Summer is only 10 days away! And my kids will be doing their fair share of traveling this summer. So I decided it’s time to make more Weekender Bags. One for each kid (and hopefully a new one for me while I’m at it!)

So the grand plan is for me to make one again ( it’s been years since I made the last one) and then do a sew along for anyone who want to join in.

The schedule isn’t set yet – but if you’re interested in making a bag over the summer, go ahead and start looking for fabric! (I’ll do a specific supply post separately but if you find a fabric you love, get a couple yards of it!

So who is up for tackling this tote with me?

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Whatcha doing tonight?

Nothing?

Oh Good! I’ve got just the thing for you!  It’s Talkin’ Tuesdays.

It’s a twitter chat all about sewing every Tuesday night from 6pm to 8pm (pacific time). And it’s a lot of fun! Cara, the marvelous host, posts questions and then we all answer and chat back and forth.  (We stay on topic about 65% of the time!)  I have honestly learned a lot from my Talkin’ Tuesday friends – and I have actually won things too!

You see, each week is sponsored and the sponsor generously provides gifts! I won these wonderful patterns from Shea over at Empty Bobbin and I also won some paper piecing paper recently.  Totally fun! (And I’ll blog more about Empty Bobbin soon!)  While it is a sponsored event, it’s not at all a pushy sales chat.  Cara does a great job of managing the chat and coming up with fun questions each week that are related to the sewing community.

NOW – a couple little tips for Talkin’ Tuesday:

1. It moves FAST so the best way I have found to manage it is to use www.tweetchat.com.  You sign in on the tweet chat website and add the hashtag #talknt to your list.  It then controls the speed for you so that you’re not flooded with 368 tweets all at once.  PLUS it brings up people using the #talknt hashtag that you may not be following!  Another plus is that Tweet Chat automatically adds in the #talknt hashtag to your tweets, so you don’t have to remember that.

2. This is my thing, but it can be annoying for your non-sewing followers to see a huge influx from you for #talknt (or any chat).  SO to minimize that, 98% of the time I reply directly to someone that is already in the #talknt thread (yeah, sure. I did the math…).  This way only mutual friends, who are more likely to share the sewing interest, see the updates.  (and those people stalking my actual twitter page see all the posts…but I’m not bothered by what stalkers think of me anyway!)

3.  It’s okay if you can’t “show up” on time or stay the whole time! Join the conversation when you can.

Okay – so maybe I’ll see you tonight.

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Last year during the first Blockapalooza I was still a store owner. This year I’m a free agent! And one of the contributors this year to the grand Christmas in July Quilt-a-thon!

These beautiful fabrics from Denyse Schmidt are the fabrics I get to play with! (We are all working with fabrics from Free Spirit. ) I’m excited to share more details as the time nears. I can tell you that the quilt is going to be really cool!!!

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Today I finished up Kyle’s shorts.  They really made me mad.    100% my fault – stupid mistakes.  We all have those days, right?

I put the pockets on upside down (so the large hand part went up instead of down) and then I sewed two backs together and two fronts and didn’t notice (was I sleep sewing?)…until I went to sew the middle crotch seam.  (Hello?) So today I had an hour long ripping session to take it all apart.  Every last stitch.  I cried.

Probably had more to do with Friday Night Lights than it did with the shorts…but the ripping was painful too.

Honestly I considered just trashing them…but I should be wise with my resources and so I salvaged them.  They are done.  Since I don’t have a picture, I thought I’d post this recent picture – which proves how desperately the boy needed some shorts – of when we found a horned lizard (or frog! Go Frogs!)  That was awesome.  And then we found another again the next week! 

Back to the shorts.  I’m not sure the younger lad is getting a pair.  I’m still mad. 

Anyway I don’t have anything out and ready to go for Friday….so does cleaning for an hour on day 5 count?  Cuz my room is a disaster! (I also got a quilt binding sewn in place today….so I worked way more than an hour!   )

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Haley adores her top -
A LOT! (pics coming!)

But as she was prancing around the kitchen, she says to me “Mom, you need to make something for the boys.” (I’m not even kidding!)

So these shorts are my project for day 3! I’ll be using graphite corduroy from Robert Kaufman.  It’s gray – even if the picture doesn’t look like it.  (But on the plus side, I finally decided I could use my mobile app to blog so maybe I’ll actually blog more?)

She also observed that many things are made in China – except in our house “because you make them Mom, so they’re made in the USA!”

(Should I have told her most fabric is from Korea?)

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Today I’m going to trace and cut out the Naomi pattern! I like to use freezer paper because you can iron it right onto the fabric so you do not need pins! (Make sure to put the shiny side down!)

Of course, I may not be able to stop after that….we shall see!

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Look what I got in the mail?

It’s Savanna Bop!

from Thomas for Andover Fabrics

These delightful fabrics should be hitting store soon, I believe.  I couldn’t wait to get started using them! I have one project done and will be sharing it soon! 

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First things first – I was trying to make a special dessert recipe to share with all of you so that everyone would leave here happy.  It started with chocolate chip cookie dough for the base…so it seems like it should be a winner.  The dessert was okay but it wasn’t “wow, this is great” and so I’m going to keep messing with it until I get it worthy.  Sorry.

So that delayed my picking a winner….but no more.  It is done now!  Comment #35!  Congratulations!

Katherine says:

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