Winning and sewing

I don’t tend to win too many things and it’s not from lack of trying. My Mum is a born winner but she never passed that gene on to me. Her specialty is radio stations. Now I don’t want to make her out to be some crazy lady who sits by the phone, but while potting around the house she’ll just hear an album she likes being given away, pick up the phone and she’s instantly “caller number 9”!

I remember when I was in Uni and feeling pretty poor the local radio station announced that they were giving away a double jazz CD and I asked her to try and win it for me. Sure enough at lunchtime she rang me to tell me she’d won a CD but accidentally won me the “Lady Sings the Blues”, apparently they were alternating between the CDs each hour. I told her that was cool, I liked the sound of that CD too so I’d go pick it up on the way home. Trust my Mum, she felt so bad for winning me the wrong CD she tried again the next hour and won me the Jazz as well! Love my Mum.

Anyway, on with todays post, I recently won a book off of BurdaStyle, it’s called The Right-Handed Embroiderers Companion by Yvette Stanton and it arrived yesterday in the post, how exciting!

The book arrived direct from Yvette with a cute little matching card a personal note inside from her, how nice?!

Basque Stitch

This book is pretty amazing, it’s basically a complete stitch dictionary with beautiful colour photos and examples along side very clear diagrams of each stitch type. This book is the right-handers version and there is a left-handed version as well but I noticed that inside my book there is also a diagram for each stitch showing the left-handers way to form the stitch (shown in the pink square above). I’ve always been very right-handed and not really studied any left-handers I have encountered (except by trying to hold my pencil the same way at primary school) so I find the comparison really interesting.

Shisha Stitch

In my winning post on the BurdaStyle blog I said, “I would like to one day make a beautiful quilt. But I don’t imagine this quilt to be something traditional, more like a work of art and I would use embroidery to embellish it” and I mean’t it. I hope to make it a long-term project, maybe over 1 or 2 years. I’ve been collecting inspirational images for a while now. One of my favorite “quilt artists” is Leah Evans.

Arpent Bend – Leah Evans

Amazing huh? I know! I also love these “map blankets” and right now I am leaning towards creating something personal to me that draws from these two pieces plus a few others I have collected.

Map Blanket by Haptic Lab

I own another book, The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff, which will also come in handy for this project, maybe I’ll review that book for you at a later date.

The only other sewing thing I have ever won was this vintage pattern from Kusine a little while ago, it’s such a cute suit!

Butterick 6257

Anyway, while we are on the topic of winning things, I also received my first blogger award. The wonderful Magdamagda awarded me “The Versatile Blogger”. I was really excited to receive it as, just like Magda, it is my first award too!

.

There are a few rules that go with accepting these awards, they are:

1. Thank the person who awarded you and link back to them in your post

2. Tell 7 random facts about yourself

3. Pass the award on to 15 new found bloggers

4. Contact each blogger you want to pass the award on to and let them know you’ve done so, and let the giver of your award know you accept it.

The seven random facts is really fun but I think awarding a further 15 blogs is getting a bit spammy so I’ve decided to chose 5 of my current favorites and pass it on to them 🙂

Here are my seven random facts:

1. I’d like to learn how to crochet (I want to make some super cute amigurumis) but I got stuck after making a simple chain! I felt so useless I gave up and sewed a pretty holder for my crochet hooks instead.

When all else fails – back to the sewing machine 🙂

2. I’ve suddenly become really bad at photographing my completed items, I used to be so good, I’d dress up and take a photo as soon as they were complete but now I have about 4 things I haven’t photographed yet!

3. My younger sister loves to sew too, she’s really good at transforming existing items and working without a pattern. When I eventually move home I’m looking forward to a few sewing sessions with her.

4. I turn 30 this year, I feel really old and I am dreading my birthday!

5. I have a terrible knowledge of fabrics! That’s why I’ve started my Fabric Book, it was part of my 2011 New Years Resolutions, I’m building it up one fabric at a time and pretty soon I’ll be a fabric nerd too!

6. I made a really embarrassing newbie mistake on my last project, it’s not enough to stop me from wearing it but I can’t believe I did it…I’ll share it with you when I post the photos…or maybe I’ll make you all guess for a prize 😉

7. I’m hopelessly and permanently addicted to the American versions of Project Runway & So You Think You Can Dance. I watch them while sewing but I know I shouldn’t and it’s possibly why I made the mistake above 😉

Magdamagda beat me to a few of my favourite blogs but I have a lot of favourites so I’d love to pass this award on to a few new onces I recently discovered, thank you for your constant inspiration ladies xx

http://homemadecouture.blogspot.com/

http://theslapdashsewist.blogspot.com/

http://amandasadventuresinsewing.blogspot.com/

http://josiesews.blogspot.com/

http://bubbledust.blogspot.com/