Giveaway Day Winner

I am currently taking advantage of an empty cabin and a hot cup of coffee (and wireless that reaches to the porch swing), but didn't want to miss the deadline to announce the Giveaway Day winner!  

Thank you all so much for the fantastic tips and ideas, I had a blast reading through all of the responses.  They were creative and thoughtful and smart; just what I would expect from a bunch of sewists!

And the winner is...says the random number generator...number 37!  

Sowing Stitches!

"I love the thought of the bullet casing. My imagination is running wild with this one...but from experience I know that they make great whistles...maybe she used it to store her needles."

See?  Creative.  And I never knew you could whistle on a bullet casing!

Thank you again to all who participated!  Happy Saturday!

Happy Giveaway Day!

Welcome!

I know you're probably busy blog hopping, I will be too in a bit, so I'll try not keep you long!

I love vintage notions, and look for sewing bits whenever I'm at an estate sale or thrift store.  They often tell such great stories about their owners.  Once, I bought a sewing box at an auction that belonged to a nurse, she had suture silk, surgical blades, and bandage scissors stashed in there, along with a bullet casing!  Clearly, your imagination must be a large part of the story.  I've found old letters, Girl Scout patches that never got sewn on, promotional needle books from banks, campaign buttons; all sorts of treasure!  I even found template pieces cut from old newspaper that someone had bought from another quilter for $0.25...by mail...almost half the price of a stamp today.

I display what I can in my sewing room, but my collecting has gotten a bit out of hand.

l:  framed needle books above my machine  r:  shelves of tatting and crochet thread, hooks/needles, pins, etc.

And so, today, for my first ever giveaway, I have some vintage notions to offer!

I'll be adding some more buttons and things throughout the week, it's spring cleaning time, here!

Giveaway will close on May 10th, at 5pm PST, and is open to US residents (sorry international friends).
The winner will be chosen by random from the comments section of this post.

To enter, please answer one of the following:

• Your best sewing tip, or favorite sewing notion?  
• Are there any household items that may not be made for sewing, but that you use in your sewing arsenal? 
• The bullet casing...what in the world do you think she was using that for? 

Bonus entry for followers of my blog.  Just tell me what method you used.

Good luck, and thank you for stopping by!

Virtual Quilting Bee, Blocks 4 and 5

A little bit behind on sewing #4, but decided doing both at once was better for my tendency to leave things out longer than I should.

For some reason, I had trouble with #4, my machine (always blame the machine) kept eating the edge of my fabric when attaching the squares on the bias.  Even with a leader.  She never does that.  I'm thinking I may need to change the needle and tune her up a bit.  Anyway, it pulled in places, but overall, lined up at the points well enough to call it done.  The fact that the dots weren't printed on the grain evenly bothers me too.  Oh well.

block #4

Then came block #5, which took probably a third of the time, and turned out just fine.

block #5

Thanks again to all of you talented ladies hosting: