Labor Day Sew-In (Let the Sewing Begin!) #LDSI

It's finally here! Yes, the weekend you've all been waiting for...

The Labor Day Sew-In!

There's actually a couple of opportunities to get together and have a great time while getting stuff done.. 

Be sure to check out Lazy Daisy Quilts and Daisy's #LDSI giveaway. (She's always a source of fun!) 

And I've been hearing rumors of others--if I get word of a new one, I'll update this blog post with a link. 

Meanwhile, here's mine. 

Now that I'm creating all this wonderful hand-dyed fabric, I need to make space on my shelves. So I'm giving away some of my wonderful, beautiful commercial fabric to someone who may actually be able to put it to good use!

LDSI Giveaway

Four yards.

Count 'em. Four yards. 

One yard each of gorgeous, coordinated 100% quilter's cotton fabrics. 

The three purples are from the Florentine line of P&B Textiles. One is a border print.

The yellow fabric is one I had in my stash that coordinates beautifully although not from the same line (it's labeled "Chanteclair" on the selvedge with no further information.)  I inherited all of these from my mother's stash. They've survived several stash purges of mine but given I still have yet to use them, I decided to let them fly/be free and hopefully show up (in a picture!) soon in someone else's completed project.

(Fair warning: I believe I washed all of these after inheriting them. I live in a smoke-free environment but do have two dogs.) 

To enter in this drawing, please use the Rafflecopter widget embedded below and leave a comment there letting everyone know what quilty project you're currently working on--whether you're able to participate in #LDSI or not.

Make sure your email address is visible to me! I need to have an email address to contact the winner. In the past, I've had to skip a potential winner because they hadn't left an email address for me to be in touch! Double-check your settings to make sure your email address appears in your profile, or just leave it in the comment itself.

(Another fair warning: This is the first time I'm using Rafflecopter because I know some people have difficulty on occasion leaving comments on my blog, so I'm trying this way instead. I'll be watching it carefully through the weekend. If it doesn't seem to work well, I'll go back to the old-school "leave a comment on the blog" thing.)

This giveaway will end at midnight (Eastern time) on Monday, September 2, 2013.

I'll announce the winner on Tuesday. Remember to make sure I can see your email address! And check your email on Tuesday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Labor Day Sew-In, Anyone? #LDSI

It's become a Twitter tradition to have sew-ins around major holidays. I was just recently asked if we were going to do one this weekend. See, for those of my readers who aren't U.S.-based, this coming Monday is Labor Day and a lot of folks have the day off. Picnics and barbecues generally ensue.

I don't exactly know what my weekend will entail yet, but it seems like it's shaping up to be pretty low-key, so sure. Let's do a sew-in!  We'll start it Friday morning because, gee, that's when I happen to start my long weekend. It'll run through Monday night. Roughly. All depends on time zones and international date lines and all that.

If you're on Twitter, use the hashtag #LDSI as you tweet about what you plan to do, what you are doing, and what you've *actually* managed to get done. Some of us have been known to post pics of other goings-on in the house while we're sewing, and some of us have been known to post pictures of our shoes. And our toenails. And such. 

If you're not on Twitter, feel free to still play along! I think, just for kicks n' giggles, I'll do a giveaway on this blog in honor of #LDSI. It'll probably be fabric from my stash. (Having just moved it from sewing room to bedroom and back to make room for the electricians to do their thing, I'm thinking it might be time to downsize a little of it.) So get ready...

Happy Labor Day Sew-In! 

Project Hope Online Quilt Show (Remix)

Due to some things I'm working on with the email version of this blog, the post announcing the Project Hope Online Quilt Show was not able to be sent out via email. Therefore, I'm posting this link to the original post so that those of you who get this post via email will know what's going on! (And how many more times can I use the word "post" in one sentence?)

http://quiltingfortherestofus.com/blog/launching-an-online-quilt-show-project-hope/4/22/2013​

Coming up (as soon as I've gotten just a little more sleep): A report on my adventures in AQS QuiltWeek in Paducah, including fabric, classes, and a conversation with a very nice local police officer. I'll cover som​​e in the blog, some in the podcast. Stay tuned.

Launching an Online Quilt Show: Project Hope

It's been a very, very hard week. My heart bled for everyone involved as I watched the news about Boston; about West, Texas; about ​the devastating earthquake in China...and continuing into this week with avalanches and shootings in Seattle.

It's all too much, sometimes. We can stop watching TV, we can stop listening to the news, and yet events don't stop. We are still a part of this world community in which something that affects someone else's life in such a deep and tragic way cannot help but have an impact on our own life.

There are a variety of ways to respond. I choose hope. I choose to do what I can to bring peace to my little corner of the world and, maybe, if I get the opportunity, to bring peace to a larger corner of the world.

As a quilter, my healing often comes through fabric and thread. While listening to the news late last week, I recalled reading Sandi Colwell's blog post on thankfulness. I shot her a direct message on Twitter: Can we do something quilty in response to this? As I suspected she would be, she was all over it! And so, the Project Hope Online Quilt Show was born. ​

Express your hope. Express your joy and unity and bridge-building and where you can be peace. Join us for the Project Hope Online Quilt Show. (Thanks to Sandi for putting the rest into words so well--I've borrowed this directly from her blog post on the topic.)

Project Hope Online Quilt Show

In keeping with theme of hope, love and peace, create a 12″ x 12″ art quilt that conveys your thoughts and emotions.

The design rules are simple…there are none. Use whatever creative means on this piece of art that you want to…stamps, paint, couching, transfers, crayons, thread, beads, simple piecing, applique, you name it, you can do it!

We ask that you include an artist statement in your Flickr description about your piece and how you felt while you were creating it.

Upload through June 30th, 2013, to the group on Flickr titled Project Hope Online Quilt Show.

If you are feeling moved to take more action while creating this art quilt, we ask that you make a donation of time or money to an organization of your choice that exemplifies the theme of hope, love and peace. One such organization could be The One Fund. This fund is currently collecting money to go to the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. Use the link to find out how to donate and for more information.

​So join us, won't you? Join the Sandi/ys in celebrating hope!

An update on leaving comments

For those of you who have tried to leave comments on my blog before, it's now been fixed so you're able to leave a comment without having to sign into SquareSpace, Facebook, Twitter, or Google. If you choose not to use one of those accounts, you can leave a comment as "Guest." You will have a short form to fill out--that's just to cut down on spam and bots, you're not signing up for any accounts or anything.​

​I appreciate your patience with new blog set-up issues: Some things are very difficult to test before it goes live!

I hope to get a podcast episode out in the next day or two--I've been spending all my usual podcasting and quilting time on this site lately but we're getting there...​

Are you reading this through Google Reader?

Google just announced it's plans to shut down Google Reader in July. I'm not panicking. That's plenty of time and, given the backlash, they may have been surprised by the number of people actually using Reader and may extend it. Still, it's a good time to explore how you follow blogs and perhaps make some changes.

Just don't change that you're reading this blog. :-)

I've been doing some research for my own use, so I thought I'd pass along some links to articles for you for now--these may help you check out some alternatives. Everyone has different needs and likes/dislikes so what works beautifully for someone else may not work for you. For example, when I first got my iPad, a friend told me I should use FlipBook because she just adored it, best thing since sliced bread, etc. I didn't like it at all. That doesn't mean she's wrong, just means we have different needs and tastes. So, test them out, play around a bit, see which one you like best.

http://lifehacker.com/5990456/google-reader-is-getting-shut-down-here-are-the-best-alternatives

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternatives/1986865/

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57574201-233/google-reader-is-dying-but-we-have-five-worthy-alternatives/

http://marketingland.com/12-google-reader-alternatives-36158

(These are just a few articles--more will likely be coming out every day.)

These are simply the articles I've come across today--more will be written in the future so keep checking the web. It does seem like Feedly is coming out strong in terms of top recommendation, but as I'm writing this on vacation I can't test anything out until I'm home this weekend. By the way, as Google continues to tighten it's offerings-belt, I had already started the process of moving this blog from Blogger to Wordpress. Blogger has begun to annoy me, for one, but I'm seeing the writing on the wall. I'll give y'all fair warning when it happens so we can make sure we don't lose any of you! Meanwhile, have fun looking at your other Reader possibilities. Find what works for you.

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