4x22" piece with the edges folded in, with the zig zaggy rectangle already sewn in place:

Sandwich the top of your apron in between the casing you made by folding the 4x22" piece in half, and pin in place. You can see in this picture how the zig zaggy rectangle is a little bit longer then the solid - don't worry, it will be trimmed up soon. Sew the casing onto the top of the apron with a line close to the apron, like a top stitch.

Round your corners of the two bottom sides of your apron. To do mine, I grabbed this lid I had in my sewing room, folded my apron in half, and traced a curve onto both corners at the same time. Then just zip around the curve with your rotary cutter.

Make your bias tape, if you're not using pre-made. I cut my strips at 2 1/4" and use this little metal doo-hickey that I feed my bias tape through to give me the folds facing the center. Then I just iron it in half myself.

Once the bias tape is ready, trim up the sides of the apron where the zig zaggy rectangle hangs over the sides, then top stitch right above & below the zig zaggy section to give it a nice finished look. You can see how it's trimmed up, top stitched & how I mis-laid one of my yellow zig zag sections in this picture (oops!):

One more picture of where we are at this point, all trimmed up, bias tape made, top stitching done, almost finished!

Starting at the top right corner, pin your bias tape all along the U shaped section of your apron: down one side, past the two rounded corners, and stopping up at the top left corner. Trim your bias tape off and set the remaining aside. Sew the bias tape on, taking care to catch the front and the back of the tape in one line from your sewing machine.

Because I didn't make TRUE bias tape (cut on the bias, causing it to be stretchy, and ease around corners better), I had to fudge my rounded corners a little bit and consequently have some folds in there. I'm OK with this because let's face it- this apron is going to be used to wipe boogers and clean up spills. If that bugs you, make true bias tape (cut on the bias) or use store-bought.

Almost done! We just need to attach the rest of the bias tape to the top of the apron, finishing the top & creating the apron strings in the same step. Find the center of the top of the apron by folding it in half and marking with a pin. Find the center of the bias tape by folding it in half - then matching that point up with the center of the apron, and pinning it in place, sandwiching the top of the apron in between the bias tape.

Now the fun part! Find one end of the bias tape, and start top stitching it together on the side that has the fold (not the open side). You'll sew all the way down one apron string, onto the top of the apron, securing the bias tape onto the top of the apron, then continue on all the way down the rest of the bias tape to the end. You can see what I mean in the previous picture (it's sewn on, I just haven't removed the pins yet).

Then find the end of the bias tape again, and sew the other side of the tape together (the open end this time), continuing all the way down one apron string, onto the top of the apron, securing it again to the apron, then all the way down the rest of the bias tape to the end. Trim your two bias tape ends with a zig-zag stitch, fray-check, or just clip them with pinking shears like I did, and you're done!

The back does have some raw edges, but they don't bother me. I made sure to sew carefully & press them well so they look as nice as raw edges on the back of an apron that's going to wipe up boogers should look.

That's it! Feel free to pin the title image in this post if you want to share it on Pinterest, and add a picture to my (brand new!) Two More Seconds Flickr group if you make your own! Make sure to visit the rest of the awesome posts on the Festival of Half Square Triangles blog tour - see them all here! In one week it's your turn to link up any half square triangle projects you've made for a chance at some great prizes!

Sewing Summit & Why It's Important

2012-04-02T14:25:00.001-06:00

So most of you know that I'm one of the founders of Sewing Summit - a sewing & blogging conference that took place in Salt Lake City (my hometown), Utah, last October, and is happening again this October. What a lot of you don't know is why I'm involved in Sewing Summit, how it came to happen, or what it's all about. With our tickets going on sale tomorrow morning, I thought it was time for a little back story.

If you've read this post, you know I've been blogging for a long time, no, like a REALLY long time. Back before it was called blogging (we had "online journals"). I met my two oldest internet friends, Erin & Jill, online in early 1998 (is that possible?!). Back then we hand-coded our websites with lines & lines of html code & they were pretty ghastly looking. But friendships were formed & cemented & all throughout college, marriages, kids, cross country & international moves, book deals, break-ups, the highest of excited highs & lowest of low lows - I've kept in touch with those girls & would consider them 2 of my closest friends. Still. Even though we've never met in person.

(Photo via Kristie at OCD, on Flickr)

Shortly after I got married in 2000 my mother in law gave me a sewing machine. It wasn't until 6 years later (ahem) I got it out of the closet & wanted to make something for the baby I had on the way - I was pregnant with Mason. When I discovered the world of sewing bloggers - well two worlds just collided for me. I had still been journaling/bloggging all along (at my own domains, at LiveJournal, at VOX) and when I found out there were sewing bloggers & whole communities & swaps & bees & quilt alongs - I was just in heaven. I joined a lot of Virtual Quilting Bees. I started sewing like crazy. I started a Quilting Bee Blocks group on Flickr that's gotten pretty big. I got addicted to the high of a new swap package showing up in the mail. I stalked Flickr for new photos of my friends' gorgeous creations. I gushed over the newest & best fabric lines with people on Twitter who just "got it". And I had a little seed of an idea planted in my brain of wanting to meet all these amazing sewing friends in person.

(Photo via Ellison Lane, on Flickr)

I wasn't the only person with this idea, not by a long shot. There was lots of chatter at the time about the need for a modern sewing/craft conference. I was lucky to stumble upon another amazing sewist that lived fairly close to me that had also had the same idea & thought that there was a need for a conference like this. I emailed her, and within days & a flurry of emails later, the idea & main business plan behind Sewing Summit was born. In the past two years, lots of other creative conferences & events have popped up, all of which I think are amazing & support whole heartily. (Craftcation, SNAP! the Conference, QuiltCon, Haven & The Creative Connection Event, to name a few). This says to me that we, the creative online community, want to get out & meet each other. Even more then that, we need to.

Being a blogger can be an isolating thing sometimes. We sit & type & are behind our computer screens so many hours of the day. This works well for a lot of us though, because we maybe have small children or busy schedules or are extremely shy (yup - that's me!). That's why I think it's just so FUN to be a part of the sewing community online, we get to combine two of our passions - creating & blogging - and when you post a picture of a finished item you've sewn, you get an immediate, positive reaction from other people that just GET it. ("That's the new Pezzy fabric!!" "Look at those awesome Heath prints!" "You used the new Tova downloadable pattern, didn't you?!!").

(Photo via notes of sincerity on Flickr)

But that isolation & alone-ness is exactly the reason I think that in-person events & conferences are important, maybe even more than that, they're crucial. It's hard to remember sometimes that there are REAL people behind all these blogs & beautiful creations, real people with screaming kids & messy houses & bills & deadlines. I got to experience a certain type of magic at Sewing Summit last year, when people met for the first time in person, and hugged & cried & laughed & hugged some more. I think a LOT of our attendees last year needed this magic, and a lot of people need this reminder that we're all human, all working towards the same goal of being the best we can be. (Read my wrap-up post from last year, to understand more about what I am talking about. Or check out some of these wrap-up posts, on the Sewing Summit 2011 Pinterst board.)

(Photo via amylouwho on Flickr - sorry V ;] )

After Sewing Summit last year when Amy came to me & said she had too much on her plate, was so busy & had to make the decision to step down from Sewing Summit, I was understandably devastated. We had been such a good team & worked well together, but I completely supported her decision & understood she was making a very difficult choice, but needed to make sure her priorities were in order for her. I then had to decide what was going to happen with Sewing Summit. If it was going to continue, it would be mostly a one-woman operation, with me at the helm. That, my friends, was scary, with a capital S-C-A-R-Y. I thought about it for a few weeks & talked to my husband about it & a few close friends.

I kept coming to the same conclusion - people needed Sewing Summit. They needed an escape, a retreat, a weekend to learn & grow & laugh. This sounds so cheesy typed out - but I am proud, humbled, excited & nervous to be able to be the person that provides that. My own personal online community & support system (including Erin & Jill) have helped me so much over the years, I am happy to be able to create a place that can foster & provide that same community feeling for others. Planning an event where I get to witness you all getting to meet these lifelong friends in person is amazing.

(Photo via theworkroom on Flickr)

I am working hard at making Sewing Summit 2012 the absolute best experience it can be. I keep explaining to people that it's kind of a cross between a sewing retreat & a blogging conference - the best of both worlds. I am keeping it fairly small (250ish tickets?) because I think that's the best way to provide people a real opportunity to network & get to know each other. It's open to all types & levels of sewists & bloggers. Even if you've never sewn a stitch or typed one word of a blog post - I promise you'll still have a great time & learn some valuable knowledge.

(Photo via Stitches & Scissors on Flickr)

I really suggest that you check Sewing Summit out, and try to come if you think that it sounds fun & you can make it work with your schedule and budget. If you can't, I encourage you to check out some of our competitors, the other conferences I linked to above. Because really, I don't view them as competitors when we're all working towards the same goal - to further the creative community that we all love & to help people grow & learn & get out from behind their computers & sewing machines & glue guns and meet each other.

I hope to see you in October, or in two weeks at SNAP! Conference, I'm attending that as well.

Festival of Half Square Triangles

2012-03-31T11:58:00.000-06:00

My good friend & Sewing Summit Social Media manager, Megan, from the blog Canoe Ridge Creations, is putting together a fun blog event all about half square triangles - in fact it's the Festival of Half Square Triangles! I'm excited to be able to make a project for this fun event.

Starting Monday, April 2, she's got two weeks jammed packed with all sorts of half square triangle tutorials and projects from some of your favorite modern sewing bloggers! After all of the creative inspiration, you are invited to link up a HST sewing project of your own -- bags, mini quilts, home decor, you name it. Then there will be 10 finalists chosen, at which point it's all up to YOU to choose a winner! That's right, there are some fabulous prizes up for grabs -- stay tuned for more details!

Here's the schedule:

Monday, April 2 -- Sara from Sew Sweetness

Tuesday, April 3 -- Amy from Amy's Creative Side

Wednesday, April 4 -- Faith from Fresh Lemons Quilts

Thursday, April 5 -- Holly from Bijou Lovely

Friday, April 6 -- Katie from Swim, Bike, Quilt

Monday, April 9 -- Erin from Two More Seconds

Tuesday, April 10 -- Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations

Wednesday, April 11 -- Jeni from In Color Order

Thursday, April 12 -- Heather and Megan from Quilt Story

Friday, April 13 -- Katy from I'm a Ginger Monkey

Monday, April 16 to Sunday, April 22 -- Linky Party featuring all of YOU over at Canoe Ridge Creations!

Monday, April 23 to Wednesday, April 25 -- Viewers Choice Voting

Friday, April 27 -- Winners Announced!

<a href="http://www.canoeridgecreations.com/p/festival-of-half-square-triangles.html"><img src="http://bit.ly/HtSRv4"></a><br />

It should be a fun event with some great projects being featured, so grab a button, make sure you join the Flick group, and join in the festival!

A modern mini quilt for a swap between friends

2012-03-28T12:33:00.000-06:00

I am in love with my most recent project - a modern mini quilt I made for a small swap between some friends. A lot of people think "quilts" and they think old fashioned, stuffy, heavy things on their Grandma's bed.

Getting started

I think this is a pretty fresh perspective - I love the crispness of the solid colors against the white, framed by the pretty grey border.

A few blocks made

I had sketched out this idea for a mini-quilt when I was trying to brainstorm something for this swap, I knew I'd have to come with something awesome based on the caliber of other quilters I was swapping with! :]

Basting

Binding

I'm happy with how it turned out & have it hanging in my house right now from taking pictures - and I have to say, it's going to hurt to pack this one up & mail it out.

Finished mini quilt

mini quilt details

I even hand-sewed the binding to the back of the quilt, which I hardly ever do! Usually I'm in a hurry to get the binding on & actually really like the look of a machine-sewn binding. This one called for a little extra special treatment, though.

Can't wait to see which quilt I end up with!

Painting a Giant Chalkboard Wall

2012-03-21T06:30:00.000-06:00

So we have this one pretty big wall in our table area right off the kitchen. It's not a huge space, and we have a pretty big table already, so I didn't like having an extra piece of furniture in there when we did (a hutch like thing). It's also the walkway to the mudroom off the garage and has the sliding glass door to the backyard, so it needs to be fairly clean & clutterless.

A few months ago I printed some of my Instagram pictures and put them on some bulletin boards on the big wall - I loved the Instagram pictures themselves but the bulletin boards were kind of dwarfed by the blank wall space.

I had seen a few chalkboard wall pictures on Pinterest (are you on Pinterest? Follow my boards here!) and thought it would be an easy & low cost way to make a big impact.

Our walls were already in good condition so I just patched the few holes that were there from the bulletin boards & sanded the filler down when it was dry. I then measured off the space for the chalkboard paint and used my favorite green frog tape to tape it off.

This is the paint I used - bought from Home Depot for about 10$ a can. I only used about 3/4ths of the can to do the 2 coats on my wall. I gently sanded in between the 2 coats on a couple of rough spots that came up with the first coat of paint - the paint is pretty thick & I had to be careful when using the foam roller to make it not too thick in any one area. I followed the directions on the can & let it dry in between coats & then cure for 3 days before writing on it - the wait was killer for the boys! I had to make sure we had the chalk well hidden in the house for those 3 days!

This is the finished product! We also bought some wall molding and square decorative things to make a frame for the chalkboard to fancy it up a little bit. Marc just nailed those right into the wall after measuring & cutting them down to the right size.

The kids love it & it's already getting tons of use! I should have done this years ago!

Monday Morning Inspiration - Do Something Good Today!

2012-03-19T09:51:00.000-06:00

I've written before how I think that Monday mornings get a bad rap - I personally love the excitement of a brand spakin' new week & the promise of everything I can get accomplished this week. It's like the start of a race between myself & my goals for the week - I love crossing things off my list & getting things done!

But I know a lot of people don't share my Monday morning sentiments & face Mondays with a sense of dread & loathing. How about a little dose of inspiration to get you going this morning & give you a gentle little nudge into productivity? Whether your goals for the day include a conference call or an email you've been putting off writing or a huge pile of laundry that needs to be folded, here's some inspiration to get you on your way.

My Monday Morning inspiration for today is "Do Something Good Today". Whether for yourself (an unplanned Starbucks run?), your kids (surprise making cookies before bed day, just because?), a stranger (buying lunch for the car behind you in the drive through?), your significant other (a little love note tucked into a pocket?) or a friend (an email out of the blue, just to say how happy you are for them?) - do something good today.

I have a feeling it makes your Monday more bearable, promise.

& if you're on InstaGram, tag a picture of your good thing #mminspo & I'll feature some of my favorites on the blog later this week. (psst - did you hear InstaGram is coming to the Android platform soon too?)

Happy Monday! <3

Tangerine Tango Quilt winners!

2012-03-13T10:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we announced the winners of the Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge here on Ali's blog, A Squared W. I was so impressed by all the entries we got to our fun little challenge and loved seeing all the different interpretations of using the color Tangerine in quilting.

I loved hearing from our judges about what they liked about the different quilts, and how hard it was to narrow it down to their top 3 choices. Here's what a few of them had to say about the challenge:

Jeni, from In Color Order: "Tangerine can be a difficult color to work with, it's so incredibly bright and often overpowering. I was impressed by how well everyone incorporated it into their projects! Despite the challenge's color constraints, there was so much variety in design, so many unique quilts! I hope you all enjoyed sewing with tangerine, I know I enjoyed watching your progress!"

Kate, from Kate Spain Design: "I've so enjoyed checking out the works-in-progress and seeing minis and quilts take shape. Hats off to you for thinking up such a wonderful, creative challenge and for inspiring and encouraging people to embrace this beautiful, energized color!"

Here's the run down of the 3 winning quilts from the full-sized category:

1st place: Tail Wind by spontaneousthreads

blogged here by the designer

"This quilt (and beautiful quilting) has so much motion and makes my eye jump around in such a playful way! I love the variation of scale and overall use of space." - Kate Spain

2nd place: Patti Page by brand.jenna

blogged here by Jenna

"I want this on my bed. Is that compliment enough? :)" - Katy Dill

3rd place: Equilibrium, by deux petites souris

blogged here by Cinzia

"This one is packed with a punch! Orange is about as bold a color as they come and this design is all about being bold. I love it!" - Kate Spain

I'll be back tomorrow with a wrap of of the mini quilts category!

How to automatically backup your Instagram photos

2012-03-09T10:11:00.002-07:00

The other day my friend and I were commenting on how so many of our photos & Flickr feeds are all turning into Instagram streams ... it's so funny. It seems like we're all addicted to this little photo sharing Social Media app. I've been on the Instagram bandwagon for a while now & have hundreds of pictures on there - I'm trying to be a little better at saving & preserving & enjoying them - getting them off my phone & hard drive & into my life! I catch so many genuine adorable moments of the boys, I love to see them in print.

One of the things I did was print out a bunch of them & pin them to some bulletin boards in our kitchen. Dropping the Instagram photos onto some blank 4x6" canvases in Photoshop, getting them printed at Costco, and then chopping off the blank whitespace gave me perfect little 4x4" square pictures.

My InstaGram bulletin boards

I have my InstaGram hooked up to my Flickr account & usually simultaneously upload them to Flickr whenever I take an IG picture, but as another measure of security I found an even better way to automatically save & get the Instagram pictures backed-up right to a dedicated folder I can access from anywhere - in my Dropbox account.

How to automatically backup your Instagram photos in 4 easy steps:

1. Have a Dropbox account (sign up for one here if you don't have one - it's a free cloud-based storage service)

2. Have a If This Then That (IFTTT) account (also free to sign up)

3. Create yourself a task, based off this recipe, in your IFTTT account to automatically add your new Instagram photos to your specified Dropbox folder any time you upload a new one.

Create a if this > then that recipe to trigger Instagram > Dropbox

4. That's it! They'll appear like magic in your Dropbox folder (which you can access from any computer as well as your iPhone or iPad).

Presto! Pictures automatically uploaded!

I am loving this simple & easy solution - love that it works in the background for me & does it without me even having to think about it. Then I know exactly where my IG pictures are saved if I want to grab one to print or link to on my blog.

I'm also loving If This Then That - there's tons of "recipes" you can use to create automated tasks so that you have the Internet working for you in the background - I use it for things like sending me a text message if it's going to snow soon, automatically save a picture I'm tagged in on Facebook to my Flickr account, adding my Yelp check-in history to my Google calender, etc. Super easy to use, looks nice & does what it's supposed to - I'm a fan!

Let me know if you try this backup solution & if it works great for you too!

I Can Do Hard Things

2012-03-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

So it all started last year with a dare, basically. In January 2011 my father in law challenged himself & his kids & their spouses to run a half-marathon that year - a specific one, the Disneyland Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend in September. My husband is from Southern California & they spent lots of time at Disneyland growing up, and then after Marc & I got married we had Disneyland passes for years, and spent even more time there. Disneyland is one of our favorite places, and to be able to have special access to run a race through the park? Sounded amazing!

Just one little problem - I hated running. Not I wasn't good at running or I didn't have time to run - I despised, loathed, hated running with every fiber of my being. I implicitally remember running around and around the track in 9th or 10th grade vowing to myself that if I could just get to the end of these laps I wouldn't make myself run ever again. And I didn't - I took ballet and dance and aerobics as my PE classes throughout the rest of high school & college and literally never ran again.

So when he issued us that challenge my first thought was "OH! THAT WOULD BE SO FUN!" followed immediately by "Oh. My. Freaking. 13.1 miles. Crap."

My sister in law & I in our fun striped socks at about 5am the morning of the race.

Let me stop here for a second and just tell you right now that this isn't going to be one of those "Oh, and now I love running and I see beautiful rainbows every time I run and I fly like the wind and it's all peachy and amazing on every run." No way. I finally, now, a year later, after working HARD and CONSISTENTLY at becoming a runner, am finally, just faintly, starting to see why people always say running is addicting & they love it so much. I'm not there yet.

But. I did it. I ran 13.1 miles without walking (very much). Around mile 11 I thought I was going to die. Or pass out. Or my legs might fall off. But I just kept plugging along. One foot in front of the other in front of the other in front of the other.

My first half marathon race bib!

Let me stop and say that the Disneyland Half Marathon was the PERFECT race for my first half. Disney does know how to do it right - everywhere you looked there was a Character cheering you along or a marching band or a cheerleading group or a dance team or just hundreds & hundreds of supporters lining the streets of Anaheim. I actually ended up taking one of my ear buds out for most of the time because it was so fun to listen to the crowds & get pumped up by all the excitement. Sure, it was crowded, and I don't think that anyone is going to be getting a PR on this race because of all the crowds, but I can't imagine another race having the same level of excitement & fun!

So what's the point of all this? It's to remind you that if I can run a half marathon without barely even training for it you can do whatever it is that YOU want to do. I can do hard things.

AND YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS TOO.

Source

Sometimes it's going to suck and sometimes you're going to want to quit & sometimes you'll wonder exactly why you're sacrificing all this to be reaching for a really high goal. But - stick with it & the payoff will be amazing.

You might even get some really gaudy & crazy looking bling that you can look at every day & remember how hard it was & how much it sucks & how much you wanted to quit - but that you did it.

tired, sweaty, me. the legs that carried me 13.1 miles. my crazy gold medal!

I RAN A FREAKING HALF MARATHON PEOPLE!

And I may have run a bunch of races since then, too. And I may be signed up for even more for this year already. Maybe this running thing is addicting, after all! ;]

A week left to enter Tangerine Tango!

2012-02-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Have you checked out the Tangerine Tango group recently? There's some amazing things happening over there - all featuring in some way or another TANGERINE! Here's some of my recent favorites, but check out the group because there's lots more that are simply gorgeous.

(via findingsweetland on Flickr)

(via Bertadel on Flickr)

(via darcydivine on Flickr)

(via s.o.t.a.k handmade on Flickr)

(via jenib320 on Flickr)

Just a week and 2 days left to get your entries in - you definitely have time to make a mini quilt by then! If you need a refresher on the rules, here's the post about them!

Weekend Wrap-Up

2012-02-20T12:18:00.001-07:00

I think Monday gets a bad rap - I love the excitement of a new week & the idea of a full 5 days to get things going & see what can get accomplished.

This weekend I got a little sewing time in - have you seen the new quilt along that Dana & the Old Red Barn Co group is doing? Check out all the details here. I am just dipping my pinky toe in & doing 4 squares for a new Spring pillow. And didn't you know that your scrap bin was the best place to store your sewing-room chocolate!? ;]

This weekend was also spent running errands to Target (aren't those rainbow scarfs pretty?) & checking out the celebration in downtown Salt Lake that they had for the 10th anniversary of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. We lived in California when the Olympics took place here but were able to come visit for the weekend - what a fun time!

And just in case you wondered, if you want a really tasty PB & honey sandwich, Grahm's your guy. Look how proud of himself he is in that picture - I just couldn't get mad at that adorable little man.

Hope you're having a great Monday!

Happy Hearts Day - a mini quilt

2012-02-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

For awhile I've wanted to make a little mini quilt for each holiday - at least one a month so I can switch out a little wall art every few weeks in our front room. My mom always had our house decorated for all the different holidays & I loved that - so I want to do the same for my boys.

I had this idea in my brain for the way I wanted to make this heart mini quilt - with super skinny strips of red & pink fabric sewn together to make a general heart shape with the edges still squared off like in the above picture - but after sewing 50 strips of 1" fabric together my "heart" was misshapen and wonky (and not in the good way).

I almost scrapped it a few times - it just was not working out the way I had pictured it in my brain & it was frustrating me. I decided to round out the edges and make it into a true heart shape & I ended up liking that a lot better.

To assemble it, I just cut a 20x20" piece of white fabric and used my fabric glue stick to temporarily adhere the heart onto the center of it. Then I stitched really close to the edge of the heart to secure the heart enough that it wouldn't shift too much during quilting. This part was hard because of all the seams on the back of the heart - it is bulky!

Then I quilted it in vertical lines, varying their widths from each other. Bound in a cute pink and red stripe & my scrap-basket heart mini quilt was all done for Valentines Day with just a day to spare. At least I'll be ready to go for 2013. :]

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Linking up to Canoe Ridge Creations' Sew Modern Monday.

Wonky Snowballs Mini Quilt

2012-02-08T16:51:00.000-07:00

Darci and I decided for Christmas this year we'd swap mini quilts for each other's sewing rooms. We made a fun "rule" that we both had to use both the pumpkin colored Henna Garden and the lime green Full Moon Dot since those are two of both of our favorite prints.

I choose some of her favorite prints and really wanted to feature them and not chop them up too tiny. I like snowball blocks but I thought a wonky play on the typical snowball might be fun - so on the white in the corners of each print I just cut at different angles to make them wonky.

I love how it turned out and it looks awesome up in Darci's sewing room on the pretty grey walls.

The quilt she made me is fabulously amazing as well - she used some of my favorite aqua and green fabrics & I love it. She blogged more about it here.

We Skyped so we could both open our packages at the same time, too. So fun to have a best friend that loves sewing as much as you do.

Tangerine Tango Challenge Judges

2012-01-30T16:40:00.001-07:00

The Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge is well underway - did you see Ali posted about all the prizes you can win from our great sponsors?! There are some awesome things up for grabs.

We gathered together an amazing group of judges to give their opinions & help us narrow down the entries to determine the winners! Each of them brings something different to the table in terms of areas of sewing expertise or color knowledge, but the common thread between everyone is a great taste of color & all of them being amazing sewists!

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Judge 1: Jeni Baker of In Color Order. Jeni's class on Color Theory was one of the most popular last year at Sewing Summit - and for good reason! This girl knows how to put fabric together and has a great eye for complimentary colors.

Judge 2: Kate Spain of Kate Spain Designs. Kate uses orange in almost all of the fabric lines she designs, and says that orange (of any shade) is her favorite color. Perfect for this contest!

Judge 3: Amy Gunson of Badskirt. Amy has a keen eye for design & always has great comments when she dissects quilts & blocks on Flickr. She (like I did) also had reservations about Tangerine Tango being the color of the year & can't wait to see it being used in quilting.

Judge 4: Katy Dill of No Big Dill. I have long been in love with Katy's orange sewing room - I knew she would be a perfect fit for judging an all orange contest!

Judge 5: The staff of Fat Quarterly magazine. My friends at FQ are always on the cutting edge of what's contemporary & have great opinions on quilts & quilting.

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Have you seen the great quilts popping up in the Flickr group lately? There's already a bunch of official entries for mini quilts & even some larger quilts have started to trickle in. Remember you have until March 2nd to finish something to enter - I need to get working on mine!

Are you watching Downton Abbey yet?

2012-01-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've been up to my eyeballs in emails & Skype calls & spreadsheets this week .... I'm getting the class schedule & agenda & teaching staff ready for Sewing Summit 2012 and it's been stressful. Fun, but stressful. It's really hard to figure out how to balance a good mix of classes, panels, social time, meals, down time, etc, etc etc. Event planning is not for the faint of heart! I'm so glad to have Ali & Megan on my staff - I would really be going bonkers without them.

In between my computer & sewing time this week I've been watching Downton Abbey. Are you watching it yet? I admit, I put it off for weeks until finally so many of my friends were raving about it I knew I had to check it out.

It's a PBS show, currently airing the second season on Sunday nights in the US. The first season is all on Netflix streaming (how I watch it), free through Amazon Prime streaming, or on DVD. I watched the full first season in just a few days, although I'm starting over & rewatching it before I start on the 2nd season. The 2nd season is on Hulu or PBS.com.

I love everything about it - I love the relationship the sisters have with each other, I love Lady Grantham, I love the sassy Grandma ("What is a week end?"), I love the budding relationship between Anna and Bates. The costumes, the crazy cook, the gorgeous house & estate. It's just a good show. Are you a fan? If you're not watching it, you should be!

Sewing WIPs

2012-01-17T09:22:00.001-07:00

I've always got a lot of balls in the air and this month is no different. I have some exciting things that I want to start working on - but I'm borrowing a hint from Darci & trying not to start any new projects until I get all my WIP's done! Here's a list of (most) of the things I'm working on right now.

Swoon Quilt:

I made a few Swoon blocks last fall & then my stack of fabric just sat. This is NOT an easy block to make, you have to be pretty precise in piecing & make sure you have a consistent 1/4" or else your blocks will just not line up right. Plus the blocks are huge! But then I saw Katy had started a Swoon-along on Flickr and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get this quilt done! I've already got all my white cut & just need to buckle down and do the remaining 7 blocks I have left to do. If you've been wanting to make a Swoon quilt, this is a great group of people to join in with & let motivate you!

Flannel Quilt:

I bought a ton of flannel when it was on sale a few months ago & want to make a nice & toasty warm quilt just for me. I'm always cold in our house (especially the basement) during winter & I need a snuggly quilt all my own. I've started cutting this pretty flannel up into big squares & am going to keep this quilt pretty simple so it can hopefully get done faster! ;]

Tangerine Tango:

I have an idea for what I want to do as my Tangerine Tango challenge quilt, I just need to sketch it out & see if I can figure out the math. If I can make it work right, I think I'm going to love the look of it! (Did you see that Ali posted about our prizes yesterday? We've got some great stuff up for grabs!)

Misc:

I recently finished a small project that's going to be included in the next edition of Fat Quarterly (you can see a little sneak peek of it in this picture) & I've got another project in the works for a book collaboration I was asked to be a part of. (the sketch in the picture)

Here's to getting some stuff done in January!

A robotic drawstring bag

2012-01-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

For Christmas this year Mason got a LeapPad and I knew immediately that I'd need to make something to hold it. Small games that were going to get lost, scratch-able screen, USB cord to keep track of - yup, definitely needed to have something to contain it all to one place. Sure, they sell (ugly, expensive) cases for them, but this was the perfect reason to make one of the cute drawstring bags that I've been seeing all over the place in the sewing community.

Jeni's tutorial is great - just as I expected. Since doing the tutorial for the size I made, she's released a pattern with lots of different sizes. I definitely think I need to invest in that pattern now that I've made one of these little guys - they're quick and super easy to make!

I made a few modifications to her tutorial to make it work a little better for me. For one, I didn't box the corners as she instructed. When I had the corners boxed & had the LeapPad inside, the LeapPad just tipped the bag over. So I ripped out the boxed corners and like it much better (for my use) as just a flat bag.

I also lined the whole outer piece with fusible fleece. I knew that this bag was going to get a lot of use and wanted to make sure the LeapPad inside was somewhat cushioned. The fleece up at the top where the drawstring is made it a little hard to open/close at first, but it's gotten better after loosening up a little.

The other thing I did was add a little zip pocket to the outside! I love how it looks with the contrasting pocket - and it's the perfect size to hold all the tiny games that go to the LeapPad.

I made the pocket independently of the bag & then just top stitched it to the outside fabric before folding the fabric in half & stitching around the sides as Jeni has you do in the tutorial.

Even though I knew Mason would never care, I was a little crazy & even lined the pocket by fusing 2 pieces of fabric wrong-sides-together (to make a 2-sided piece of fabric, basically) because I didn't want to be able to see the wrong side of the fabric inside of the pocket.

I love how it turned out & more importantly so does Mason! Most of all he loves the robot fabric - how PERFECT is this fabric for an electronic item for a 5 year old boy? I was so lucky to have Mo as my partner in the Secret Santa Twitter swap - and she sent me some of her awesome brand new fabric in my package with the specific instructions to use it to make something for my boys.

It was so fun picking out which fabrics to use where - they're all so cute. I can definitely see a fun quilt made out of this line. Thanks again, Mo! The fabric is Mechanical Genius by Mo Bedell for Timeless Treasures.

Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge

2012-01-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I blogged about the Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge that Ali and I came up with. I'm super excited to create something because orange/tangerine is not something I use very often. Marc has always loved orange so maybe I'll come up with some sort of manly quilt for him.

Today the challenge officially kicks off & we've got a few rules and guidelines:

Rules:

1. There will be 2 categories:

- Minis: Longest side under 30". Pillows, table runners, place mats, mug rugs, etc. will count as minis.
- Quilts: any size from baby to bed

2. Oranges should be as "tango-y" as possible, but all shades of orange are welcome.

3. Focus should be on Tangerine, but one other color and one neutral can be included in the quilts. For our purposes, neutrals include shades of white, cream, beige, brown, gray, and black.

4. The contest will run from January 2nd through March 2nd, 2012. The top 10 finalists in each category will be announced on March 5th and winners will be announced on March 12th.

5. You can submit one entry per category. Entries should be completed projects, including quilting & binding.

You can see the rest of the guidelines & how to enter at this Flickr thread.

I was searching through my stash and wasn't surprised to find it really lacking in the oranges/tangerines. I knew that it was a color I used a lot but I had almost NOTHING. The more I have had it on the brain I've been noticing some great fabrics that are tangerine & I think I'm going to have to add some to my stash!

We've had a few great shops put together some special bundles for us just for Tangerine Tango!

From Del Ray Fabrics: 11 FQs for $34.99

From Fat Quarter Shop: 12 FQs for $39.00

I'm excited to add some of these pretty fabrics to my stash and use them to create something cool for this challenge! I hope a lot of people will join in. If you want to sew something with orange but don't want to officially enter the challenge that's OK too. Or if you're too busy the next 2 months & just want to complete a quilt top or something - still put your pictures in our Flickr group. The main thing we want to see is how people are using Tangerine Tango in their sewing - so feel free to join in at any level!

Hello 2012.

2012-01-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Another year is in the books & as sad as I am to see 2011 go ... I'm SO excited to see what 2012 is going to bring. With so much already in the works I can't wait to see where I am a year from now.

I've followed along with the Ali Edwards "One Little Word" project for a few years now but have never made my "word" public before. This year I decided to so I would be more accountable for focusing myself & making my word meaningful in my life.

So I'm going to BELIEVE in myself this year and BELIEVE I have the skills & knowledge to make my goals a reality and BELIEVE in my kids and BELIEVE in my husband and BELIEVE in my friends and do what I can to help their dreams come true too.

[Etsy link]

I love this definition:

be.lieve: to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

Even though I have lots of moments of self-doubt, I KNOW I can do a lot of things, just as I know my kids can & my husband can & my friends can. I think that having this word to focus me & giving me reason to stand still and make a conscious effort to believe will ground me & make me more thankful for the things I'm able to do in my life.

Again, I can't wait to see where I am a year from now. Hope you had a Happy New Year!

Treating friends to dinner thanks to Serve

2011-12-20T09:02:00.001-07:00

This post is sponsored by Serve from American Express. Sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account!

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I can't believe it's only 5 days until Christmas. I say this every December but this month has just flown by and I've been trying to do little things here and there to celebrate the season and have some fun. A few weekends ago I had the chance to go shopping with a few of my good friends and then take them out to dinner afterwards thanks to American Express Serve. We braved the mall and I exchanged some shoes and then bought a few gifts and then we went over to one of my favorite restaurants in Salt Lake City, Red Rock Brewing Company.

Serve is a new service from American Express that's a digital payment system - a way to settle up with friends/buddies instantly via email or mobile device. It's super easy to use, both online and on their mobile app. It literally took me just a few minutes to sign up for Serve on their website & hook it up to my bank account.

But back to dinner first. Serve had generously given me some fun money to treat my friends to a great dinner and so we kind of went nuts. After a round of drinks & the biggest appetizer sampler thingy on the menu, all of us ordered the biggest, juciest, steak and potato meal on the menu while just one chose a more sensible cheeseburger. Just kidding - I just REALLY like the cheeseburger at Red Rock! And I was a little jealous when I saw the delicious looking steaks come out.

Dinner with just my girlfriends is something that doesn't happen near often enough and we really took advantage of the kid-free time that night. We talked and talked and talked and then finally thought we should order our food, and then talked and talked some more. We stuffed ourselves silly and then someone thought that it would be a good idea to order cheesecake, too. So yummy.

Splitting the bill is usually the part of the evening that I don't look forward to, I do a little groan in my mind thinking of the hassle and calculations and math that's going to be involved to figure out exactly what everyone owes on the check and who has cash and who doesn't and who owes whom what. Nothing like spoiling a great night of girl talk with math and money discussions. With Serve, it was so easy I barely had to think about it.

We had the waitress just split the bill evenly between us all, everyone paid with their own credit/debit/cash whatever, and then I asked my friends what their Serve account email addresses were, and I just zapped them the money I owed them to pay them back. It was SO easy. We got a little excited at how quick the money showed up in their accounts and debited out of mine. Now that their money was in their Serve accounts, they could use it through their Serve debit card, or transfer the money to their linked bank accounts.

Serve is available as an app for both iPhone and Androids (we had some of each represented at our table!) and is so user-friendly. I'm a sucker for well-designed and pretty looking apps, and Serve's app definitely is both of those things. It even has a "split the bill" section that lets you input the # of people in your party, your bill amount and what you want to tip and it figures out exactly what you owe - AND it lets you input their Serve emails right then and there so you can request money from them. It's such a good idea for a service.

I was really excited to get to try out Serve and I completely recommend it. I love that it's by American Express because I know they stand by their products and have great customer service. If you're looking to try out a new digital payment system, I definitely think you should learn more about Serve and then sign up. If you do sign up, leave a comment on this post saying you did and you'll be entered to win A HUNDRED BUCKS from Serve. Isn't that awesome?

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Remember to sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! Official sweepstakes rules and regulations may be found by clicking here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Do you Tangerine Tango?

2011-12-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

I've always been interested in the colors that Pantone chooses for their colors of the year. Remember in late 2009 when they announced the shade for 2010 was the same turquoise that we had just painted Grahm's room? Last week Pantone announced the color of the year for 2012 was Tangerine Tango.

I admit I wasn't super excited because I am not a huge fan of orange. A few people on Twitter were talking about if they did or didn't like orange & I made mention that I'd be interested to see how it would be brought into sewing & quilting, if at all. There's some beautiful tangerine fabric out there but it's just not a color that you see a LOT of in quilting.

Ali saw me wondering out loud how tangerine would be used in the quilting world and she proposed an idea ... so we're excited to announce the Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge!

Pantone has this to say about Tangerine Tango: “Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Ali and I will announce more details after the holidays but in the mean time you can join our Flickr group to start chatting about if you're up for a the challenge or scope out our all-tangerine-all-the-time inspiration board on Pinterest. Who thinks they want to Tangerine Tango with us? I've already started dreaming up possible color schemes!