SWAP!!!

I like to think of myself as an ambassador of craftiness to the outside world. And I recently discovered that many in the outside world don't know about swaps. In the internet crafty blog world, Swaps are ALL the rage, and it just so happens that I'm participating in one right now.....SO I've taken it upon myself to enlighten the uninitiated about the world of swaps. 

Swaps are like Christmas and pen pals all rolled into one fun event that can happen any time of the year! Here's how they work:

• One benevolent blogger coordinates the whole shebang out of the kindness of her heart and maybe the desire to make new friends and let more people know about her awesome blog.
• The swap coordinator outlines the details of her particular swap on her blog and invites people to sign up. Each swap has its own guidelines and personality. Sometimes people swap fabric that meets a certain criteria or theme, fabric scraps they have in their stash, quilt blocks that follow a particular pattern or style, or finished craft projects like tote bags or potholders.
• Once you have signed up to participate in the swap, the coordinator typically matches you up with a partner - sometimes based on similar personal styles and sometimes randomly. In fabric swaps the coordinator usually receives all the fabric and then parcels it up and sends it back out to each participant so that you (and everyone else) ends up with a fun new variety of fabrics. In project swaps, you usually create for one person while a different person creates for you.
• You mail out your fabric or project by the deadline and patiently (or not so) await your goods to arrive in the mailbox. Then, one day, the mail carrier smiles upon you and brings you a surprise! When its all said and done you end up with fresh new crafty goodness, a few new cyber friends, and maybe some new blog readers. A good deal all around!

I am participating in the Secret Santa swap coordinated by Kara from Me and Elna. Its her first swap ever and there are about 20 people from all around the WORLD participating! Participants have been tasked to make a special crafty gift for their partner to lead up to the holiday season when many of us make for others but don't often receive handmade gifts ourselves. I am soooo excited to be involved and I can't wait to get my present! I'm also having fun making the gift for my partner - I think we'll be pals after this. But unfortunately I can't post ANY pics yet, since its a surprise! But I'll post allllll about it in less than a month after my partner has received what I hope she thinks is a fun gift!

Drunken Library Quilt

We've made a lot of quilts here at Hitched & Stitched, but until recently we had never made one for ourselves. I decided to remedy that oversight and came up with my Drunken Library quilt - so named because I think it resembles haphazard stacks of books. I originally imagined that it would be folded in thirds and draped across the foot of our bed. But anyone who has known me for long knows that I'm not what you would call a detail person and sometimes petty little things like measuring are just too much of a bother when in the midst of a creative whirlwind. I just kept adding blocks to the quilt until it "looked done" to me (and until I ran out of fabric). It turned out to be exactly the width of our bed and not an inch more - which sounds impressive but looks silly, since there was no overhang on the sides. So the quilt now resides folded and draped over the back of the lounge chair that sits in front of our bedroom window. All in all, I am quite pleased with the end product and glad to have our own quilt in our house for the first time!

To Infinity (Scarf)! And Beyond!

Question: What do you wear to an autumn bridal shower when you feel like all of your clothes are so boring you can't possibly be seen in them (because, of course, everyone will be focused on your outfit - not on, you know, the BRIDE) or suspiciously smaller and tighter than you remember them being?

Answer: SCARF! Actually, I'm beginning to think that a scarf is the answer to most questions in life. They can really solve a lot of problems.

So that is how I found myself looking through my fabric stash and embarking on a scarf sewing project at 9:30 pm on Friday. I've made a couple simple fabric scarves before - just two loooooong rectangles of fabric sewn right side together and turned right side out. But this time I wanted something a little more fancy.

I found the perfect fabric I'd been just waiting to find the perfect project for and a great tutorial on Kill Them With Craftiness and within about an hour, I had this:

The only thing I'd change is the width - its 12 inches wide and I feel like that's a LOT of fabric - for my neck anyway. I'm thinking 8 inches next time. But otherwise - I love it and I'd totally recommend changing your life with a new scarf - an infinity scarf!

The Great Craft Room Organization Project of 2012

Kara, from Me and Elna (formerly of My Other Car is a Crane) and also the Director of Marketing and Sparkles for Hitched and Stitched, has some peculiar hobbies: collecting more dishware than she can possibly use, dancing to Motown songs in the middle of crowded shopping centers, and texting me pictures of the insides of bathroom stalls. But for me, the most baffling of all her hobbies is organization. Its like a drug to her and she has reached the stage in her addiction where she seeks out new and possibly dangerous sources to feed her habit. Call me an enabler, but I just couldn't resist her requests to let her come over and organize my craft room. I think it was her pleading, puppy dog eyes that got me in the end. So we found ourselves at my house taking everything out of the closet and other hiding places to be categorized and tamed. Before I knew it my craft room looked like this:

I don't have a proper "before" photo, so this will have to do - although it wasn't quite this messy before we started pulling everything out of the closet...

At this stage - with everything pulled out and barely a path to walk, I was curled up in the closet, rocking myself and desperately trying to find my happy place. Kara, on the other hand, was high off the organizational fumes in the air. She was literally giddy - speaking in an old woman British accent and trying on storage boxes as hats.

I kept waiting for her to wake up from her stupor and realize that cleaning someone else's house sucks even more than cleaning your own house - and to leave me with my room turned inside out. And then it would be my problem again and she would be free. I expected this because its exactly what I yearned to do. But the longer the project went, the giddier Kara got, and eventually all the work paid off. Here's the proof!

Every cubby has been reorganized and reimagined - Kara even refolded all of my fabric into neat piles.

I've had these embroidery hoops displayed with fabric for years now but it was time for a fabric update!

A view from the command center.

Kara insisted we rainbow order the thread and tidy up the ends, which used to be a tangled spaghetti-like mess. She was right!

Apparently, my bulletin board was laid-out all wrong, so Kara rearranged it while I worked on the embroidery hoop change-out.

The ironing center. Kara reeeeeealy wanted me to collapse the iron and store it in a closet but I was unmoved. We are a family who uses the iron a lot (so maybe I've been known to iron my pajamas from time to time), plus - you have to use the iron a lot when you are a sewer. I stand by my decision - it makes perfect sense to keep an ironing board in a craft room!

I am IN LOVE with my new and improved craft room and I cannot thank Kara enough for her motivation and help with this project. I can confidently say it would NOT have happened without her! I still have a couple of things to do (the white stacks are framed photos that used to hang on the walls and need to be repositioned) but I already feel so much more like spending time in here than I did before. There's no telling what amazing new crafts might be born in here!

Triumphant Return After a Long Hiatus

I cannot believe we haven't blogged since APRIL 30. I feel ashamed and repentant. BUT not toooo repentant to offer a long list of excuses for why we were toooooo busy, as follows:

We became Charity Race Enthusiasts and walked in three: including the River Run, the Flying Pig, and the Hyde Park Blast. Maybe someday I'll run! Maybe....

 I helped run Girl Scout Camp!

I got a hair cut!

We went to Jamaica to celebrate the anniversary of our being hitched!

And I worked on a quilt for me! (Finished photos coming soon!)

Some pretty good excuses if I do say so myself! But now we're BACK! And we have lots of fun stuff coming up this fall, including new hats, a craft room makeover, a quilt tutorial, craft swaps, and the next steps in our parenthood quest. Its good to be back. :)