Author Archives: Jennifer Ofenstein

About Jennifer Ofenstein

Owner of sewhooked.com and fandominstitches.com. #quiltforgood advocate. Quilt designer, instructor, Talk to Me Tuesday founder & contributor, cat mom, and craft enabler.

The Elder Futhark

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Despite sounding like someone’s grandpa, Elder Futhark is actually a runic alphabet.

Runes are fascinating and you have to admit, they just look cool! My own interest in runes lies in the fantastic. Runes constantly pop up in my favorite fantasy stories, and honestly, I just couldn’t resist taking advantage of the graphic nature of runes to create quilt patterns with them! That said…

I’ve created a complete set of runic letters using the Elder Futhark alphabet, which are now available in the Sewhooked Shop as an instant PDF download with PayPal payment (completely secure shopping through E-junkie!).

$12 – PDF Instant Download

What do you get?

24 – 5″ finished (5 1/2″ unfinished) paper pieced patterns, all ranging from beginner to intermediate skill level. None of the blocks is particularly taxing, but some are a little more involved.

Each block has been tested by me and edited to be the simplest, cleanest piecing I could possibly make it.

Now the obvious question is what will I use my rune blocks for? Hmm…. A quilt border? A quilt center? An awesome tablerunner or wall hanging? Just the beginning of a Norse quilt of Doom? Who knows?!

To learn more about runes, check out Oswald The Runemaker.

Want to learn to paper piece? Check out my free paper piecing resources and text tutorial!

Shop Sewhooked and help keep the free patterns free!

Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post!

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TTMT #64 – Tour and Tell

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In which I give a brief tour of my newly tidied work space, do a little show and tell and talk about the shiny and new Sewhooked Shop.

Guest appearance by Professor Snape.

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A Very Harry Fabric Friday

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Since I talked about Harry Potter fabric in my last Talk To Me Tuesday, I thought this photo would make a perfect follow-up Fabric Friday!

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sewhooked shop!

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My Kitchen Window

I’m thrilled to announce that after months of research, sleepless nights, filing of papers, designing, stitching and lots and LOTS of work, the Sewhooked Shop is finally online!

I’m starting with just a few products, all available for instant download with PayPal payment. Every pattern is also available for wholesale. Contact me for more information at sewhooked@gmail.com.

How excited am I? I ate a lot of peanut butter today…That’s how excited!

Please check it out…I’d love your feedback!

Shop Sewhooked and help keep the free patterns free!

Add your Sewhooked-related photos (that includes my patterns posted to Fandom In Stitches!) to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post!

Have a wonderful day!

Peanut Butter

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Hi, my name is Jennifer, and I am a peanut butter junkie.

If I was alone on a desert island and could only bring one food?

Stressed-out comfort food?

Favorite thing to eat with chocolate?

I think you get the idea!

I like all-natural, no sugar or stuff-added peanut butter and I’ve tried all variety of brands, organic, and not. The one thing that I can’t get over is how expensive plain ole peanut butter can be. I can really go through the stuff and it just never lasts long enough!

In a recent out-of-peanut-butter-crisis, I decided to try and make my own. The slightly astonishing thing is that I had no directions and I didn’t try to find a recipe. And it worked! It worked so well, I’ve already eaten it all and made another batch. Nom!

It’s super easy – 16 oz of roasted, salted peanuts in the variety of your choice. Toss that into your food processor (it’s a must, sorry if you don’t have one!), Add about 1 tbs vegetable oil. I used corn oil, but I’m sure peanut oil would be even more awesome.

Process for about three minutes or until smooth. Move to a bowl and refrigerate.

Eat! Really, that’s it!

Nomnomnom!

Next time, I think I’ll try roasting my own peanuts…

Like peanut butter? Check out my video, Peanut Butter In Real Time!

more recipes

Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post.

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TTMT #63 Totally Tired

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In which I do some show & tell, share some Harry Potter fabric and make An Announcement.

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

Happy crafting!

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Fabric Friday Kicks Bootie

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All I have of this line are the few samples shown here. They came from a huge donation of sales samples for Linus and I snatched these right up! I don’t know what I’ll do with them yet, but won’t they make a kick ass quilt for Linus?

Happy crafting!

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Wordless Wednesday – Progress

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TTMT #62 – The She-Shirt

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By request, a video version of this tutorial!

Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post!

Happy crafting!

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Birthdays and BFFs

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Just over a week ago, I got to do something that I look forward to all year around – see my best friend, Jewells. We live hundreds of miles apart and with our kids still in school, we’re lucky to get one visit a year.

I’ve talked about Jewells here before, when I shared the quilt I made for her 2008 birthday.

Jewells always shares amazingly thoughtful handmade gifts. She’s knitted socks for me, made “snowballs” for my kids (who rarely see snow here in Texas) and just generally shared her talent, creativity and thoughtfulness with my family.

Due to a variety of circumstances beyond her control, my birthday gift for this year was belated. Parts on back-order and such created one delay after another for her. Due to the delays, she was able to do something that I can’t remember happening in many years – hand deliver my birthday gift!

I’m so excited to share this truly wonderful gift here. This gorgeous perpetual calendar was an idea from a craft store flier than ended up morphing into a whole new design that Jewells made especially for me.

She pieced, stitched, stamped, glued, stenciled, covered buttons, crocheted and oh my gosh, I don’t know what else! Look and be amazed. I am truly a lucky girl to have had such an amazing friend for almost half of my life.

Oh, and? It was her FIRST QUILT ever!

Jewells talks about this project here and even more here!

The whole Kit And Kaboodle! Why coffee? Because it’s been one of our favorite past times since our time as college roommates and we still enjoy sitting over a cup o’ Joe and chatting the day away.

The months are stamped on felt which sticks right to the velcro. Each month is customized with coordinating ribbon!

The months have their own nifty little pouch for storage.

Each date was stamped on fabric, which was then used to make custom velcro-back buttons.

The set includes the calendar and two pouches (one for the months, one for the days). Even the back is coffee themed!

I repurposed a cafe rod and hooks for hanging this beauty in my foyer. The cafe rod and hooks were cream and brass and have been primed and spray painted black.

Thank you, Jewells, I can’t even express how much I love the time and thought that went into this gift. Even better was getting to open it in front of you!

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