by Sherri Sylvester | Jul 11, 2015
It’s finally here! I am so pleased to introduce Thanks to YOU Week at Thread Riding Hood! Today I am celebrating Thread Riding Hood’s 3 Year Blogiversary. Exactly 3 years ago today I was writing this. Crazy to think how far this blog has come since then – and YOU have been right here with me. Amazing, and so humbling.
I have so many moments when I stop to think about the readers I have never met – the ones following along week after week. Moments of disbelief. Are they really there? Is Google Analytics just messing with me?! Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that “shy Sherri” would be able to share this journey with so many people. Lots that I can now call friends! YOU have made it all possible.
Thank you so much for coming back. Reading more. Commenting. (LOVE the comments the most!) Buying the patterns and downloading tutorials. Sharing your projects. (SHARING is my second favorite thing!) Emailing – really anything – comments, questions, encouraging notes. It all exists Thanks to YOU! (Voila, the title of the week)
And now I get to give back a little with this amazing Giveaway Week that ends in a grand finale with a 15 shop Discount Weekend!
I’ve had the idea for this week in the back of my head for about a year now. And I am so grateful to all of of the fabric shops that have made it possible! (Round of applause for them please?!) I have worked previously with these 11 amazing shops and they graciously provided all of the amazing giveaways. They also all happen to be , and I am so proud of Canadians and our growing sewing presence.
Enough of me being sappy?! Here’s how it works:
- Everyday this week (Monday – Friday) I will be posting 2 or 3 giveaway posts.
- Each post has a new giveaway from one of the (amazing!) shops listed below (You’ll have to come back to see what they are giving away! I know, suspenseful right?!)
- Grab some great sewing tips! Each shop told me their favorite and they’re GOOD, I’m
stealing using them all!
- Enter for your chance to win the giveaway.
- One new person will win each prize and I’ll be posting the names next week.
- COME BACK and grab your discount codes! The 14 shops participating will be revealed at midnight on Friday, 17th. Save up this week and treat yourself on the weekend!
Ready for it?! I will be posting each giveaway here or link to all of the giveaways here.
Come back often so you don’t miss anything! Enjoy!
by Sherri Sylvester | Jun 16, 2015
Hello to you! We are back and rested from our vacation so it’s time for another Canadian Online Fabric Store series interview! I’m so pleased to introduce Rita, owner of online Canadian shop Fabric Please! today. She has a brand new shop with a not-so-new background. You may know Rita better as author of the blog Pin Pricked Fingers.
I had the pleasure of meeting Rita at the Spring Creativ Festival and it was so much fun to chat with her. Today she’s bringing you a discount and a bundle giveaway from her shop. She is based out of Ontario, Canada – and ships worldwide. (The giveaway is open internationally too!)
“I’m married, I have a 13 year old son and we have two of the goofiest Portuguese Water Dogs on the planet! My family keeps me grounded, fulfilled and laughing. I’ve lived long enough to know it’s more important to enjoy your work so you can enjoy your life. In a nut shell, that’s why I started Fabric Please! I started the business in February 2015 and I’m loving every minute of it!” ~ Rita, owner of Fabric Please!
Alright – here are some of my favorites from her shop…. always the hardest and most fun part of these interviews. I get to drool over the whole shop (figuratively of course!) trying to choose which fabrics to feature.
Thread Riding Hood: Why did you decide to start Fabric Please!?
Rita: I’ve been in the alternative health field (registered massage therapist) for 25 years and I’ve been looking for another career that is a bit gentler on my body. I’ve been a sewist most of my life and have had a love affair with fabric since I can remember. It just seemed like a natural fit.
Thread Riding Hood: What is your favorite type of sewing project? Quilting, Apparel… ?
Rita: I prefer quilting and home decor projects. I like the (almost) instant gratification from transforming a space with fabric. I dabble in apparel but it’s not my forte.
Thread Riding Hood: What is something coming up in the near future that you are especially excited about?
Rita: I’m just so excited about all of it! It’s such a new business, I’m still in the honeymoon faze of it all! If I had to narrow it down, I’m especially looking forward to the Fall Creativ Festival. I love the interaction with my customers. I love working with them to choose the perfect fabric for that special project they are working on or having them find something that sparks a new project idea.
Thread Riding Hood: Thanks Rita!
One lucky reader will win the 9 fat quarter bundle pictured above! This giveaway is is extra fun for me, because I got to choose the bundle Rita is giving away! She offered to let me choose a blogger bundle from her shop just after she opened and we decided to pair it with this interview and giveaway. If you can’t wait to see if you won the bundle, you can also buy them in her shop!
I’m going to use my bundle to make a quilt-as-you go pillow or two. Something like this Maureen Cracknell Diamond Strings quilt I recently saw. I think these colours will be perfect for it! I can even use the yellow and green in the centre to create the middle diamond shape. (edited: I made the pillow!)
This giveaway is open to everyone, from today (June 16th) until midnight June 23, 2015. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter – and if you don’t have Facebook to sign in with, just use your name and email address. There’s a “click to enter”, no social media login entry too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
We are super lucky because Rita has decided to also offer a discount along with her interview. Use the discount code “THREAD15” to save 15% on your order at Fabric Please! until July 1, 2015!
I couldn’t resist choosing a few more of my favorites. Have fun stashing! (P.S. All Fabric Please! shipping costs are flat rate – Canada $8, US $15, International $30!)
Thanks for reading. Don’t miss a post – Follow along below!
Disclosure and Privacy Policy: I asked Fabric Please! to be a part of this series. I will never recommend or highlight a shop that I do not love, and my opinions will and have always been my own. Thanks for reading!
by Sherri Sylvester | Jun 2, 2015
June is a good month! We are leaving to go on vacation tomorrow, school will be out at the end of the month – and it’s my month to pick the bundle for my sponsor Fabric Spark’s fabric subscription program!
This subscription features a bundle of 12 fat quarters from Maureen Cracknell, Very Shannon, Fresh Lemons, Blue Elephant Stitches, Modern Sewciety + The Tattooed Quilter, and me! It was finally my month pick a bundle, and so mid-May I visited Daryl from Fabric Spark and spend a couple of hours choosing my bundle. Not an easy task with such an amazing collection! In the end this fun bundle (loaded with my favorites and lots of Cotton + Steel!) was born and I decided to make a quilt with the bundle she gave me.
If you follow the blog you know I’m not a quilter – but I was determined to make something with all of these fat quarters in it. Because I put them together, so they must remain together! I sorted them by colour (there are 3 of each) and started with a “Trip around the World” in mind. Here’s where I went wrong….
- The groups of colours were not all the same value – ie. 2 dark navy and 1 lighter – they didn’t produce the nice even diamond shape I was aiming for.
- The bicycle fabric ended up all on one side because I made another newbie mistake – I wanted all of the fabrics “right side up”. This meant I needed to make each block with the diagonal lines going in the correct direction, and I couldn’t change them later based on how everything looked.
- The backing is going to be a (most gorgeous ever) border print, but the quilt is a bit larger – so I need to add to it. And since the quilting was going to be in straight lines, I have no idea how to pull off making the quilt top and backing line up so the lines are not crooked on the back.
- I have a navy backing and multi colourful front fabrics – which colour do I quilt in without ruining one or the other by having the thread show up “too much”?
Thankfully my friend Lisa (from Lisa in Port Hope) was over for our Sewcial and gave me a few tips that I think will help.
- Unless a quilt is hanging for a show, you don’t have to have everything to be right side up. You can lie under it whichever way you’d like, so aim for the fabrics to be right-side-up from the centre out.
- If I had not made everything right-side-up I could have moved the blocks around so the fabrics were spread out more evenly.
- Quilt on the diagonal to avoid having straight lines that are not parallel to any lines on the back.
I am not certain that I have solved the quilting thread colour issue. It was suggested that I use gray, but I don’t know that I want it to show up that much? Any suggestions?
Don’t get me wrong – I am not in any way sad or disillusioned about the quilt. I really LOVE the fabrics. It’s the picky details that are bugging me and I could have made it so much simpler by following the second list of “rules” above! (“Wasting” time gets on my nerves!)
I’m taking my machine and quilt(s) with me on vacation, hoping for a bit of down time during our 10 days off. If all goes well I’ll sort everything out and come back with a finished quilt! That would be fun!
Disclaimer: Fabric Spark is a sponsor of this blog. I was given this fat quarter bundle in return for this blog post. As always, my opinion is my own – thanks for reading!
by Sherri Sylvester | May 25, 2015
Happy Monday to you. Why don’t we start this week off with a giveaway. Sound good?!
Today, I am happy to introduce you to Seam Allowance, a Canadian Online Fabric Store – and the 14th post in our Canadian Online Fabric Store series. I recently found out about this new Canadian Etsy shop. Seam Allowance has curated such a lovely selection of fabrics that I emailed right away to ask if I could feature them here! #shopCanadian
Nikki opened shop last September, and by the looks of things she’s got exactly the same taste in fabric as I do – lots of Cotton + Steel, Art Gallery & knits. So good!
I love their tagline. “sew happiness” sounds right to me! Before we get too far, here are my favorites from her shop:
Here’s a little bit more about Seam Allowance:
“I’m a wife and a mother to four young children, and a maternity nurse on the side. I really started sewing when I was pregnant with my third son. I discovered sewing blogs for the first time, and was suddenly inundated with ideas and inspiration! Sewing seems to bring a little bit of sanity and a sense of accomplishment to my sometimes harried life, and I love it for that.” ~ Nikki, owner
Seam Allowance currently ships within Canada and the US. Canadian orders over $125 ship free and all other Canadian orders ship for their $8 flat rate. US orders have a $15 flat rate shipping fee.
Thread Riding Hood: Why did you decide to start Seam Allowance?
Nikki: I started Seam Allowance after being constantly frustrated by the selection at my local fabric shops. I usually ended up purchasing fabric online, but could only find American shops that carried what I like. The shipping, exchange, and duty were getting to be too much for me, so I took things into my own hands, and Seam Allowance was born!
Thread Riding Hood: What is your favorite type of sewing project? Quilting, Apparel… ?
Nikki: I love all kinds of sewing, EXCEPT alterations or mending. I usually end up sewing clothing for my kids or my nieces, although I recently sewed myself a shirt for the first time ever, and I love it! I’ve made a couple of quilts for my family, and although I consider myself a total amateur, I really really love making them.
Thread Riding Hood: What is something coming up in the near future that you are especially excited about?
Nikki: I’m really excited to be expanding the fabric selection I have in shop. My shop is new, and I started small, but now I’m able to bring in some more from my long-time favorite designers, and I’m super excited. I’m also VERY excited about getting my first-ever serger, and learning how to use it.
Thread Riding Hood: Thanks Nikki!
Today, you can enter for your chance to win a $30 shop credit from Seam Allowance!
This giveaway is open to Canadian and US readers, from today (May 25th) until midnight June 1, 2015. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter – and if you don’t have Facebook to sign in with, just use your name and email address. There’s a “click to enter”, no social media login entry too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for reading. Don’t miss a post – Follow along!
Disclosure and Privacy Policy: I asked Seam Allowance to be a part of this series. I will never recommend or highlight a shop that I do not love, and my opinions will and have always been my own. Thanks for reading! Photo credits: Seam Allowance Fabrics
by Sherri Sylvester | May 1, 2015
I got to meet so many amazing people at this year’s Creativ Festival. I was so much more involved this year – and I met a ton of new creative people and shops! Instead of featuring each shop individually like I have in the past, I’ve assembled photos from quite a few and linked them to their shop. So, if you are looking for something you can find it! (If there isn’t a corresponding website, I’ve captioned the photo with the shop name.)
The spring Creativ Festival is definitely smaller than the Fall show. There are less booths in a smaller overall space – however, I think that the modern fabric presence was only slightly less than the last Fall show. Many traditional shops are buying more modern fabrics, so there is generally something I want to pick up from each shop. Dangerous, yes?!
I think my focus and view on fabric has changed as well – slowly over time – to involve more types of fabrics and more lines. Not so much “all modern, all the time” and now more “use the fabric that’s right for the job”. Apparel fabric for apparel, quilting cotton for quilting (and kids clothes!).
In the vein of trying not to be “all modern, all the time”, I was so happy to find a lovely use of batik fabric that surprised me! The amazing quilt pattern (above, ) from Border Creek Station Pattern Company, incorporates a lot of white for a modern look and the colour is added with batiks. It gives it a lovely watery look that I really love – softer than the solids against white.
I also found an online Canadian source for shot cotton that I’ll be taking full advantage of. I’ve got lots of apparel projects lined up in the next few months and it’s a lovely summery option to work with. I’ve got Flare Fabrics to thank for that! You should see all the colours she stocks!
It was interesting to see a change in the way each booth decided to show their products. Many sellers are not bringing all of their bolts. Instead they are replacing them with 2 yard cuts and some bolts, and lots of fat quarters and 1/2 metre cuts. Even some super cute scrappy bundles. The jars from Country Clothesline below were so cute!
One of the things I really love is to see all of the projects shop owners have created. I got a chance to work on a few projects this year, and it was fun to see a lot of others too. The feather quilt below that Daryl from Fabric Spark made from Echino fabrics is AMAZING! So, so gorgeous, and my favorite piece at the show. The added texture in the Echino lends so much more depth to the colours.
Seems quite a few of the online shops are now also stocking Aurifil as well. I was happy to find that and some knits at the show! Lovely Monaluna knits from Fabric Please. They feel amazing and my youngest has claimed the yard I bought for herself. I think I’ll have some left over, to use for a yoke on something for me. I hope!
Hopefully this post didn’t sound too sales-driven. It’s tricky writing a review without sounding like a sales person, especially when you are writing about lots of shops! I talked to a few new stores as well and am hoping to be able to team up with lots of them to bring you more Canadian online shop interviews and giveaways – yippee! Maybe we’ll see you at the Fall show?
Ruby Pearl Quilts
by Sherri Sylvester | Apr 25, 2015
I’m super excited to be part of the Spring Bloom Blog Hop today! When Amanda from Bella Caronia sent me a photo of her fabrics early last month to see if I’d like to be one of the #springbloommakers it took me all of 30 seconds to reply back – “Yes, please!” Spring Bloom is Amanda’s first collection with Windham Fabrics and I am honored that she has let me play with it! (P.S. Scroll down for the giveaway so you can play with it too! Thanks Windham!)
This Bella Caronia collection seemed to me like I should create a project where several prints were mixed. A quilt would have been great, but since it’s not my strong suit I went with dresses. Dresses with lots of bright pretty colours and mix-matchy prints all in one place – just like a garden!
I decided to make the Ruffled Plaid Madness dress I drafted a few years back – only not in plaid this time. I’ve always wanted to make this dress again and I’m so pleased with how they show off Amanda’s collection! Thankfully our semi-rainy day photoshoot turned out ok too. Just like in spring, flowers bloom with the rainy weather – and apparently flowery fabric too!
Windham Fabrics kindly offered to send me whatever yardage I’d need for this project, but when I sat down to choose I got a bit stuck – so many options! So I let the girls choose their favorites (which happen to be in their favorite colours) and I think they did a great job. It also ensures that they extra-love the finished product. Though, thinking back, I don’t think I’d have a hard time selling layers of ruffles, puffed sleeves and a super-twirly skirt to these girls!
Making this dress turned out to be an exercise in “not forgetting something” that involved this crazy chart and lots of highlighting. With so many ruffles, each skirt front requires 4 or 5 tiers, each one with a ruffle and an under layer to hold it all together. That means lots of pieces, and LOTS of tiny 1/8″ rolled hems. I have never been more grateful that my Janome came with a rolled hem foot. And now I really, really know how to use it. Practice = Perfect – or at least very close!
Since I am a glutton for punishment I made my design based on looks, not “ease of creation“! These dresses curve down to the centre on the back bodice and up on the front bodice I remember going a bit cray-cray drafting the front ruffle the first time. Thankfully everything was already drafted so I could stitch the eight curves per dress so much faster this time around!
These dresses needed to be fully lined, so I also got to work with the new-to-me collection from Marsha Derse called Palette. I love her previous fabrics and the “not-so-solid” batik-like look of these fabrics really soften the colours.
Can I just say that I am super proud and a bit ecstatic over the invisible zipper fabric matching! When I cut matching fabric for the backs of the dresses I was super nervous I couldn’t match it properly – especially with the zipper right in the middle of the back seam! I felt a tad like MacGyver and with some “fabric, a glue stick and an iron” I managed to match it so amazingly well. It’s even a really simple process – really. I know you probably don’t believe me, so I’ll be writing a tutorial about it for sure! (Hint: It’s all in the glue stick!) *edit: I wrote a tutorial that is now available here.
A huge shout-out and congratulations to Bella Caronia on their first collection! And thanks so much to Amanda and Windham for including me on this hop. I’m sew lucky! (pun intended!) There’s still a week of amazing projects in this blog hop! Check out the schedule below:
April 20 Windham Fabrics Snip-its, Bella Caronia Blog ~ April 21 Leah and Bea Koch – Wintergreen and the Bee ~ April 22 Nell Timmer – Nell’s Notions ~ April 23 Jessica Darling ~ April 24 Kristy Daum – St. Louis Folk Victorian ~ April 25 Sherri Sylvester – Thread Riding Hood ~ April 26 Cindy Wiens – Live a Colorful Life ~ April 27 Krista Hennebury – Poppyprint ~ April 28 Felicity Ronaghan – Felicity Quilts ~ April 29 Casey York – The Studiolo ~ April 30 Janice Ryan – Better Off Thread ~ May 1 Deborah Moebes – Whipstitch ~ May 2 Bella Caronia Blog That’s a Wrap
Windham Fabrics is generously giving away the above amazing fat quarter bundle of Bella Caronia’s Spring Bloom Collection! This giveaway will run from April 25 – May 1, 2015. Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter – and if you don’t have Facebook to sign in with, just use your name and email address. There’s a “click to enter” no social media login entry too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer: Windham Fabrics sent me this fabric free of charge in exchange for this blog post. I always give you my own, uninfluenced opinion, and would not accept a project I didn’t love! Thanks for reading.
