Mother/Daughter Talk To Me Tuesday-ers Terry and Satia are crafting for good with Project Red Cross!
They are regular blood donors to the Red Cross and in an effort to boost their support during the crazy weather and natural disasters that have been plaguing the world lately, they are selling Blood Drops.
You heard that right, vampire lovers, Blood Drops!
No, seriously, the Blood Drops represent donating blood…not vampires. Sorry, once a fangirl, always a fangirl!
Terry explains Project Red Cross
Update!
There are two items available for sale:
A keychain, handcrafted by Satia out of polymer clay, beads and hemp, a variety of hemp colors available. $5 donation
A squeezie, knitted by Terry and ready for you to squeeze during your next blood donation visit or to work out a little post-disaster related stress. $5 donation.
Terri and Satia are collecting money for one big donation to The Red Cross. Every donor will have his or her name added to a card to be included with the donation.
Shipping for one item is $1.71 in the U.S. Shipping outside the U.S. will vary based on location. Check or money order only, all proceeds outside of shipping will go directly to The Red Cross.
Please email Terry or Satia for payment details, their address, etc.
Did I mention I’m getting one of each? Hand-crafted blood for a $10 donation to The Red Cross? Heck yeah!
Stars for Linus blocks have stared arriving in the mail! It’s only been a few days and I just need a few more for a quilt top. Keep them coming folks, keep them coming!
A note about printer scaling: if your pattern prints 8″ instead of 8.5″, you can either add a wider sashing or simply make your block finish at 12″. Either way, your blocks will get used. I personally promise you that each and every block will find it’s way into a Linus quilt. Every block counts!
If you’ve been around Sewhooked any length of time, or have watched Talk To Me Tuesday, well, ever, then you know that The Linus Connection is a big part of my life. I started donating blankets to Linus way back in November of 2002. The Linus Connection, in turn, distributes those blankets to children in crisis throughout Central Texas.
Right now, more children than ever before are in crisis in Central Texas because Texas has been burning all week. Hundreds and hundreds of families are now homeless. People have died. I have a friend that lost everything. It’s bad, bad business.
So now, I’m going to do what I do best and give you a free pattern.
But this time, I want a little something in return.
for best results when printing, set scaling to “none”
Take this free pattern and make a block, or two, or twelve. Make a quilt top, or a quilt, or an afghan (because yarn is fabulous, too!) and mail it to the address on the pattern. Yes, that’s my address there. Please don’t stalk me, but do send me loads of blocks and blankets for The Linus Connection so we can then take those blankets and get them to the children in our area who need them!
So, you’re not a paper piecer, but you’d still like to contribute? Inspired by WIP Girl, Kristel, known as Clumsy Chord on Talk To Me Tuesday, I will also accept 12″ (12 1/2″ unfinished) Maverick Stars or Wonky Stars (the same technique, different tutorials). To make a 12 1/2″ Maverick or Wonky star, your nine patch units need to be 4 1/2″. 12 1/2″ Wonky Stars with colorful sashing are appreciated!
Want to do your own thing? Be sure to check our the Linus Blanket Specifications first. Here’s a summary: 100% cotton quilting fabric for quilts, washable acrylic yarn for blankets, sizes can range from 30” x 30” up to 54” x 70”. Cotton or low-loft acrylic batting and french fold binding. Here’s the rest!
All blocks sent to me will be pieced into quilt tops, quilted and bound by myself or another Linus volunteer. I will make every effort to share finished quilts here on Sewhooked.
Linus has already started getting calls, and the number of blankets needed is going to be huge. My favorite charity and the children of my home state need your help. Whether you make just one block or many, every little bit counts.
And please, please, please share, tweet, Facebook, tumble and +1 this post. Get it out there, share the pattern with your friends and help us cover Central Texas children in blankets of made with love!
When I was presented with the opportunity to play with fun new software AND give a copy of that software away to one of my readers, all for free, I thought it might be to good to be true.
Was it?
No, indeed!
Not only do I get to give one of you fabulous people free software, I have a coupon for $10 off of cool crafty, and super-reasonably priced software for every Sewhooked reader!
That’s a win-win situation!
My Memories is scrapbooking software. Now, I’ve never been much of a scrapbooker in real life, but I love digital photo manipulation. I’ved used online solutions through stores with photo processing and such to create cards and photo books, and I have to admit, this is way, way cooler. It’s a crazy versatile software that allows you to do all kinds of cool things with your photos.
I have oodles (and oodles!) of digital photographs. Up until about 2005, I kept them in tidy albums, organized by dates. Then this weird thing happened.
I got my first digital camera. ..
At first, I continued to have my photos printed, but eventually, I realized I was taking way too many pictures to do that. So I began archiving them on a multitude of discs, then eventually on an external hard drive. Have I gone back to dig out those discs and look at those photos? Do I regularly visit my million and one photo files?
Sadly, no. I have thousands of photos that are just sitting, collecting virtual dust instead of being easily accessible. So what the heck, why not try a little digital scrapbooking?
Of course, the first thing I did after downloading my spiffy new software was to download all the FREEBIES! Free paper designs, templates, cards, gift tags and, and, and! What? I like free!
Once the freebies were installed, I started playing. Papers and embellishments and text, oh my…
My darling daughter’s Sweet 16 Birthday.
Once I started playing with My Memories, I had a really, really hard time stopping. It’s super easy to use, and after just a little trial and error, I got the hang of where most everything was. There are all kinds of cool embellishments and such built in to the software (note the spiffy pencil and clips in the image below) and the software accesses your font library, so if you have a million and one fonts like I do (DaFont free fonts for the win!), the text options are endless.
My son with all the awards he won at the end of the last school year.
See, I told you I couldn’t stop! I’m an absolute novice here, but I’m super happy with these results. There are SO MANY FUN TOYS!
My ramblings not explaining it? Watch a little video!
Now, the fun part for you! Enter to win a FREE COPY of My Memories right here on Sewhooked! All you have to do to be entered to win is to visit the My Memories website and check out their Album Themes and tell me the name of a theme that you think is really fun or cool or pretty, or crazy, or just plain interesting. Then, leave a comment with the name of the theme so I can check it out, too! (Note: If you read this on your feed or on Facebook, please visit the original post on Sewhooked in order to be eligible to win.)
On Wednesday, September 21, I will choose a random winner and that person will receive a coupon for a free software download! How cool is that?!
Just can’t wait? Get $10 off your purchase of My Memories with coupon code STMMMS23344!
I sincerely apologize for the tardiness today. Let me explain a little.
First of all, Central Texas, where I live, has been struggling to fight wildfires. People are losing their homes. People have died. Our power was down earlier today due to a fire that was just a few miles away.
My family is safe, for the moment, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what we’d need to do to evacuate. It’s almost unfathomable.
I do talk about the fires in my video, just a little. It’s bad here, and scary. Everything is just so very dry. It hasn’t rained in so long, the grass and bushes and trees are burning like torches.
If you would like to help families and their pets affected by fire in Central Texas, visit this page set up by the Austin American-Statesman. Every little thing will help.
Several years ago, I participated in a year-long birthday quilt block swap. At the time, one of my dear friends and fellow designers, Cat Magraith, was collecting chicken-themed blocks. She was also participating in the same swap. I drafted several before deciding which blocks to share with her.
The above pattern, Pecking Chick, never made out of the sketch stage and is being posted for the very first time today! I think he’d be a sweet little chick with a French knot eye and a few seed beads at his feet for pecking!
The first two were made for the swap, and I believe I sent the egg block on to her as well. It’s one block I’m incredibly proud of. Doesn’t it just look like you’re looking in a full nest?
But wait, there’s more! I’m not the only that’s created or adapted chicken patterns. Cat has quite a few of her own, many of which are available right here on Sewhooked for free!
I am super-excited to announce that I will be a participating designer in Quilting Gallery’s Celebrate Christmas Quilt-Along and Super Deals for Quilters. The event features 36 designers, which means 36 unique 12″ blocks for you to make! It starts September 13 and you can look for my design to be posted here on Sewhooked on October 5*. Check out the link above and get ready to quilt along!
*Does this date sound familiar? It should, it’s also the day There and Back Again commences! October 5 is going to be a BIG day for us!
Add your Sewhooked-related photos to my flickr group and you might be featured in a future post!
