I just heard that The Elven Garden is having a fun Pop Garden giveaway this week. Enter to win this stack of popular, out-of-print fabrics from my Pop Garden collection over on her blog at TheElvenGarden.blogspot.com by Saturday, December 14th at 2pm (Australian DST) for a chance to win.
As I hinted last week, I'll be heading to Utah in three weeks to give the keynote address at The Sewing Summit 2013. The announcement was made yesterday on The Sewing Summit blog and throughout their social media outlets. Click on the image below to read the full article.
is The Sewing Summit? As they put it, "We’re a cross between a
traditional sewing retreat and a social
media and blogging conference… With hands-on workshops, networking
events, inspiring speakers,
informative lecture sessions and enough down-time to connect with
friends new and old—Sewing Summit is the only event of its kind. Join us
for a weekend of skill-building, networking, laughing and
reconnecting!"
I'm excited to meet everyone and share. The event has been sold out for a while. However! They have added a handful of spaces this week. If you are interested in attending, jump on it. Just have a look at these great classes and teachers.
I hear the sewing labs will be open till 2am or so. You can sew in your
pjs with friends. Doesn't that sound dreamy? Of course, I'm a serious
night owl.
So then, whether you're attending or not, what would you like to hear
from me at an event like this? The conference covers such diverse
topics: fashion, quilting, blogging, photography, business and more. I want to do a bang-up job for you all.
We are onto Day 4. Hello Sunday. I'm posting a little bit late today.
Perhaps that will increase your chance of winning? Sorry about that. I
had church.
Today's HELLO Giveaway prize is a DOZEN 9"x12" sheets of Heather Bailey designer wool-blend felt ($27 value). Winner picks the colors. Our wool-blend felt is far
superior to polyester felt in appearance, texture, durability — and
style. Great for hair accessories, pincushions, brooches, dolls and more. Several of our top sewing patterns
use felt for embellishments, including Henrietta Turtle, Effie &
Ollie Elephant, New Leaf Folding Totes, and Fresh Picked Pincushions to
name a few.
Comment to enter today's contest. Be sure to include your email address
so we can contact you if you win. Today's giveaway closes at 11:59pm PST 8/4/13.
Watch for the winner to be announced within a day or two at the bottom
of the post. For more info on my August giveaway madness, click here.
We have some seriously amazing prizes planned, including tools,
equipment, jewelry, toys, Project Life, stationery, fabric from my next
collection (which I'll introduce this month)—exciting stuff. Please
share the word.
If you're watching
for updates, I'll post the winners from Day 1 through Day 3 this afternoon.
Good luck, everyone. Thank you again for your love and support.
xo—Heather
I was chatting at my baby earlier this week, conspiring with him to
start a Birthday Month tradition for August—as we are the only two
August birthdays in my immediate family. With enough fuss, we'll surely
make the Mays and Januaries jealous. Midst our little tete-a-tete it
dawned on me that I neglected to host my annual birthday giveaway last
year. Boo.
I will now make up for that. Right. About. Now. In the spirit of Birthday Month, how about a GIVEAWAY EVERY DAY for the month of August!? I'm talking about fabric, patterns, jewelry, equipment, supplies, etc.
am SO very grateful to each of you for your love and kindness—and for
your support of my business and consequently my little family. I am
inspired by you daily and I look forward to your comments and feedback.
Thank you so much for your encouragement.
I know this madness will put me in a swirl, but I don't care. I want
to show you my appreciation. Celebrate with me. And let me celebrate
you. I'll post one new giveaway on my blog each day in August. To enter a giveaway, simple leave a comment on that blog post by 11:59pm PST on the day of the post.
Be sure to enter your email address so we can contact you if you win.
We'll draw a winner at random, send out an email, then announce the
result with an update at the bottom of that post.
If you are on Instagram as well, enter an additional daily giveaway for a $15 gift certificate. (See footnote in green below.) That's actually two giveaways each day, isn't it? This thing keeps growing!
To kick things off with a splash, today's giveaway is for a $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE to our online store, HeatherBaileyStore.com
where you can stock up on fabric, felt, sewing kits, patterns, paper
crafts, and more. I have a new fabric collection I will be announcing
later this month. And I'll be releasing all-new embroidery patterns as
well—in between blogging about giveaways, right? This prize should come in handy.
Remember, comment below
to enter and make sure to submit your email address so we're not stuck
with no way to reach you!
Good luck. And again, thanks for your enthusiasm and support. I love you guys.
xo—Heather
It's great to be back home, but a bit of my heart and a large portion of my imagination
are lingering behind in Virginia. For the middle-part of our big summer
vacation, we drove south from D.C. to Colonial Williamsburg, with a stop
at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello on the way.
If I could live my dream life, I would garden and keep animals on a
lush green farm at the edge of a big city. I would spin yarn and churn
butter, cultivate the perfect cabbage, and make cheese. However, I would
also wear glamorous dresses to the theater, learn portraiture at an art
atelier in the city, take the light rail to business meetings, and type
away on my top-of-the-line computer. All with my kids in tow.
My life isn't too far off of this dream in spirit. I grow fruit trees
and make art. And my kids are here with me. But the lush trees and
rolling hills are missing.
This is where Virginia comes in. My. Freakin'. Word. Pardon the language. Virginia is gorgeous.
I almost had to close my eyes on the way to Monticello in order to
survive the view: white fences, electric green grass, trees as big as
buildings.
Perhaps Providence will plop the perfect excuse in my lap to move somewhere lush and lovely and near a fun city. How about a Kickstarter
campaign to build a blogger's getaway paradise with fully-teched-out
guest cabins. Or a reality tv show about trying to make such a
disjointed reality work. Have it all. Be it all.
But I need a town to pin this fantasy to. What are the best little
beautiful places to raise children, with great schools, strong, moral
families and exciting things an arm's length away. And don't forget the
large plots of land, big trees and cute houses. Give my dream new
breath.
If you relate, then you'd love Colonial Williamsburg.
They run the town like it never left the 1700s, wigmakers, shoemakers,
blacksmiths, cabinet-makers and all. I can't say enough about the place.
There's' nothing like it out west, that's for sure.
The gardens are immaculate and the buildings are charming—and I'm all
about the workshops. I don't blog about them much, but I have a
spinning wheel and a jeweler's bench of my own. I've built shoes,
churned butter, made yogurt, turned pottery, made lampwork glass beads,
and worked on a horse ranch. My inner pilgrim.
I feel so disloyal to Arizona right now. Sorry, Arizona. I still love
you—and your sun-bleached cow skulls and scorpions—but where are your
towering trees and brick buildings? Where are your moss-covered walls
and magnolias? Tell me it was a hallucination. Virginia is not real.
Virginia is not real…
Virginia is not real…
This weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at the Revive blog conference in Phoenix, Arizona. It was put on by two cool ladies, Coley and Lindsey,
who run an outdoor antique market twice a year called Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market. The next one is April 27th at Westworld—and I will SO be there.
They wanted to reembrace their blog and improve
their approach, so instead of waiting to attend a remote conference or researching
the subject online, they decided to assemble an event to educate others while getting an education
themselves.
I was asked to
give a keynote address, but because I am in the throes of designing
another fabric collection—yes!—that is due this week—we decided
on a Q &A
instead. That way, the audience could glean what they most wanted from
my being there. The other speakers joined in as well— it was great.
It's always nice to step out of the studio for a break when I'm in the thick of a big project. Time
away helps me gain perspective on where I'm at. And more
than that, this time, I got to meet and help some wonderful and creative women in my own area.
So, as I was posting images from the conference on Instagram during
the event, a couple of women commented on Instagram that they felt like
the only bloggers in their states. (It was Maine and South Carolina, I
think.) They wished there were meet-ups in their areas as well.
If you feel this way too, can I just take a moment to empower you to make it happen!?
You can rent a small space or see if the city has a meeting room you
can use, ask a couple of bigger bloggers to do a shout-out for you, see
who might be willing to come speak. Bring in some food. Or keep things
super simple with a round-table discussion amongst the attendees. The
fact is, if you're feeling alone in your area, the chances are that
others around are feeling the same way. You can be the solution.
And you don't have to make things all fancy and froo-froo. Just get
started and see what becomes. You will likely return home with a few new
friends, some great ideas, and a good helping of fresh energy.
Photos above are from my Instagram feed: www.Instagram.com/heatherbailey or @heatherbailey if you're in the app. Sign up for Instagram, it's awesome.
