The Piece of Fabric

Some women are born with a silver spoon in their mouth? I was born with a sewing machine in mine! I'm not kidding - I loved sewing from the very beginning! I learned to sew when I was 8 yrs old and have not been far away from a machine since.

I had a short time when I didn't have a sewing machine, I sewed by hand. There was simply no way I was going to be 'not sewing'! I've rarely had a dishwasher, but always had a sewing machine (except for that one time).

I remember a Christmas when I was still in elementary school, about 6th grade probably. I asked for fabric for Christmas. True Story, ask my mom. And I got it. I've had lots of memorable Christmas gifts over the years, including one child who was born on Dec 17 :) The fabric was my best gift until he was born. Somewhere upstairs in a drawer, I have a picture of him, just a few weeks old, underneath the Christmas tree. He was my last one, my baby. Now, my 'baby' is 6'4" and has 3 children of his own!

But I remember the fabric, I remember exactly what it looked like, what I made from it, times when I wore the dress, and with what shoes! What's up with that? I can't remember where the car keys are, or what I did last week, but this very first gift of fabric is imprinted on my mind in such a phenomenal way.

I remember fabrics. I can match fabrics in the store, with one of them at home. I remember fabrics I had and then gave away, and then was sorry. I have some fabrics that I've had for years. I haven't done anything with them yet, but the right project has not come along. It will.

I've forgotten birthdays (sometime my own, and nearly always forget my age), names, places, complete events in my life, but fabrics, patterns, threads, notions - for some reason, those stick. I don't know.

As long as I can remember fabrics, I guess I'm not completely crazy. Or maybe that makes me crazy. I'm not sure.

Are you the Costume Fairy?

Had to share this - it was just too funny!!! Thanks go to Alethia at Sew Much Talent!!! Enjoy :)

Merry Christmas :)

I want to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I took some pictures of some of my decorations, and posted them on the Abundant Living blog, if you'd like to take a look. I'll be taking some time this week, sewing and just enjoying the last of the year. A little break from blogging here and on Abundant Living.

My wish and prayer for all of you is that you celebrate the birth of Jesus with joy and abundance, and that you invite Him into your life. He loves you - and so do I. See you next year! :) Karen

Giveaway Winner and a Beautiful Christmas Decoration and...

according to the Random Number Generator is... Chels! If you send me your address, I'll send out your ornaments! karengass144 at gmail dot com

I have been busy with my glue gun lately! I used an empty cone from Peaches and Creme cotton yarn and started gluing on my beads and buttons and broken bits of jewelry, and chains.... oh the mess --

But oh how pretty!

I also won a wonderful bag of buttons on Listia. Have you been there to play? Oh my gosh, what you're missing! There is no money involved. You list things and people bid credits on them, and when you get credits you can buy things with them. So far, I've 'bought' 4 lace doilies, some makings for clothespin dolls, 25 Beanie Babies, a whole box of scrapbooking stuff and these awesome buttons!

I just love them - I can't even use them yet, I'm still in the honeymoon stage :) If you want to play too, join Listia through my link, so I get credit!

Merry Christmas!

Tutorial AND a Giveaway!

It's Christmas and it's so much fun to give presents, so I'm giving you one! First, I'll give you the tutorial so you can make your own, and then we'll have a drawing so someone can win a set of 6 of their own! That way everyone has fun!

A set of 6 glass filled heart ornaments. Filled with hand dyed wool. 

This is what you'll need to make your own. A glass ornament of any size or shape. Some colored wool to fill it, and a crochet hook to push the wool in. Take the top of the ornament off, and set it aside for now.

Make a small 'bunch' of the wool, and carefully poke it through the opening with your crochet hook. And I emphasize the 'be careful' because I also made another set of hearts, but poked the crochet hook clear through one of them! That one is no good now!! 

Once it's full and you're happy with the color arrangement, put the top back on. If you want to change the color arrangement, simply use the other end of the crochet hook, and pull out the wool and rearrange it until it's beautiful. Put the top on and it's done and ready to hang!

Close up of 1 heart.

This is what you'll receive if you're the winner!

So, how to win? It's easy! There are two ways and you can earn two entries if you do both of them. Leave a comment on this post, and Follow my blog. That's the first way. The second way is to visit my New blog Abundant Living With Chronic Pain and either follow it or share it with someone who might be interested in it. I trust you, I'll take your word for it :)

The winner will be picked by the Random Number Generator. The drawing will close on Friday, Dec 16 at midnight CST. That should still give it time to arrive at your house before Christmas. Open to US residents only, I'm sorry, I just can't afford postage to other countries.

One Site I Forgot to List

This site has some of the most beautiful photographs, with sayings here and there. I love it, and go there to be inspired. Ignite Light is the name of it. I don't know who maintains it or who takes the pictures - but they are beautiful. I wanted to share it with you along with the other ones. Enjoy! :)

A Giveaway You Might Want to Know About!

Joy, over at Artful Homemaking is having a giveaway for moi! She's written a beautiful post about my products, and I hope you'll take a few minutes to stop by and take a look at her blog and say thank you! And enter the Giveaway!! :)

Some new sites I've found -

I get to look at a lot of different sites in my job at Blooming Sisters, where I publish Saturday Tutorials every Saturday. Well, I don't right now because we having our Christmas Countdown where we publish tutorials EVERYDAY!!!! But after Christmas I'll go back to Saturday Tutorials, but I thought I'd share some of the cool stuff I've found en route to tutorials!

Stash Slash - a place, where for a VERY low yearly fee, you can sell your excess stash, patterns, books etc. Buyers pay no fee. I got to looking around there, some very cool deals to be found!

Farmhouse Couture - a new blog by Justine at sew country chick. The new one is devoted to her decorating style and is going to be chock full of tutorials so we can learn to be Farmhouse Couture as well! On her Mantle Tour post, I love it all, but I especially loved the piece of stiffened burlap with an old world Santa probably Mod Podged on, edged with glitter. I plan on making some of those.

Listia - is a fabulous auction site that uses no money! That's right! No listing fees, no end of auction fees, in fact, what you do is give stuff away! It all deals in 'credits'. I listed some things, earned credits, which I can now use to buy things on Listia. It's so cool! And just in time to get some good stuff for the holidays without spending any money! Sign up with them through my link and we'll both get extra credits! (my link is the link to the site at the beginning of this paragraph)

Abundant Living - Well, this is one of my favorite blogs, considering I put it together with my best friend ever Cynthia Martin. We both have fibromyalgia and various other lovely diseases :) but we both love homemaking. It's hard to do when you're in pain in all the time, and so tired you feel like you could sleep all day. So, we decided to start a blog, for all of you who desire to be homemakers, but just don't have the energy. You'll find lots of practical ideas, organizational tips so you don't have to try to remember things, resources, all kinds of things. You are cordially invited to visit, whether you suffer from chronic illness or not - I'll bet you know someone who does!

Olioboard - Do you love to rearrange your furniture? Do you find yourself continually moving things from room to room, or are you just dying to redecorate? Well now you can without spending a dime! There is a bit of a learning curve with this site I've found, but it's nothing I can't overcome in the name of redecorating! Shop to your hearts delight, and then arrange it in a room. Look at others Mood Board to see how they've done it, and get inspired! This is more fun than those little plastic pieces (people, furniture, dishes) we used to stick on plastic boards! (what ARE those called?)

Pinterest - if you don't know about Pinterest by now, you've got to see it to believe it! You get to make your own collection of bulletin boards, and name them. Then, as your hopping around the internet and you see pictures you love, you Pin It! It goes onto the board you choose, AND it remembers the site it came from. The link goes to my boards  :) but to set up your own boards, just click on Pinterest in the Top Middle (it's written in red, you can't miss it) and request an invite. When I requested my invite, I got it the next day. While you're waiting look at all the cool stuff other people have found!

Ok, I've got to get back to sewing my Christmas gifts, but I wanted to share these things with you while I was thinking about it. What are you making for Christmas? (are you stuck for a great gift? Check our Handmade Connection!)