#Win Sew Red: Sewing and Quilting for Women's Heart Health #Review and Giveaway

Every 90 seconds, a woman in the United States has a heart attack. 
Both men and women suffer heart attacks, but they are often more fatal in women.
More than 10,000 American women younger than 45 have a heart attack every year.

Sobering statistics reported in the Heart Healthy Living section of my latest product review and giveaway.  I am honored to have the opportunity to bring you Sew Red: Sewing and Quilting for Women's Heart Health. Sew Red is part of author Laura Zander's  and her Jimmy Beans Wool heart healthy campaign Stitch Red, which hopes to educate the public  and raise awareness  of the startling reality of these statistics.

As a book, Sew Red is a beautiful compellation of 30 red themed sewing and quilting projects, each brought to you by some of the biggest names in the crafting world, including some of my favorites, Anna Griffin, Nancy Zieman, Kaffe Fassett and Ty Pennington.  Each project features a bio of the designer, and his/her tip for a heart healthy life.
The projects represent a good variety of style, time required, and skill level, showcased in its full photo table of contents. Each project includes material requirements, supplies, cutting instructions, and sewing instructions.  Illustrations are plentiful helpful, making instructions easy to follow. Patterns are enclosed in an envelope at the end of the book and are made of good quality paper (not the flimsy tissue paper patterns), making storage and reuse of the patterns possible.  I also love the spiral binding of the book, making it much easier in the sewing room to fold the book flat to a single page. 
As someone who aspires to sew so much more, I really love the rich variety of fabric patterns represented within the single color theme.  I especially love the sweet sixteen skirt, the Sonoma purse, and the Fleur Rouge Quilt.  I hope to bring you photos of my work--probably not until the summer.

Beyond what you would typically expect to find in an average sewing book, you will find a heart healthy living section, which features information, tips, resources and even recipes.  I'm very excited to give the heart healthy macaroni and cheese recipe a try... I'm sure it has to be tons better for me than my current family favorite.

Sew Red retails for 22.95, a portion of the proceeds benefit the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in support of The Heart Truth^®, a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease, sponsored by the NHLBI. The Publisher has generously offered to share a copy of Sew Red with one of Kat's Adventure Book's lucky readers.  To enter, please use the Rafflecopter entry below.

Please note that I received a free copy of Sew Red in exchange of my fair and honest review.  I received no additional compensation.  All opinions are my own.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/c6803a6/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Halloween

This wasn't Jack's first Halloween--but for all intents and purposes it might just as well have been.  Sure we dressed him up last year--but he didn't go trick-or-treating.  It was way too cold and he was way too little.

Nursery: Nearly Done

Oh how I love tacky glue

And now for the latest installment of pictures of crafty goodness used to enhance the former dining room of a one behttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifdroom apartment in our efforts to create an economically chic nursery. This week's topic: Wall Art.
Since we aren't supposed to pain the walls, and I'm not too keen on having to paint them back on the off chance the opportunity to move on presents itself, we've found less permanent ways to decorate.

Exhibit A: trendy fabric modern art display.
I used scraps of material used in other parts of the nursery, stretched over a a series of various sized embroidery hoops. Add thumbtacks on the wall, and voila. If I was ubber crafty, I probably could have covered the hoops with paint or ribbon, but I think they are fine as is. The hoops cost an average of fifty cents to $1.49 and are available at most craft stores (except the Jo-Ann's in town). The do make more colorful plastic ones, but I prefer the wooden ones anyway--not that I embroider or know the difference.

Exhibit B: Johnny's Fishing pond.

Rich's fear when I first explained the "grand plan" for the themed nursery was there would be too much green and not enough blue for a little boy's room. My compromise solution was to create fish for the wall behind the crib. Though I feel we certainly have enough blue, I do like the fish accents.
There are essentially 3 species of fish on these walls. Fish type A were made from cotton fabric. Two fish outlines were cut, sewn right sides together, flipped, stuffed and mounted with thumbtacks for eyes. Since I used scraps, I winged the outlines "on the fly" to best use the amount of scrap I had.
Fish type B were similarly created from felt. Since felt won't fray, I was able to sew right sides out, and provide more detail in the tails/fins. I also used some decorative stitching to create gills. The fabric for these fish was also scrap from another project, so my selection in color/size was limited.
Fish type C make up the majority of the school. They are only fabric on the outside. I started with fish "patterns" from online coloring sheets. I traced the outlines onto card stock (mostly display packaging material from the many shower gifts). I then cut a piece of fabric roughly a bit bigger than the cardboard fish. It needs to be big enough to cover the cardboard fish, but not too much bigger, since bulky fabric makes it difficult to tuck around details like fins. I then glued the fabric to the back of the cardboard, trimming excess as I went. These fish were stuffed with tiny fabric scraps and tissue paper before sealing the final section. The slight stuffing gives the fish a little more dimensionality than they would otherwise have. Rather than using thumbtack eyes, they are mounted to the wall with packaging tape. In the future, I may add ribbon details or button eyes, but for now, they are fish silhouettes that rise off of the wall.

Exhibit C: memo boards.


For these memo boards, I purchased 4 frameless cork boards. Originally, I was going to buy a pack of 4 cork tiles. However, I got a great deal on these frameless boards at Michael's (1.49 each I think) and they are thicker and more sturdy than the tiles appeared to be. I used leftover batting from the glider "reupholstery" project cut just slightly larger than the boards. I covered the batting and board with cute fabric. I would have rather had a staple gun or hot glue gun, but settle for craft glue to hold the fabric in place since it was what I had on hand. I used thumb tacks to hold the fabric snug until the glue dried. I added ribbons to the front, as well as more upholstery tacks at the intersection. Ribbons were secured with tacks and or glue at the back.
The memo boards currently feature cut outs of classic picture book characters. I found the images with google images and used a color printer. In the future, the boards will also feature pictures of Johnny, his family, and important reminders like feeding schedules.

Exhibit D: The pond mirror.
This is by far my favorite nursery addition. I wanted a mirror for the nursery, because every baby I have know (okay, probably older than newborn) has loved making faces at him/herself in the mirror. I liked the idea of tying the mirror into the pond theme, but didn't know how well it would turn out. Rich picked up a very economical mirror from Target for under $5.00. After some debate, we planned on taping the book character cutouts around the frame, and calling it a day. That is, until I decided to experiment.
Armed with my trusty gingher scissors and some solid cotton fabric, I began to cut reeds and cattails. Initially, I planned to sew, flip and slightly stuff the reeds. This seemed to be too much work for the effect I was attempting to accomplish. However, having planned on sewing, I ended up with two of each cattail, which allowed me to create a nice framing effect. I had to careful position the reeds so they weren't too obviously the same.
Now a more thorough crafter probably would have opted for double stick tape. However, since this was such an economical mirror, I didn't feel too bad breaking out the tacky glue and sticking the fabric pieces directly to the mirror and frame. My stroke of true genius came in the form of two green "hills" (aka scraps from cutting the reeds), which cleverly disguise what otherwise would be a messy looking knot at the bottom of the "pond."

Exhibit E: Window treatment
Nothing fancy here--more scraps put to good use. I created a pennant shape from paper then transferred to a more sturdy cardstock. I traced the shape on fabric and cut. The top tab was folded over ribbon, ironed to make the fold more likely to stay, then adhered with tacky glue. Ideally, I would have loved to have cut the edges with pinking sheers--though this project showed exactly how dull my current pair is.

Exhibit F: Burp cloths
Not exactly nursery decor, but fairly practical. I created 1/2 dozen burp cloths as they seem like a practical invention. My creations will hopefully prove both sturdy and absorbent. Side A features a soft but durable cream terry cloth, purchased for 1/2 price from the remnant bin at JoAnns. Side B features and even softer piece of flannel--mostly from scraps from previous projects, like the receiving blankets. They vary in size--due in part to the scrap nature of the flannel, or the remnant shape of the terry cloth--allowing me to get the most from the materials on hand. Ideally, I shot for 16x10, but some are longer/shorter on one or both dimension.

Exhibit G: changing table
Not one of our personal crafts, but still a semi-essential part of the nursery. Sure we didn't "need" one, but I am awful grateful to have received one as a shower gift. Considering the dinning room has no current storage, I like having the changing table to store many of our baby necessities. It's packed to the gills. We could definitely use more storage, but the debate as to how best to meet that need is still open for discussion.

Weekends of Crafty Goodness

What does one do on a rainy holiday weekend? Craft projects for the nursery, of course. The dining room of our one bedroom apartment now comes close to resembling a nursery thanks to some crafty and creative additions.

For Christmas, I finished the "hockey quilt," for Rich. It's a standard Crib size with an Ohio Star pattern. I used flannel for both the front and back, and a cotton batting. A large portion of the quilt is machine quilted (in the ditch. Hopefully the machine quilting will help it hold up better through many washes. The white squares are hand quilted in a "net" diagonal checkerboard pattern and the star centers feature a hand quilted redwings logo outline. I made the pattern for the logo by tracing the shoulder patch from the Winter Classic jersey. The border features blue and red prairie points. This quilt doesn't really go with the nursery theme, but we think Johnny will like it just the same.

Several weeks ago, I created about 4 receiving blankets out of flannel. They are simply 2 1yard cuts sewn right sides together, then turned out and finished. For two of the blankets, I cut the 45" down to 36" so the resulting blanket is square and easier to use for swaddling. Very simple, but Jo Ann's has so many cute flannel patterns and they look very nice. The double layer of flannel should prove to be pretty warm too.

I also created a dust ruffle--yet another layer in my shabby chic decorating. The fabric for the dust ruffle was easy to obtain. We had an old blue and green striped fabric shower curtain we weren't using. The fabric was cut to fit the crib length. Remnant pieces were added at the headboard and foot board to complete the look at no cost to us.



This weekend I created a "crib caddy"-- a fabric creation with pockets designed to hang from a crib and keep necessities handy. We're actually tying it on to the changing table, as that's where we need more storage anyway. Besides, it's a small space, so everything is within arms reach of everything else. I used grosgrain ribbon instead of the prescribed bias tape, which seams fairly sturdy. I followed a simplicity pattern, which made it seem more complicated than it was. Having made it once, a second one should go together easier, but it's not on my priority list.

Since the cost of a new glider was not in the budget, we've decided to recover our old glider. Structurally, there is nothing wrong with the old one, other than the fact that the cushions were old, a little worn and not very comfortable. I wrapped the old cushions in 2 layers of high loft batting and a layer of fleece. For this project, I used a full size pre-packaged batting, which was enough for the cushions, and ottoman, with enough left over for the memory boards. I very quickly tacked the batting/fleece in place with some loose hand stitching. Tacking things down was a good idea; I could tell it would have been a nightmare trying to stuff the cushions into the covers otherwise. I chose to cover the cushions in a blue and white gingham.With the cushions on the fabric, I cut out two pieces with roughly 1 inch extra all the way around. I stitched together three sides, leaving the "bottom" open to insert the cushion. Once the cushion was inside, I hand stitched the opening with some ribbon tabs to tie the cushions to the chair.


So we have this "pond" theme for our nursery, and above Johnny's crib is his own lily pond. We made lily pads from green fabric. I used coloring book images to create a rough pattern and enlarged the pattern to various sizes. Two pieces of fabric were stitched together, turned right side out and filled with a little bit of scrap fabric or fiber fill. To create "veins" I used a variety of machine stitching patterns. Some of the lily pads were sewn to the blue tulle "pond" canopy. The canopy is attached to the ceiling in a random draping fashion using thumbtacks. Rich did most of the ceiling work as I directed from the ground. Next, we added extra lily pads suspended from fishing line, as well as tissue paper "lilies." Sparkling blue butterflies from Hobby Lobby's summer decor finish off the ceiling masterpiece. We were careful to keep the canopy far enough from the ceiling fan, but close enough that when the fan is on, the hanging pieces have some movement.

On the wall behind the crib we painted pre-cut wooden letters. You can find these letters at just about any craft store--ours happen to come from Walmart, where they were marked down. Rich gave the letters two base coats of white. I added green and blue accents and voila, for much less than $16 a letter we have a cute wall decoration.
Under his name, we added a frog. It's actually a kid's summer placemat from Jo Ann's for $1. We may add accent fish to the sides yet.


On the to do list yet... Finish the memo boards, create a window treatment and more wall art. I might make a "pond" mirror--but that's not a priority.

Crafty Goodness

I've been pretty swamped with course work, regular work, job hunting.... I haven't had much time to quilt, but I have had a little weekend time to get some sewing in. Lately I've been making stuffed toys. My first effort was the bunny. I used a simplicity pattern that was easy to follow and some yellow and white striped flannel. The button eyes came from a shirt we were getting rid off. The nose is embroidered, though you can tell that I've never embroidered. The accent ribbons were leftover from the flower girl baskets. I think the next time I make one, I want to use chenille.



I also made this geometric toy. Essentially it's three oval cuts of fabric stitched to form a single piece. Each is turned out, stuffed, and hand stitched close. Four units are stitch together to make a ring. Three rings combine to make the toy. I was glad to have had heavy duty thread on hand--I had used it to repair Rich's hockey gloves earlier in the summer. The stronger thread was harder to work with, but should hold the toy together well.