So back in May I took some photos of my craft cupboard for you to see...here are the photos from then.


 I keep all my bits and bobs in these boxes to make it easier when searching for things.

 See, told you it was May when I took these pics!

 Dear Ikea, thank you for your inexpensive shower organiser that expands my usable space!

 The root of the problem. The fabric I have hoarded. My Fabric.

 My cottons and fat quarters. Any large 'scraps' that can be folded go back in here.

 My scraps basket.....yeah, we all have one, I wonder if we'll ever be able to let go?


I use hoard a lot of 8" zips so they have their own box while all the other sizes jostle together in a 'various' box.

 Most of the boxes are filled with upside down jars to make it easier to see what it is I have....I find that if it's not easy to see then I make a massive mess finding it and then have to do a massive two day clean up operation once in a while!

I separate my buttons into 'Warm tones', 'Cool tones' and 'Neutrals'. This is the neutrals box. There are two whites, two blacks, one dark browns and one light browns in this box.



So I decided that September is Stash busting September and I'm going to do what I can to use, gift, sell and generally de-stash in the next month. Without wasting it....that's just silly!

I followed a blogger's way of measuring her stash but can't for the life of me find who it was again so I apologise if it was you.

She weighed herself, then she weighed herself holding big armfuls of her stash and then deducted her own weight. So that's what I did. Several times. Over, and over, and over while the numbers just kept going up.

My stash weighs 88kgs. That's 194lbs friends. ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR POUNDS!!!!!!

Are you shocked? Yes, we were too. Here's Dusband's face when I told him.

Here's mine.

I think Dus' is better :)

So, for the next little while, don't expect much sense....it'll be sew, sew, sew around here to get those unfinished projects started (and finished) to try and stashbust and if I've got excess, I'll be sure to let you know!

I dare you to weigh your stash......

Three winners! And out of a small pool of entries, that's gotta be good odds right?

Ok, so excluding Tammie and Leslie, (Tammie, I'd love it if you learnt to sew one day!!) there were 9 entries and the winners were:

Frullemieke


Barbara


and Julie Snow.


Congratulations ladies, your patterns will be out to you shortly.

If you didn't win but want to purchase, they're still available to buy in my Etsy store for the minuscule price of £3 each.

Posting might be a bit thin on the ground over the next week or so as I finish up my job and start to get life back to normal!!

I'm really not sure of the grammatical protocol with multiple bags name Rosie....I think that's correct but I guess someone will helpfully correct me if not.



So, as we all know I have the BEST pattern testers in the entire world right? Right. Well I thought I'd share with you a few of their completed Rosie Patchwork bags...to whet your appetite and all that.

Firstly is my most vocal tester, Maria. Oh, Maria, where would I be without her?

I send my pattern out and within minutes she's emailed back to say I've left a vital piece of info out *facepalm*. Luckily for me she's as sharp as a tack and as quick as a ...I'm not sure what. Anyway, she always comes back to me with great feedback and doesn't let anything past her radar! Of course she always makes a change or two to flex her rebellious sewing muscles but she does it so very well!!


Check out Maria's blog for her other creations!

Ok, next up on the finished bag tour is a lady I want to live round the corner from so I can go rob her stash when she's not looking! The lovely Leslie from American Sewing Guild. Leslie always gives me clear, detailed and sometimes brutally honest feedback. She also uses bullet points. At the stressy stage of launching a pattern, bullet points are the equivalent of someone cutting your sandwiches into bitesize pieces!

I've just realised Leslie might never talk to me again, robbing her stash and expecting her to cut up my food for me....lovely.

This is Leslie's bag, now tell me you're not jealous of her stash....


Leslie's got a great blog and I loved her tutorial for flat felled seams with a hint of lime, seriously people she makes me want to start inserting lime green into houndstooth seams now!

Next up is a new(ish) tester for me, Susie. Susie emailed me about testing for the Bow Pleat pattern but was unfortunately past the deadline so I said I'd keep her on my list for the Rosie bag and I'm so glad I did! I've never seen such a summery bag before!


Unfortunately, Susie doesn't have a blog, but you can check out her flickr stream here, there are a ton of beautiful creations and some really inspiring pics.

There were loads of beautiful photos taken of the testers' bags but unfortunately I am having a few issues finding them in gmail, anyone else have those issues? If you've made a bag, please do add it to my flickr group here and I'll try to do another feature at some point.

What's that? You want to make one yourself?! Well, why didn't you say so?

I'll give away 3 copies of the Rosie Patchwork bag pattern to 3 commenters below. (One each, right). I don't care if you are a follower or whether you have my posts by email or whatever, just make sure you have some way of seeing whether you've won as the winners will be posted on my blog here this time next week. The giveaway will be open from now til 9pm GMT Monday 20th August, just leave a comment below to be entered. Then I'll choose 3 winners at random for a copy each.

If you can't wait you can purchase the Rosie patchwork bag pattern in PDF form for just £3 (or the equivalent dollars depending on Etsy's exchange rate) by clicking the picture below.  I do also have printed copies at £4 + p&p but I just haven't gotten around to listing those yet so leave me a comment if you'd like a printed copy with full size pattern sheet.




I'm also open to button swaps, so if you'd like a free copy and have a blog, send me an email out to pleasereleaseme.letmesew(at)gmail.com with the sort of audience size you have and we'll do a bit of delboying around and see if we can come up with a deal.

Also, please, someone help me work out how to use gmail to find the rest of these pictures! The threads all seem to be coming off one another!!

Anyway, good luck lovelies, get commenting!!









P.s. I'm linking up to Crafty Confessions of a stay at home Mommy , Serenity Now's Weekend Reading , Naptime Crafter's Friday Faves Party and Serenity You's Serenity Saturday.

Hey Benny,

Right now you're somewhere in the sky. That reminds me of that song....Lucy in the skies with diamonds....

Except you're Ben and not with diamonds. I'm thinking maybe that song had something to do with drugs too. Don't do drugs, they're bad. Now I say that I've realised why the kids at youth call one of our helpers Frank. His name isn't Frank, it's Andrew. But they like to 'talk to Frank'. I've just realised that's off the drugs adverts. Maybe they do work?

So Dusband (aka Mr H) asked if you were home soon. I wonder if he's fed up of having to listen to my chatter during the day instead of my channelling it towards you on msn every day...

Dusband, Kirsty & you last month (nothing to do with this letter)

I told him you were home today and so he asked if you were bringing him back a crocodile. I'm not sure he was serious but with Dusband, who can ever know. He's an enigma! That's also just reminded me that when you two used to play together as kids and you still remember that and he totally doesn't remember it at all. Sad times.

Yes, I stole your Thaiglish photo :)

So the last couple of days since the craft fair then, well Sunday night I was pooped from being polite to people and trying to flog my wares so just laid on the settee like a Queen while Dusband got the tea together. Then Monday was work as usual, (the first day of my second week of my notice....you'll know about that if you start at the beginning of these letters) and then when I finished work, urm, I have no idea what we did. I'll ask Dusband, hang on.

We did nothing. Neither of us can really remember so it probably means we did nothing or watched some Olympics. Wait, am I allowed to say Olympics without being sued? Probably not....

Then yesterday was work as usual AGAIN....but every day is a day nearer the end of my notice period and I can get stuck into helping Dusband grow his business. Then after work (I finished at 4pm) I started turning a curtain into a cape for a friend of mine who needs a medieval cape but only had a curtain.

I hope you went swimming....

Then at 7pm it was church as usual on a Chooseday evening. We watched a dvd about Barry Woodward and his testimony. It was a good testimony, as indeed all testimonies are. Even the ones we call ordinary are so much more than ordinary because the God who created the earth was personally involved in that ordinary person's life. Then we tried out the new sofas at church (very squishy and nice) and then we came home where I ate half a block of chocolate. All in all a fairly good day I'd say!

Wait, there's no pictures in this letter....are you bored yet? I'll go back and add some in, pretend they've been there all along will you? (I had to steal some from your facebook as I was due to start work 1m ago!)

Anyhoo, see you soon Benny, hope your journey is going well,
Dus sends his love too,

I can't remember whether this one should be 6 or six.

Anyway, hello!!!! How are you? I hope that by now you're luxuriating in luxury settings and trying to resist jumping in the swimming pool. I bet you can't :)

One of my lovely pattern testers (Oh Benny, I have the best!) made me laugh this week, she very kindly said that she hopes my husband is home soon. I honestly couldn't for the life of me work out what she was talking about.....Dus only goes out for an hour a day without me for his run at 5am and trust me, this was well after 5am. (Why would I be out of bed that early anyway?!)

I suddenly realised she was talking about my letters to you. Urm, oops! It wasn't that she thought you were my husband that made me laugh, it was the memory of my two best friends, you and Peter both discussing how you could NEVER be married to me back in January. I presume it was related to my rejection of leftovers, my immaculately kept home (ha!) and my desire for things to be just perfect.

How are those not covetous qualities?! Fortunately God did give me a man who could cope with my quirks and foibles and instead burdened you with being my friend.

So you've missed some excitement then by way of 'summer of sport'. (I'm too scared to write anything to do with it incase I get sued by the super strict trade marking that has occurred during this set of games that happens once every 4 years. I'm afraid I've missed much of it too...I find it hard to get excited by it. I did watch Victoria Pendleton win the cycling though, I clutched Dusband's hand so hard he almost lost use in it! (Who am I kidding, that boy is the strongerest in the world).

You've also missed some much better excitement by way of spray painting of a bunting stand.


Apparently putting specs over a dust mask means it's gonna get steamy all up in there. Oh well, the stand looked good.


Sales were ok at today's craft fair but not great. We're going to give fairs a miss for a little while now til nearer Christmas.

There's been some baking going on round here.


Cinnamon buns from the children's book of baking. I have nicknamed them cinnamon poos.

I have also started preparing for Christmas as many of my fellow crafters have been urging me to think about doing for a little while now.


I'm fairly certain that these last 3 days til your return will fly by but just in case they don't I'm going to start thinking about painting my set of drawers. That'll be something nice to tell you when you get back :)

Hope you're well and you have bought me the best present you could ever bring me back!

Lots of love,

Hey Benno!

I've never called you Benno before...it's definitely different! So yesterday was your birthday.....woooooohhhhhoooooo!!!!!! 37 now....and still with the maturity of a 5 year old.



I hope you don't mind, I had to edit your photo and give you a moustache in case you were flooded with requests from lovely single Christian ladies who would like to get to know you better....what with you being a handsome single chap and all!

We had a fairly busy Monday and Tuesday and....wait, today is Wednesday 1st of AUGUST!!!! Someone stole July and replaced it with March it feels like, I bet you're glad to be somewhere so warm.

Talking of warm, I saw this on Pinterest and thought of you.

Via

Anyway, Tuesday night church was amazeballs (As Guiliana Rancic would say) and lives were changed Praise God!

Today is/was Wednesday and I started the day knowing that my pattern pieces were wrong for the Rosie Patchwork bag due to be released Friday and knowing that my pattern piece editor/draw-er was in Thailand for another week (that's you....). Fortunately I twisted Dusband's arm to edit them for me. Don't worry, he wasn't anywhere near as good at customer service as you so you're not replaced.

Now it's just a 24 hour race to get the instructions edited following the super feedback from my pattern testers.

On top of a phone call today from Dusband's biggest client checking we'd be ok for lunch tomorrow (he's based in Leeds....) it shaped up to be a busy day!


You know how crazy I get when people are coming over, let alone someone who pays us to work for him! Well....I had been spray painting in the kitchen so now I have apple green lines on the floor where the spray over shot the newspaper. I had to do it inside with dust mask and windows open etc because once again it was R.A.I.N.I.N.G. I have a photo of me looking all attractive in the dust mask etc but don't want to overexcite you in your old age now so I'll save that for part 6.

Hope you're having a great time and really feel the worth of what you're doing over there,

Missing you,