*Giveaway closed, Random Number Generator chose 3 winners, (53, 3, 39)* Thanks for participating!
Do you know Carrie?
I met her a few years ago at the Long Beach Quilt Show, while walking around, shopping, with my friends, Jules and Tess. Carrie is AWESOME (and so is her mother). We were drawn into the SUCH Designs booth, and gabbed for hours, and felt like we’d known each other for years. She’s so warm and friendly and wonderful, she probably makes everyone feel as welcomed and loved as we felt, but we certainly left feeling special. We STILL feel special to be friends with *SUCH* an amazing woman. (see how I did that? )
She’s written fantastic patterns, and gotten lots of press for them, and now she has a fabric line that’s being released by Windham. She wrote to me a few weeks ago, asking if I would like to sew some samples….
One of the things I like best about people like Carrie is that she’s honest. So here’s my real truth: I was completely overwhelmed and crazed with work and parenting, and I had NO creative energy left. But Carrie is so wonderful that I said that I was super busy, but wanted to help, so to just send me the fabric and pin on notes saying what to make with what, and I would get it done.
A few days later, I received a box o goodies from her; that night, I whipped out a pair o pants (self-drafted to fit my boy), and a dress (the new Oliver + S Rollerskate Dress to fit my girl), snapped some quick shots in the morning, and mailed them back to her.
Luckily for Carrie, she was able to find some cute kids locally to model the clothes I made,
they seem just as goofy as mine…
(these two pretty pictures are OBVIOUSLY not mine. Photo Credit belongs to Jill McNamera
I’m totally proud of my workmanship on the clothing, but I have to give credit where it’s due, fabric choices and creative decisions on these garments were entirely hers.
So there I was, with her scraps, my deadlines over for a few days, and time to finally soak it all in. As I admired Carrie’s beautiful and thoughtful work, inspiration struck. (Scraps can be so liberating, as there’s no pressure). I had been playing around with an idea in my head, and I used the purple polkadot scraps to test out my idea for a bag to hold yarn for knitting socks 2-at-a-time.
and then I was on a roll. I made a few others to try different dimensions or variations in assembly, and then, yesterday, I bravely cut into some gorgeous bits, and made this version:
I even started a new pair of 2-at-a-time socks to match the bag!
I love that the fabrics in COLLAGE are playful without being novelty. The polka dots are my fave, maybe? but I also love the letters. This line has some FANTASTIC low-volume prints, and text, very on-trend. I can have a vibrant bag that’s mature and thoughtful. Thoughtful is probably the word I think of most when I think of the whole line of COLLAGE.
If you’ve managed to read all the way down to here, you deserve a prize, so…
comment on this post, and I’ll pick 3 lucky winners
1 winner will get a layer cake of COLLAGE, courtesy of Carrie and Windham
1 winner will get their choice of the bags I made with COLLAGE (purple or red)
and 1 winner will get a free copy of my new SockSack pattern
Be sure to check out the rest of the COLLAGE blog party for more chances to win this beautiful fabric!