Inspired by Stitched in Color's Flirting the Issue Sew Along, I was excited to quickly whip up a skirt.  The sew along was based on the Flirting the Issue Skirt by Anna Maria Horner, which is a free project download from her (Anna Maria Horner's) website.  I dug through my stash, found the beautiful Anna Maria Horner voile seen above, made a quick trip to the store for some muslin (for the lining) and enough elastic to make that gorgeous waist.  Three supplies, super easy.

The skirt is very easy to make, two rectangles, mine were cut at 19" tall by the width of fabric twice, which ended up being more than twice my waist measurement, so this skirt is very full.  Once the rectangles are sewn, you stitch the outer fabric to the lining and then create four channels for the elastic.  The most time consuming part is threading all the elastic, but I used my car rider line time effectively, then came home and finished it up.  The hem was super quick and the last step, voila, you have a finished beautiful skirt.

Well beautiful on a hanger and not necessarily on me.  It fits, it is the right length, but honestly I think it is too full for my frame.  I don't necessarily think it is horrible on me, and I definitely need to find the perfect shirt to wear with it (which will help a lot,) it just isn't that flattering.  Oh well, lesson learned, next time I will stick with the straight skirt.  But for now I will enjoy the glorious waist band, which is my favorite part and the main reason I decided to make the skirt, oh I love those gathers!  You can see my lining fabric, or inside of my skirt below.

I'm linking up my finished (in about 3 hours) Flirting the Issue skirt with Stitched in Color's linky party!  Rachel did a great job illustrating the steps and talking your through each section making this skirt even easier to put together.  A great project for a beginner!  Thank you Rachel!

Lastly I need to take care of a little business, time for me to post the winner of the Juliana Horner fabric bundle below from Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!  The Random Number Generator from Random.org chose number 74, which was Beth T.  Congratulations Beth, whom I already contacted, she quickly responded and I already shipped the fabrics to her, enjoy them Beth!  Thanks to all that entered and all my new followers!

Hello and welcome to Marci Girl Designs, today is Giveaway Day at Sew Mama Sew!  If you are here for the first time from Sew Mama Sew, I'd love for you to stick around and have a look, but if you don't have time, you can just enter to win some fabric, that is cool too! 

Today's giveaway is five fat quarters of Juliana Horner fabric from JoAnn Fabrics!  Are you familiar with Juliana Horner, you know daughter of the great fabric designer Anna Maria Horner?  Well Juliana has designed 3 separate lines for JoAnn Fabrics and the giveaway today is from two of those lines.  You see I was kinda on the fence about the first two lines she designed.  I loved the actual prints, but the colors were far from my style and I just couldn't commit, until line three came out and I knew they were right up my alley!  So I went to my local store, and started digging and ended up picking out my favorite prints, and these favorites are the five featured above.  The first (brown latticework) is from her first line and the other four are from her third.  They all play together nicely, don't you think?

If you would like to win this little collection, all you need to do is this:
1.  Answer this question in the comments:  Are you looking forward to any big blockbuster movie this summer?  If not, any TV show that is starting up this summer that you are looking forward to?
2.  For all my followers, you get a second entry, just leave a second comment, and if you want to become a new follower (hello!,) leave a second comment as well!

Details:
This giveaway is open May 12, 2014 and will close May 16, 2014 at 5 pm PST
The max number of entries you may have is two.
This giveaway is open internationally, as long as you have an address that I can ship to!
The winner will be picked randomly via a Random Number Generator.

Thanks and have fun entering all those giveaways!

I know I have mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again, I belong to a Flickr group that swaps Postage Stamp Blocks.  Well, I haven't posted pictures of my finished blocks.  The first set of 10 above are for me to keep and add to the 10 or so I already have.  I strip/chain pieced these blocks to save time and these 10 are actually duplicates of 10 that I sent to swap.  The 20 blocks pictured below are the ones that I sent to FairlyMerry (the group leader and swap mama) in order for her to swap them with the other members and then send back 20 different blocks to me.  After this swap is finished I am hoping to have enough to put my quilt top together,  Excited to get this one laid out and finished up.  I am really looking forward to seeing what this one will look like finished.

Oh, and before I forget to post this...I have a winner for the fabric bundle and book from Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway Day!  Random.org picked number 198, which ended up being Michelle Smith!  I have already contacted Michelle, and since she has already returned my response, giveaway day is officially over.  Congratulations Michelle, enjoy your fabric and new book!

It is that time of year again, Sew, Mama Sew! Giveaway Day!  Welcome to my blog and website and I do hope you like the giveaway I have lined up for you today!

This giveaway consists of two prizes!  First up is a fat eighth bundle of the lovely Cut and Sew fabrics by Robert Kaufman.  This bundle consists of 10 super cute prints that I think are so appropriate for the occasion!  Every sewer needs some sewing themed fabrics, don't you think?

The second part of the giveaway is this great book, Inspired to Quilt by Melanie Testa.  This book covers a variety of very interesting techniques and would be a great addition to your library, if you would so happen to win it!

How do you enter?  It is easy, just leave me a comment, answering this question:  "What is your favorite current television show?"  Currently, I am loving Nashville, which is funny because I'm not really a fan of country music!  If you would like a second entry, either be a current follower, or become a new follower of my blog via Bloglovin or your favorite reader, just leave a comment letting me know how you follow my blog!

This giveaway is open to US residents only, the cost to ship internationally is just too high, I'm sorry!  The giveaway will close Friday, May 10, 2013 by 5 pm PST, and a winner will be picked via Random.org and announced by May 12, 2013.  Please make sure to leave your email address, so that I have a way to contact you if you are the winner!  Thank you for visiting and have fun blog hoping during this Giveaway week!

Hello!  Thanks for stopping by my blog today!  This is the last day of the UR Priceless Coin Purse Blog Hop, and I am happy to say that I am one of the participants.  I signed up for this particular blog hop because I have never tackled a "frame" pouch or purse and really wanted to give it a try.  This was a great way to get my feet wet and to join along with tons of really creative participants!

I wanted to make sure and thank Madame Samm over at Sew We Quilt and Katherine over at Sew Me Something Good for hosting, organizing and providing/designing the pattern for this lovely blog hop.

This is my only finished one (at the moment) and I am quite pleased with how it turned out!  For my first frame pouch, I think it is quite cute, and was really a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I started with some tiny half square triangles that I had saved from a previous project, stitched them together and created the front panel for this pouch.  I believe the hst measured 1.25" before they were stitched together, so you can see they are quite small.  After I created this piece, I ironed on the fusible batting and then machine quilted it.  I then echoed the quilting on the back panel of the pouch, just to tie the whole thing together.  Stitching together the pieces of this pouch was really easy, but I will say the size of this pouch is pretty small (a 3" frame) so it was more challenging than something larger.  My experience sewing Barbie clothing from my childhood days came in handy here for sure!

I used a Liberty of London print for the interior of the bag, and continued the color scheme on the inside.  I also wanted to use a busy print on the interior to in essence hide the stitching that does show from hand stitching on the frame.  I think I was pretty successful in this aspect.  Can you see the stitching?  It is there, and it isn't that neat or pretty.  Look hard and I bet you can spot it, it really is a hot mess in there, which is the only real downfall to these hand stitched frames.  But honestly, I prefer not having to use glue, so you win some, you lose some.

I wanted to mention the hand sewn metal frame process.  This was my first time doing this and I was really unsure as to how it would work out in the end, but honestly it fit much better than I ever would have imagined.  A near perfect fit, I was impressed.  I wasn't sure how to tackle it, so I just stuffed the top in the frame as much as I could and started stitching in the middle, and continued outwards to the sides, making sure the pouch was centered on the frame.  It worked great, I used a medium needle with a big eye, and once you got the hang of it, it really went pretty quickly.  Though it wasn't a perfect process.  I started with a navy blue Pearl Cotton size 8, was almost finished with my first side and the needle pierced the thread wrong and broke it.  No way to fix it other than to start over, take out the stitches and redo it.  Before I started over I tested the thread I was using (by yanking it really hard) and realized it just wasn't strong enough for this application.  Not having any other navy blue thick thread on hand I decided to quadruple up regular sewing thread.  So that is what I did.  Then once the frame was completely sewn on, I went back with doubled up thread and stitched the whole thing a second time for extra security.  This wasn't ideal, but did allow for me to use a needle with a smaller eye, thus making the stitching process easier.  Even with this one hang up, I think the pattern is great and made a cute little coin pouch.

I have another one almost finished, but alas had to go and get sick and wasn't able to finish it on time, bummer.  Oh well, I'll show it off once I have it finished.

Make sure to hop on over to all of the other participants today, check out their blogs and their versions of this cute little coin purse.  The full blog hop schedule can be found at Katherine's blog, Sew Me Something Good.

Julia P
Tina
Dachsies With Moxie
 -----> Marci Girl Designs <--- You are Here!
The Sunflower Patch
Wish upon a star
Mary on Lake Pulaski
Greco Mara
Linda M
Mack and Mabel
Dreaming in Patchwork
Judith Handmade Treasures
Kaydie
Caesarea Scrappers
Patchouli Moon Studio
Sew.Darn.Quilt.
Sew We Quilt

Thanks for joining me today and reading about my version of this coin purse!

Happy Birthday to Me!  Yes, today is my birthday and I am 32....Oh Lord!  No it isn't that bad, especially since I spent most of this past year confused and telling people I was 32, so I kinda feel like I gained an extra year! HaHa!  In celebration of my birthday, I decided to hold a giveaway for you guys!  Yippee!

I was lucky enough to win a Traveling Stash Box from My Crafty Crap a few weeks ago, and now it is my turn to pass it along to you guys!  If you don't know about the Traveling Stash, Cherise at Sewingly Along does a fantastic job keeping track of all the boxes and giveaways.  Basically it's exactly what the name says - a box of fabric and other goodies that's traveling around the United States.  When you receive it, you can take out anything you would like, as long as you replace what you take out. What a great concept and great fun!

The first two photos here are pictures of what I added to the box!  Fabric yardage, some fat quarters and a bunch of other fun things!  Patterns, a book, a magazine, an assortment of threads including some pearl cotton and a bunch of other goodies!

The next two photos show the fabric and goodies that are carried over from the other travels (a.k.a. things I didn't take and decided to pass along to you guys!)  It was funny to me that I had some of these fabrics in my stash already, like the pink print on the top left!  What are the odds?

As I was packing everything in the box, I apparently added to much from my own stash, so at the last minute I took out the two green prints shown in the photo above, because I was on the fence about keeping them originally and I couldn't fit/pack/shove them in the box!  Sorry, those two prints that are marked above are not part of the giveaway.  But, I promise there are a ton of great things in this box!

Speaking of the box, it is a USPS Priority Mail Medium Flat Rate Box stuffed to the gills, like really packed people.  Like stand on it and push with all your might to get it closed stuffed, so it is pretty fun to receive this box and pull out all of the goodies!

So what do you have to do to win?  There are a few rules you must follow in order to enter, simple, but you have to follow them!

RULES:
*Be an active blogger. Post about receiving and the giveaway on your blog in a timely manner.
*There is a note in the box that logs where the box has been. Please add your info and place the note back in the box.
*There is a list of Rules and Guidelines in the box. Please read and follow these and return the list to the box.
*You may take anything you like from the box. Just replace every item with comparable quilt shop quality items equal to the amount taken. See guidelines.
*Ship the box to the next person in a reasonable amount of time.
*Due to the amount of postage shipping is only within the USA.

Head over to Sewingly Along to see the full list of guidelines.

Comment here for your chance to win, only one comment per person.  Answer this question for me.  Since it is my birthday and I'll be eating Chocolate Cake (my favorite,) what is your favorite type of cake?

Giveaway is open until Monday, September 24, and I will announce the winner (drawn by random.org) the next day, Tuesday, September 25.  Good Luck!