All these glorious patchwork strips have been turned into camera straps that are now available in my shop! I'm pretty excited about this group of colorways and even considered holding one back for myself, but I didn't. The fact is, I couldn't choose which one to keep.

If you are so inclined, please take a look. I'll keep the shop open until December 15th or the merchandise is sold out. I'm happy to ship straight to your gift recipient and enclose a gift card if you need one - just let me know in the notes to seller part when you get to paypal. I'll also ship overseas, but cannot guarantee Christmas delivery. Generally, anything shipped overseas by December 5th should get there, but unfortunately the post office won't make a promise, so neither will I.

Time for me to clean up the sewing mess and get this house spiffy for Christmas. Back here soon.

The winner of Little Bits Quilting Bee is #71 Kelly O

The winner of the Northcote Range fabric bundle is #35 Leila

Congratulations to both of you! Please email me with your addresses so the prizes can be sent off to you.

In other news, the House on Hill Road shop will be re-stocked on Tuesday, November 29th with a batch of patchwork camera straps. I will close the shop on December 15th or when the inventory is sold, whichever comes first. I am happy to ship overseas, but I cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas.

I'm signing off for the long weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and your families. To those of you outside the U.S., I hope you have a lovely weekend as well.

The people at Cabbage and Roses, an English fashion and housewares company, asked me if I would want to partner with them to do a giveaway of some fabric from their new quilting line Northcote Range for Moda. The collection is full of vintage florals in a soft palette with some stripes and solids, too. Who doesn't like pretty fabric? Right. I jumped at the chance.

They sent me a yard of this green and cream floral and a fat quarter of a small red print. The colors reminded me of Christmas and with the holidays fast approaching, I thought it might be fun to make a stocking. I've had this idea percolating for awhile now and it was great to see it come together like I had it in my head.

I added the green velvet ribbon from my stash to tie it all together. I'm pretty pleased with the end result and it was a quick, satisying project. I might just have to make a few more!

Now it's your turn...Cabbage and Roses are offering a bundle of fabrics (1 yard of a green floral, 1 yard of a matching green solid & 1 quarter yard of a green stripe) to one of my readers. Tell me what you would do with the fabrics if you win. I'll keep the comments open until Sunday, November 20th at 5:00 p.m. EST. I'll announce the winner next week.

You can learn more about Cabbage and Roses through their website, blog, facebook and twitter.

Enjoy the weekend.

Today I have a rare, most likely one-time treat for you: Fatty's taking over the blog! He's working on a small project that I thought you all might want to hear about. He's been talking about doing this since last year and the time finally arrived. Plus, it's his birthday today! I'm not spilling the beans on how old - let's just say that he's older than me. Ahem. Take it away, Fatty.....

 Growing a mustache isn't really all that hard.  Empirically it seems to be taking a little longer than I thought it would.  It's time consuming.  Maybe I should have been tipped off by the actually terminology of "growing a mustache" as opposed to possibly "wearing a mustache".  I feel more like I've been cultivating a mustache over the last 16 days.  It didn't look like a mustache until the end of the first week.  Days one through seven felt like the chia pet stage.  Things really started to solidify this weekend at a local bike race on day thirteen.  I was not racing myself.  I was watching the pros race here in town in our leg of the USGP of Cyclocross.  I wore my favorite Akubra snowy river hat that looks like a real buckeroo cowboy hat (steamed into its current shape one drunken night 20 years ago by a true friend who happened to be a part time rodeo cowboy).  It is my go to hat on a sunny day when I know I'll be outside all day.  The combination of the hat and my fresh mustache drove home the fact that cowboys have more fun.  I crossed over into real mustache land the next day when I went for a mountain bike ride in the late afternoon and could feel the wind blowing through the mustache.  It was wild and kind of cool.  On the negative side, now I have to think about food and beverage getting trapped on the upper lip.

Well, enough rambling.  I'm halfway through the month of Movember and excited to see what this thing ends up looking like.  Movember is a charitable concept built around getting guys to grow sponsored mustaches in an effort to raise funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer.  The guys (Mo-Bros) and a few ladies (Mo-Sistas) from our beer company have challenged another beer company to see who can raise the most money for the Movember cause.  Erin encouraged me to write a blog post about it for you charitable folks.  If you feel like supporting my efforts by making a donation, please visit my mospace page at http://mobro.co/fatty.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help.  Happy birthday to me.  Hooray beer.

Fatty

fabrics for camera straps...

hat patterns for stashed yarn...

backing and binding options.

And you? What are contemplating today?

13.1 miles.

A huge thank you to Fatty and the girls for supporting me, cheering me on and handing me a banana and taking my jacket at mile 9. Thanks also to Michael for coaching me, listening to my whines and then promptly ignoring them, and making me believe that I really could do this thing. Thank you, Kirby, for running all those miles on Saturdays and Sundays, in the dark and in the sun, telling me funny stories and believing in me. And to my friends who I work out with during the week and that met me along the route, especially Suzanne for running with me when I really needed some distraction. Thanks to Marcia and Kelly for looking for me at the start, waiting for me at the finish line, and commiserating with me about long runs while training. You girls rocked that race! And to all of you, for the phone calls, texts, tweets and emails of encouragement. It was really nice knowing that so many people were out there virtually cheering. Thank you! I couldn't have done it without all the support.

And now I am off to continue celebrating a certain 10 year-old's birthday. The well wishes for her are very appreciated as well.

Cheers!

I'm so excited to be one of today's stops on the blog tour for Little Bits Quilting Bee by Kathreen Ricketson and published by Chronicle Books. As you probably know, Kathreen is the brains behind Whip Up, that fantastic website and resource for those of us that are craft-inclined. She's also the author of Whip Up Mini Quilts, a fantastic book with some of the most amazing little quilts around, and she publishes Action Pack, an e-magazine geared towards crafting with kids. She's a woman with boundless creativity and it was no surprise to me that her new book, Little Bits Quilting Bee, is fresh and informative resource for quilters.

Little Bits Quilting Bee has 20 different quilt projects that use pre-cuts. You know the charm squares, layer cakes, jelly rolls and fat quarters that are always so pretty and tempting at the quilt store? Yes, those! I am always ooh-ing and ah-ing over those little stacks and rolls, but have never really know what I would do with them until now. Kathreen has done an exemplary job of showing just how versatile using they can be. I especially love how she uses solids, together with prints and shining on their own. She also doesn't stick to the simple square and rectangle shapes that pre-cuts come in. There are patterns with curves and appliques, projects that are easy for beginners and some that offer a little more challenge. The book also contains a good resource section with information on quilting basics and about how to start your own quilting bee. I just love the idea of sewing with friends.

Some of my favorites are:

Crimson Cross

Garnets and Gold

Community Garden

Dress Circle

At the moment, having just pieced 176 half-square triangles out of two charm square packs, I'm working on my own version of Prismatic, which in the book uses layer cakes.

Kathreen and the nice folks at Chronicle Books have offered a copy of Little Bits Quilting Bee to one of my readers. To be entered in the giveaway (U.S. addresses only, please), comment on this post before 5:00 p.m. EST, Sunday, November 13th. If you are so inclined, tell me if you have ever used pre-cuts and what you have used them for. I'll pick a winner and announce it on the blog next week.

For other reviews and giveways, take some time to visit the remaining stops on the blog tour:

Friday, November 11 – CraftyPod

Monday, November 14 – Handmade by Alissa & Hello My Name Is Heather

Tuesday, November 15 – West Coast Crafty & Foxy Art Studio

Wednesday, November 16 – Patch Andi & The Last Piece

Thursday, November 17 – In Color Order & Duo Fiberworks

Friday, November 18 – Kristin La Flamme & Camp Follower Bags & Quilts

Monday, November 21 – Quilt Dad

Tuesday, November 22 – Pat Sloan & Pleasant Home

Kate turns 10 this coming Saturday.

Ten years old.

We celebrated this milestone with her friends on Monday. Ten girls, ten hula hoops, yards and yards of duct tape and electrical tape, pleasant 70 degree weather, lots of giggling and screaming, running around and rolling in the grass. I think they had fun. It looked like they were, at least. She wanted a rainbow cake - that was her only request. If you could have seen the look on those girls' faces when I cut the first slice. The awe and surprise was amazing. It made me look like a superhero of a mom when all it really took was some food coloring. What they don't know, won't hurt them.

On Kate's actual birthday, I'm running my first half marathon. I remember the first time I thought that I might just want to run that far. It was New Year's Eve 2001 - Kate was 6 weeks old, Jane was 2. Someone asked me what resolutions I had for the coming year. I said to run the half marathon. I didn't end up doing it - I could barely find the time to sleep, let alone run enough to train. Really, what was I thinking? But for 10 years, more or less, that thought has been in the back of my mind. I trained for a different half marathon three years ago, but didn't end up running it. It wasn't meant to be then and, until recently, I wasn't sure it would ever happen.

At the beginning of the summer, I saw a sign advertising a half marathon in November. I mentioned it to Fatty and friends, all of whom are cyclists or runners or both, and they encouraged me. With the promise of beer, I convinced one in particular to coach me (Thank you, Michael. I couldn't have gotten this far without you). I've been training since August. I have run short distances and many miles. People (you know who you are) have helped me along the way and I am grateful to have them in my life, pushing me, running with me, believing in me, cheering me on.

Saturday. 13.1 miles. I'm nervous and little bit scared. But I'm ready.

It only took me 10 years.