FREE Pattern and Sewing Kit! Betty Boo Bat—Halloween Sock Doll—FOUR Designs to Choose From
Hello, friends! It’s time for some fall-time fun. I have four ADORABLE Betty Boo Sock Doll Kits in the store this fall: Ziggy, Pumpkin, Trixie, and Caspar. Each bat-doll kit includes a sock, fabric, felt, multiple buttons, embroidery floss, ribbon—AND the FULL SEWING PATTERN! Each complete kit is priced at ONLY $12.95, a great fall project and gift. Collect all four!
Find all of our popular bat-doll, purse, and pincushion kits in the Other Fun Stuff section of the store.
With a purchase of $35 or more, enjoy one FREE bat doll kit which includes all materials (except stuffing) AND the pattern ($12.95 value). Once your purchase adds up to $35 or more, add your choice of bat doll to your cart as well. Enter promo code FREEBATKIT at checkout. The price of one kit will be removed from your total — a $12.95 value.*
Psst…the promotion info and promo code is also posted on the home page of the store. Please share a link with your friends and family.
*One FREE kit per customer. This offer expires 10-31-19, at midnight MST, or while supplies last. If making a bat doll for a small child, please make sure all parts are securely sewn together, and that no embellishments present a choking hazard.
Up Parasol projects are starting to show up all over the web. I'm excited to share many of them with you with links out to their makers. Before doing so, let's have a closer look at this new collection which is available now at independent quilt shops and online at HeatherBaileyStore.com.
Up Parasol is centered around two prints from my previous Garden District home-decor collection—Cakewalk and Mockingbird. These two designs were repeatedly requested on quilting-weight cotton, so I heeded the pleading and pinned swatches of these two on my design board to let them seep into my subconscious.
What was born of this pairing is the new Up Parasol collection. I added many all-new prints of various scales and themes, including an extremely useful pinwheel blender named Devon Check, a vintage-flavored mum print named Mum Toss, a modern little flower repeat that looks a bit like a tiny umbrella named Stella, a fresh and trendy lattice print named Trellis, an inviting Summer Plaid and another super-useful two-tone print named Lulu. Among these is my favorite new print which shows a wood-cut style bird with flowers on his wings alighting from a branch, Meadowlark.
I'm not sure if it's my favorite new print because of the finished look or because I had such a happy time creating this particular design. Again, of course, there's the mother-hen in me who believes it's just not right for me to pick any favorites.
I do really love how these prints work together. They are cheerful and buoyant while also sophisticated and chic.
I had the pleasure of creating a couple of Up Parasol quilts for the industry trade show, Quilt Market. One quilt will be out soon as a new pattern—so I'll wait just a few more days to share the details of that design. And the other is a large crazy-quilt-style design where I mixed Up Parasol with my basics collection, True Colors, as well as a couple of hand-selected solid colors for punch. This freely-pieced quilt is shown in the photo above on the turquoise quilt rack.
Crazy-Quilt How-To
Each block was started with a five-sided semi-pentagonal shape that was free-style cut with a ruler, but without set dimensions or proportions. I then pieced wedge-like strips around this center piece the way you would with a log-cabin block, trimming excess fabric from each newly-attached strip to keep the edges straight and ready for the next strip to be added.
As each block became bigger, I used a 12.5" square ruler as a guide to keep my piecing on track. Once the whole stack of blocks were made and I had arranged them into a layout, I used the same ruler to trim all blocks to a tidy 12.5" square before piecing them together.
If you can make sense of that, then you can make a crazy quilt too! Let me know if you have any questions about how to put it together and I will be sure to answer those here, or in a follow-up post.
Meanwhile, visit your local quilt or sewing shop to get your hands on these delicious Up Parasol fabrics. Or visit HeatherBaileyStore.com if you don't have a sewing hub nearby. Remember to include some True Colors and Lottie Da fabrics for an expanded variety of compatible designs, perfect for your modern quilting and crafting projects.
Pick up a copy of my Blooming Borders embroidery pattern while your at it. There is a border print included that features the same two birds shown in the Up Parasol Mockingbird print. Just imagine pairing your beautiful embroidery work with coordinated fabric in your next project—yum.
In honor of Evan's birthday on the 25th, our Day 25 HELLO Giveaway is one of our favorite children's toys, Theo the cat, an 18" knit doll. A $56 value. Theo is chartreuse for heaven's sake. It doesn't get better than chartreuse.
A brand-new Theo made his way to our studio from LaylaGrayce.com, an incredibly diverse and inspirational online store, carrying everything from chandeliers and designer sofas to apparel, gifts and toys.
I urge you to go take a look. Their taste is impeccable. Whether you're
redecorating or just picking out a few gifts here and there, you will
find so many great options on their site.
Thank you, LaylaGrayce.com for generously donating today's prize and for offering such a wide variety of these adorable Blabla Kids knit dolls,
including raccoons, foxes, bunnies, bears, wolves, mermaids, monkeys
and elephants, to name a few. They are soft and squishy and alltogether
cool.
Look at how many of these dolls work for boys as well as girls. I love that.
Wow, thank you for your baby-naming stories and input.
What great comments! I promise that there aren't too many more big
stories I've kept to myself. Just designs. Designs that aren't out on
products yet. But, I have lots of that coming soon. Mostly fabric,
fabric, fabric.
It's Friday, and for today our giveaway prize is a copy of my Most-Crazy-Popular-Ever sewing pattern Effie & Ollie Elephant, along with the winner's choice of elephant kit which includes all of the fabric, interfacing and trim for one elephant. A $19 value.
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 on Friday 8/9/13. 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.
Please
share the word. Check back every day. And stay tuned for some big
whoppers next week, with several prizes ranging in value from $100 to
$300. Good luck!
She's gussied up and ready for her big debut. Meet Nicey Jane™, my
new fabric collection for Free Spirit. Nicey is sassy, sweet, and ready
to sew. In other words, check your local fabric store, as Nicey Jane
arrived this week.
These new prints are available in two color palettes. We'll call the pink/olive/tangerine palette Kissing Boothand the blue/gray/gold palette Porch Swing. Along with florals, geometrics, and stripes, there are also a handful of Nicey Jane cotton solids — which are batting their threads at me now, calling, "Sew with me, Heather. Forget that computer and run away with me."
In a couple of weeks, there will also be eight 58" wide laminated
cottons (similar to oil cloth, but light-weight and super-duper supple
— must touch). I'm excited that the finish is light-weight enough to
be gathered. Once I finish up my stationery design work this month,
I'm going to sew up a Smarty Girl book bag with the laminated cotton and give a full report. I also have some raincoat plans and a kid's booster seat to make.
(I never did show off my birthday bicycle,
did I? Nicey is doing the job for me now. Yep, that's my
pinkity-pink-ol bike there. I never would have guessed I'd go for a
pink bike. Would have guessed orange. Or khaki. Or bright yellow. I
love it though. Wait till you see the bicycle saddlebags I'm planning
to make out of this print — but in laminate. Oh yah.)
Back to the fabric, shall we?
The collection tells the story of small-town girl, Nicey Jane. Nicey
heads to the city on Friday nights to swing dance with her beau — but
not before hanging the laundry to dry & enjoying an afternoon
picnic on the farm. The prints are named for Nicey's story: Hello
Roses, Hop Dot, Swing Toss, Wash-Day Ticking, Welcome Road, Picnic
Bouquet, Slim Dandy, Dream Dot, Church Flowers, Pocketbook, and Lindy
Leaf.
(The Lindy Hop is my mom's favorite dance. She tried to teach me some moves on the family room rug when I was little. Tried. The Lindy is dang-tricky.)
Now for dessert, a little Nicey Jane video. Be patient with the resolution; I uploaded this piece to YouTube instead of hosting it on my own site so it can be shared, embedded in other blogs, watched a gazillion times, etc. I have Isaac to thank for the wink — you'll see.
For second dessert (what would a Hobbit
call a second dessert?), I believe I'm in the mood for a celebratory
giveaway. New fabric has arrrived — and it's Christmas time — a dangerous combination. So, three prizes! One $50 gift certificate and two $25 gift certificates to The Heather Bailey Store.
To enter, leave a comment. Tell us something fun, or interesting, or weird, or clever, or
something kind someone has done for you. Something like that. I do read all of the
comments. I'll go first (see comments).
Happy holidays, my friends. I'm off to stir some hot cocoa with a
candy cane and find myself a pair of slippers. It's cold outside.
There's been a lot of corn on the cob and swimming this weekend —
dental floss and sunscreen. (Somehow, in there, I completed the
illustrations for another sewing pattern too.)
Happy Fourth to the U.S. Let's hold tight to our freedoms. Educate
yourself (real, balanced, self-directed education — not spoon-fed.)
Speak up when needed and don't just wait for election time. That's not
loud enough. Fit it in.
And God bless the troops. I don't know how they do it — super powers?
I'm grateful for the principles upon which this country was founded. A favorite book of Isaac's, John Adams, was mentioned at election-time last year. I've decided it will be my next read. I know right where it is.
And, check out that sparkler of a hairdo Isaac did for Charlotte. A daddy 'do. I don't think I've ever wrapped three different colors in one motion. Impressive. Yep, I wasn't even in the room.
Next
up, pattern testing/editing. Today I'm taking 20 nickels to the
nearest wishing well to wish for a skilled seamstress/writer to move in
next door. I hear there's a magic fountain at the mall, right below
the escalator.
