Hello everyone! In case you haven't already heard I'm happy to announce that I will be teaching at Camp Stitchalot this May! Rashida Coleman-Hale and I will be teaching a skirt class together...won't you join us? We're gonna bring some vintage fabrics, pretty linen, amazing trims, and you get to play with all of it!

Rae Hoekstra and Katy Jones will also be teaching, and we all get to hang out summer-camp style. It's gonna be so much fun!

Brenda from Pink Castle Fabrics is putting on this fun event. Click on over to find out more about the event and SIGN UP! See you there!

I have never, in my life, been this early for Valentine's Day. I'm pretty sure it was only two years ago that I dropped my 3 year old off at school, realized to my horror it was Valentine's Day, rushed back home and crafted 22 Valentines, and drove them back to school in time for their 10:00 party.  

This year, however, I have Ruby Star Wrapping on my brain, and decided to use some projects from the book to make Valentines for my son's class.  These 5-minute party pouches took way less than 5 minutes each to make.  And I got to reuse some of my ornament boxes from Christmas for teacher gifts! 

Why do they all say Finn?  Blessedly, our school just has the kids sign each Valentine, rather than individually address them.  I didn't really get it until the first time I stepped in my daughter's pre-k classroom and saw 20 children who couldn't read wandering around trying to figure out which box to drop each card in.  Thankfully, that was the last year we did it that way.

We're still working on tying up all the little bags, but with over a week left to go, they're almost finished! I feel like I deserve a medal:)

By the way, what does your family do to celebrate Valentine's?  When I was in high school, I worked at Eckerd drug store for a few years. Valentine's Day was our busiest day of the year, with everyone stopping off after work in a panic to buy overpriced cards and fake roses and waxy chocolates. Since then, I've been pretty disillusioned about the whole business. So our family has a tradition of having an indoor picnic at dinner, followed by pulling out all the craft supplies and making each other cards. We then tape all of the cards into a big book so we can look at them again the next year. My favorite card is from the year I was pregnant with Finn. Greg made a paper box of french fries, and each paper french fry was its own little love note.  So much better than a box of waxy chocolates, even for a pregnant lady:)  

 

Guess what?!  My typewriters finally made it to Gelaskins!  In honor of this, and with the upcoming holidays in mind, I'd like to offer a $100 Gelaskins gift certificate to one lucky winner on Monday (good for anything on their site, so please, take a good look around).  Leave a nice friendly comment, and I'll do a drawing Monday afternoon!  

(added 12/10)... and we have a winner!  Congratulations Robin, and thank you everyone for your comments! 

So, as you know, Ruby Star Wrapping hit the shelves at the end of October. Since then, not one but two Wrap Alongs have started up, and there's going to be a Ruby Star Wrapping contest on Sew,Mama,Sew! beginning December 10th. The prizes for all of these events are amazing! 

The book is full of inspiration for making resourceful, reusable, beautiful handmade gift packaging. Here are some of the awesome things people have made in the Wrap Along hosted by Sukie. Don't forget to link up your projects on her blog to win prizes (really good prizes!)

Projects courtesy of: 1. Anna of Noodlehead  2. Amanda of A Crafty Fox  3. Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson!  4. Brooke of Pitter Putter Stitch  5. Erin of Two More Seconds  6. Jen of Betty Crocker Ass  7. Rochelle of Lucky Lucille  8. Sukie of Sukie, Don't Ya Know  9. Elizabeth of Don't Call Me Betsy  10. Bolt Neighborhood  11. Ellen of The Long Thread  12. Katie of Swim, Bike, Quilt!

The Sew To Speak Wrap Along just began last week, and the projects look amazing there as well.  They will be announcing another winner this friday, so please stop by!

Projects courtesy of: 1. Mary Dugan of Molly Flanders  2. Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated  3. Kara of Me and Elna  4. Amanda of Sasikirana Handmade  5. April Rhodes  6. Made by Rae

Also, check out my recent tutorial on Sew,Mama,Sew! for these ornament boxes, based on a similar project in the book (except these are miniature, and can hang directly on your tree!)  

And, please, whatever you do, be sure to participate in the Sew,Mama,Sew!  Ruby Star Wrapping Contest beginning December 10th. The prizes are going to be out of control. This is a rough idea of what we have in mind:

 

GRAND PRIZE

Copy of Ruby Star Wrapping

 $50 Gift Certificate to Sew,Mama,Sew!

6 Green Bee Patterns

1 Fat Quarter Pack Micro Mod for Cloud9 fabric

1 vintage collectible thermos or rotary phone

1 yard Melody Miller trim

6 Ruby Star Sparkle fat quarters

1 bundle washi tape

 

2nd place

Copy of Ruby Star Wrapping

$30 Gift Certificate to Sew,Mama,Sew!

3 Green Bee Patterns

1 vintage Pyrex dish

1 yard Melody Miller trim

4 Ruby Star Sparkle fat quarters

 

3rd place

Copy of Ruby Star Wrapping

$20 Gift Certificate to Sew,Mama,Sew!

2 Green Bee Patterns

1 yard Melody Miller trim

3 Ruby Star Sparkle fat quarters

 

4th place

Copy of Ruby Star Wrapping

$10 Gift Certificate to Sew,Mama,Sew!

1 Green Bee Pattern

1 yard Melody Miller trim

2 Ruby Star Sparkle fat quarters

I have this idea that people do things like watch TV or sit around in their jammies reading books on a Saturday, or have friends over, or even leave their house once in a while for a non-grocery-or-school-related-activity, but based on my own experience the past few months, I'm dubious. We just finished a 23-week-long construction inside the space in which we live and work (and the space, crazily, didn't get an inch bigger, it was just torn apart and put back together to feel bigger and work better for us). In the midst of that, I somehow created my second booth for quilt market, and even managed to get away to Houston (unless I dreamed it).  So, even though it seems like years later, I want to take a moment to document that experience and thank everyone who helped me.

I went to market, not only to show off my new fabric line Ruby Star Sparkle, but to talk about my new book, Ruby Star Wrapping!

Of course I brought my latest Gelaskins with me, including a new design based on my vinyl prints from last spring. (Look out for typewriters coming soon!)

I'm so fortunate to have such great friends to help sew samples for Market. Gina Pina made up a bunch of projects from my book, including some aprons that roll up to hold your gifts (see the little yellow echino bundle under the tree), several casserole covers and a handful of Melody-didn't-mean-to-make-it totes. One of the casserole covers doubled as a perfect sticker basket. Sara of Sew Sweetness, who is famous at market for her amazing dresses, made a fabulous Serendipity Studio Zoe dress (those pleats!).  Ali, who also helped sew for my spring booth, made up some rollerskate floor pillows and a couple of crocheted tea towels that reminded everyone of their grandmother in the best way. And then there was Jen. Jen not only whipped up a delightful apron, and a couple of piped pillows, and an amazing quilt, but she also threw a weekender in, just because she can. These ladies are amazing.

This is my new line of crocheted trims for Kokka!

...and I'll leave you with this. It's the little details that count. 

P.S. Thanks, Steffani, for the awesome tape measure!

 

I just wanted to let you know about my latest gelaskins design, based on the vinyl print in my spring fabric line!  Wanna know what's nice about designing for gelaskins? I'm not limited to 12 colors, as with fabric design.  So, I made a super-colorful explosion of vinyl records for your pleasure and enjoyment.

 

 

You can get this design (or three others by me) printed on skins and cases for most any flavor of electronics: smartphones, e-readers, laptops, gaming systems, earphones, remotes... order here!

 

 

Time to talk about my new book, Ruby Star Wrapping! 

For the first few years of my career in fabric design, I was lucky enough to have my dear friend Allison help me with some of the more business-minded aspects of my work. A natural-born writer, she would handle communications while I focused on planning and just making my designs.  We always talked about writing a book together; she loves to write and I love to make stuff, so it seemed like a perfect combination.

Fast forward to the holidays of 2010.  I had been thinking for several months about a gift wrap concept for a book, and then I saw the Green Grocery Bag Challenge on sew,mama,sew!. The idea is to wrap your holiday gifts in handmade, reusable grocery bags to cut down on the millions of tons of wrapping paper and plastic bag waste that end up in landfills every year.

Suddenly, I was inspired!  I could write an entire book about handmade reusable gift packaging.  I thought grocery bags were a fantastic starting point, and I wanted to explore packaging options for gifts of all different shapes and sizes.  Allison found this statistic from the Sierra Club: if every American family wrapped just three gifts this year in something that could be reused, we would save enough paper to fill 45,000 football fields.  That seemed like all the incentive we needed to start our book.

So in order to include a wide variety of packages, we decided to organize the book by the type of gift you're giving. Is it squishy? Fragile? Thin and flat? Bulky? We've got you covered.  For each gift type, I've created several packaging projects for you to choose from. Will you always have time to do this?  Of course not!  But remember, just three of these a year can make a huge difference.

Now, on to my favorite part.  While Allison wrote and I designed projects, we had the additional job of planning the photography and design for the book.  I'm lucky to be married to an incredible photographer, Greg, who happily volunteered to shoot the book.  Allison's ridiculously-talented husband, Blake, took on the art direction.  When the four of us got together to plan the photo shoot, we decided our dream location would be Elsie Larson's Red Velvet Shop that we had all drooled over online the previous year.  It was in a dreamy old downtown building full of architectural details and packed with gorgeous vintage objects and huge windows with natural light. We didn't even know which part of the country she was in, but we decided we would do whatever it took to get there.  Luckily, Elsie agreed to let us shoot in her space, so last August, the four of us plus an assistant were off to Springfield, MO for our big photo shoot!

By that point, we had asked Kristin Link from sew,mama,sew! to write our foreword. She generously agreed.  It seemed like the details were coming together beautifully when we had our final coup. Blake, with his phenomenal talent, offered to do the layout and design for the entire book. I couldn't believe our good luck.  We weren't sure if our publisher, Roost Books, would agree, but they gave it a little thought, and said they would be happy to give it a shot.  Blake went straight to work and the work was... magical.

I'm so pleased with this book, and hope you will be too.  This fall, at Quilt Market, I'll be devoting my booth to my new fall line for Kokka as well as this book.  Stop by and take a look!  And if you want an early copy, order now. It ships this month!  The general release will be the end of October.