Good morning everyone!

I am so happy to announce that Shabby Fabrics and I are teaming up for another year of fun here at Sew at Home Mummy!

shab·by: adjective \ˈsha-bē\: A style of design where fabrics are chosen for their appearance of age and signs of wear. They are typically floral with a very feminine, soft, romantic feel.

Shabby Fabrics is an online quilt shop specializing in floral quilt fabrics and unique quilt kits made from the best manufacturers of today’s popular quilting fabrics.

They provide great prices on fabric quilting fabrics and precuts from all of the major fabric companies, including an extensive collection of Christmas, batik, patchwork, floral and cotton.


They also have a fantastic Loyalty Points program which gets you 3% back on every purchase you make, and, make sure to add your birthdate to your account when you sign up on their site so you get your 20% off coupon emailed to you on your birthday!


Shabby Fabrics offers over 1000 unique quilting patterns and quilting books to keep you inspired including several applique quilt titles. You will be sure to find something new to quilt or sew every day.

Shabby Fabrics also has Block of the Month quilts and programs that are affordable and fun. They also offer pre-fused and laser cut quilt kits that are quick and easy to complete. I've had lots of fun with Shabby in the past - here's a project I completed with them a few Christmases ago - a Holiday Mug Rug from their laser cut pre-fusibles and it was sooo fun!


They also have a fantastic YouTube channel, with have over 150 free DIY, quilting, and crafting tutorials with more released every week!

I have more information about Shabby Fabrics here on my Gorgeous Sponsors page, and you can sign up for their catalog to be delivered to your mailbox by clicking the button below!

I’m really excited to have Shabby back as a sponsor – they are such a great company – and they want to show my readership some love this springy March morning by offering up a giveaway of one full-sized and one mini-charm pack, winner’s choice!


To enter:

1. Visit Shabby Fabrics Laser Cut Kits section here and let me know in the comments below which is your favorite!
2. Sign up for the Shabby Fabrics catalog, free to your mailbox (button above) and leave me a comment to tell me you did so - optional extra entry!
3. Leave me a comment telling me how you follow along with my shenanigans (Bloglovin’, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Email,) - optional extra entry!

Get ready for some fantastic sales out there!

Here are the sales, specials, and links from my sponsors and affiliates - what are YOU shopping for this Black Friday??

I have officially saved up enough money from my Etsy store to purchase a new computer for business use. My current computer is, well, on its last legs, to say the very least. It's been glitchy to the max over the past several months. And, in computer years, and for a laptop, it's ancient at a whopping 8 years old. We had a good run. I won't miss it taking 10 minutes to start up and not being able to watch videos or taking forever to load webpages - I blogged about the beauty here - check it out!!).

(and, as an aside - if you'd like to learn more about how I saved for the computer as a stay at home mommy - here's a post I wrote recently on funding your hobby. I can now say that using the tips in that post I bought a Janome 6500MCP and a new computer this year! WOOT!)

 On to the sales!!

Havel's Sewing is having an awesome sale, and, I'm really excited to see that their cutting mat is one of the bundles on sale.

Oh my gosh, this is the best cutting mat I've ever used. It's double sided, imperial/metric, self-healing, and PINK. And heavy, heavy duty. Like at least double the thickness and weight of other name brand mats. I *highly* recommend it!

To check out this mat/ruler/cutter bundle (which is on right now for $22.99!!!) click {this link} to be redirected to their page.

You'll love this mat. I swear!





Mad About Patchwork is having an awesome sale - they have an entire page devoted to
their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale, running from November 27-30.

They have over 200 items on sale for 40% off!

To see their sale items, and to browse their awesome store, {click here}.









The Fat Quarter Shop never fails to impress with their sales, and this one is no
exception.

From November 27 - Saturday, November 28 @ midnight CST, enjoy 25% off their entire site, no coupons necessary.

Visit {this link} to shop their thousands and thousands of products!








Shabby Fabrics is having a 5 day sale! They have

- $1 BOM/Club Sign Ups, 

- 20% OFF Patterns/Books, Remnants, Pre-Cuts, Thread, 

- up to 30% OFF Select Fabrics and Kits AND



Here are the sales from affiliates of this blog, with their affiliate links included!


Craftsy is having a HUGE online sale, with up to 75% off in their supplies store (they sell fabrics, precuts, and Aurifil!) - the last big supplies sale they had I went halfers on a thread
box of Aurifil with a friend, it was such a good deal!

They have Aurifil on for $6.50 a spool, $27.50 for a cone (!), and Hello Darling precuts for insanely low prices!

They're also having a massive sale on all of their courses, with over 900 courses on for $19.99 or less!

Their sale runs from November 26 - November 30. Happy shopping!





ThermoWeb is having a 30% off sale plus free shipping with orders over $30 with the
coupon code

FRIDAY15

Click {here} to head on over to their page and shop their sales!















...and, on Saturday and Sunday they're having another sale, with free shipping on $30 or more with the code

FREESHIP30


Here's the link to ThermoWeb!







If you end up spoiling yourself with something this Black Friday, I'd really love to hear about it! Let me know in the comments below what you bought yourself (and it doesn't have to be fabric or quilty related! I love to hear about your shopping excursions!)

Hi all!

I'd like to congratulate the author of comment #138:


Kim, as the winner of my giveaway from Shabby Fabrics for the Christmas Keepsakes blog tour post! Congratulations Kim! I've forwarded your email addie along to Shabby Fabrics, they should be contacting you shortly with your $25 gift card!

As a side note:
It makes me sad to say that I had to choose 3 random numbers before landing on someone that wasn't a no-reply blogger. (Good for Kim, bad for the first two people whom I couldn't contact!)

This is a screen shot of my GMail inbox - and these are all of the no-reply bloggers who entered my giveaway:
So - in total: 70 entries were from no-reply bloggers. A lot of you left me your email addresses to contact you back, but most didn't. Which means, if your name was drawn, I couldn't contact you.

If you don't know whether you're a no-reply blogger or not, click {here}. I wrote a tips/tutorial for how to figure out if you are/fix if you are. If you comment on a lot of blogs and never receive an email back from the author, odds are you are a no-replier.

**note: those using Open ID or Wordpress profiles when commenting, make sure to leave your email address in you comment to make it as easy as possible for bloggers to reach you if you win :)

Stay tuned: Tomorrow will bring yet another giveaway here on Sew at Home Mummy!!

I recently had a giveaway celebrating 700+ readers here at Sew at Home Mummy - my promise was that I would make a customized, personalized notebook for two of my lucky readers - and each will get a spool of Aurifil thread, some of my scraps, and a few other little things. The notebooks won't look exactly like this, but here's the one I made myself, and is the inspiration for this giveaway:
...the winners of this giveaway are as follows, and were randomly selected with Random Number Generator:



Congratulations, Ramona and Beth! I've emailed you a list of questions, please get back to me ASAP so that I can start creating for you!



If you haven't entered the Shabby Fabrics $25 giveaway yet, click {here} to go to that post.


Cotton+Steel Update (HATBOX):

Hi to those swapping C+S Hatbox with me!

The fabric assignments have all gone out, and some have emailed me to say that they've received their fabric orders already!

A reminder that your coupon expires on October 11, so if you haven't purchased your fabrics yet, please do so ASAP.

I won't be able to update with received cut packages before Tuesday next week, but rest assured that there'll be updates if I've received fabrics early-mid next week.

Hi all, and welcome to the next stop on the Christmas Keepsakes Blog Tour hosted by Shabby Fabrics! Links to the other bloggers participating in the tour's sites from October 6 - 10 are listed below - make sure to head over there once you've read my post to share the love with them, and see which blocks they've created!






Today (Tuesday, October 7):
Me! Woot!
Paula @ The Sassy Quilter
Karin @ Leigh Laurel Studios

Wednesday, October 8:
Melissa @ Happy Quilting
Kristyne @ Pretty by Hand

Thursday, October 9:
Erin @ Why Not Sew?
Caroline @ SewCanShe











I recently welcomed Shabby Fabrics as a sponsor here on Sew at Home Mummy, and I'm so happy that we've partnered together - their store is fantastic!

Shabby Fabrics is an online fabric store, specializing in "shabby" prints; what is "shabby", you say?



shab·by: adjective \ˈsha-bē\
A style of design where fabrics are chosen for their appearance of age and signs of wear. They are typically floral with a very feminine, soft, romantic feel.



Shabby Fabrics is an online quilt shop specializing in floral quilt fabrics and unique quilt kits made from the best manufacturers of today’s popular quilting fabrics, and free shipping with purchases over $75. They provide great prices on fabric and precuts from all of the major fabric companies, including an extensive collection of Christmas, batik, patchwork, floral and cotton quilting fabrics. 

Shabby Fabrics offers over 1000 unique quilting patterns and quilting books to keep you inspired including several applique quilt titles. You will be sure to find something new to quilt or sew every day.

Christmas Keepsakes is a 10-month Block of the Month quilt  designed by Jennifer Bosworth exclusively for Shabby Fabrics.  This darling 36" x 36" quilt was sewn with Maywood Studio fabrics and features appliqued blocks in classic Christmas shapes and colors. The pretty scalloped inner border and embellishments add the perfect finishing touch to this adorable holiday wall hanging.
This is the prefused laser cut block option (the BOM also comes in the more traditional BOM option if that's something you'd prefer) - you pop out all of your pieces, peel the paper backing off of the back of the pieces (these are pre-fused with Heat n Bond for you!):

I cheated and used some scraps of batting - do you do this? I sew them, butting flat edges together, using a zig-zag with a fine thread, like Aurifil 50wt. I then press the seam nice and flat so the seam doesn't show once the item is quilted.

Using my ThermOWeb Spray Bond, I spray baste my three quilty layers together (I highly suggest using an adhesive spray like this - it's fantastic, especially for these small projects - really quick and easy to use and so much easier to quilt vs. having to place and then remove pins!). You can see here below, I've drawn a circle around the toe of the stocking using a Frixon pen - I'll use this as a guide for my quilting later:

I centered the concentric circles around the holly and toe of the sock:

And that pretty polka dot Moda print binding looks awesome with the background of the block:

You can see here below that I used a variegated red/black 12wt to zig-zag applique the stocking pieces to the background fabric:

Tip: when using a 12wt thread in your machine, use a Topstitich 90/14 needle to avoid breakage and tension issues. A 12wt thread is heavier than regular quilting thread, which is usually a 40-60wt. 12wt will give you a more pronounced stitch.

Here's a close up of the embellishments included with the block pattern - I used the included embroidery floss to stitch the green vines, and a 12wt Aurifil to attach the (included) cute little buttons:

...and the backside of the mug rug, concentric circles centered over the toe and the holly:

 ...and just for the camera, of course, I had to try the rug out!

More information about the Christmas Keepsakes Block of the Month, and to sign up for the program, click {here}.

Make sure to head over and visit The Shabby, Shabby Fabric's blog {here}, and to stay up to date with all of the happenings over at Shabby, you can sign up for the Shabby Fabrics Newsletter {here}.

Giveaway!
The awesome people at Shabby Fabrics have offered up a giveaway for one of my lucky readers - a $25 gift certificate to their site! WAHOO! Thanks Shabby!

So! Here are the rules:

• Leave a comment on this post telling me: if you were to sign up for and make this super cute 10-block quilt, who would you gift it to? Or would you keep it for yourself?
• Open to international residents.
• Winner chosen by random number generator on October 15, 2014. Winner announced shortly after.
• Make sure to leave your email address if you're not sure whether you're a no-reply blogger or not, so that I can contact you if you win!