What I’m Working On | If I Had My Own Blue Box:

4th Day of the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the Fourth Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Decorative Sewing Wax for in your sewing box

For the Third Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Thread Winder to go in your sewing box

For the Second Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Bodkin to go in your sewing box

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

3. Share a photo of yourself with something you previously purchase, such as a bonnet, a sewing case, a winter hood or a book. Share your photo in a comment below, on Facebook, or Twitter. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

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on November 28, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (1)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

3rd Day of the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the Third Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Thread Winder to go in your sewing box

For the Second Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Bodkin to go in your sewing box

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

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on November 27, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (4)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

2nd Day of the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the Second Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A Bodkin to go in your sewing box

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

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on November 26, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (4)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

Announcing the 12 Days Of “Christmas” Give-Away

In past years, I’ve enjoyed offering 12 Gifts for Christmas with ideas of goodies to make for gifts. This year, I’ve decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away.

While the 12 Days of Christmas starts on December 25th, I’m holding my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away a month early, on November 25th.

Each day, through the 6th of December, I will add an item to a the give away. That evening, the winner will be drawn.

The Give-Away:

For the First Day of the the 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away….. A blue paisley sewing box

How to enter:

There are several ways to enter. These include:

1. Share my 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on your blog, your Facebook or your Twitter account. Be sure to tag me @AnnaWBauersmith and use #12DaysFanUGiveAway .

2. Buy something from my Etsy Store or buy Fanciful Utility. *You’ll need to tell me if you bought Fanciful Utility. **This Counts as 2 entries.**

4. Add something from my Etsy Store or Fanciful Utility to your Gift list on Etsy Treasuries or Pinterest. Tell me you did so in the comments below with a link.

Published in:

on November 25, 2014 at 1:00 am Comments (21)
Tags: 12 Days of Christmas Give-Away

Where do I find Fanciful Utility?

This is a question I love to hear and I love to answer.

You can find and purchase my book, Fanciful Utility: Victorian Sewing Cases and Needle-books, at The Sewing Academy.

Fanciful Utility makes an excellent gift for reenactors, museum friends, seamstresses, quilters, and anyone crafty with a needle and thread.

Fanciful Utility is packed full of projects, complete with directions and templates, for rolled sewing cases, sewing boxes and needle-books.

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on November 13, 2014 at 4:02 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Fanciful Utility

Workshops at the Domestic Skills Symposium

This past weekend was the Genesee Country Village & Museum’s first Domestic Skills Symposium. Saturday was filled with 4 exceptional presentations and an incredible period lunch, while Friday and Sunday held workshops throughout the day. Attendees came from approx 6 states and Canada to participate. I really enjoyed meeting new people and catching up with old friends during our sewing.

While Saturday was a drizzly chilly day suited to being inside for the presentations, Sunday was bright. The sun made all the fall colors sparkle. You can see the beautiful colors out the window of Foster, where I taught a rolled sewing case workshop in the morning and a sewing box workshop in the afternoon.

The kitchen of Foster was toasty warm and very welcoming after the morning’s chill. Here is our work table all ready for the first workshop. Attendees were able to choose from an assortment of pre-cut 19th century reproduction fabrics selected at the local Chestnut Bay. In the center, you can see the projects of the day along with the free Fanciful Utility templates available on this blog (a button-keep aka “balloon-bag”, a boot needle-book, and a shell needle-book)

Here are a couple photos from the morning class. Everyone was so focused on their work there were times the room was silent. It was so quiet actually, we learned we really could hear a pin drop. In fact, a pin makes quite the ding noise as it hits a painted floor cloth.

I neglected to take photos in the afternoon as my phone died. We completely lost track of time too.

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on November 3, 2014 at 4:31 pm Comments (4)
Tags: Workshops/Conferences/Symposiums

Count Down to the Symposium

There are just 3 days until the Genesee Country Village’s Domestic Skill Symposium.

I will be teaching two workshops on Sunday. We will be making a rolled sewing case in the morning and a sewing box in the afternoon.

Some of you may know I am an obsessive pre-planner. That being so, I pre-cut the fabric in my mind a half dozen times before actually starting cutting it last night. Yep, that’s me.

But, check out these pretty fabrics:

Each one is a reproduction cotton from my favorite fabrics shop: Chestnut Bay.

How great is it to have a fabric shop with a reproduction room so close by?!?

When I sat down to cut, I opted not to use the larger prints because I thought that would be unfair to participants. Plus, bigger prints are harder to work with if you happen to be one obsessive about centering motives or getting balance or symmetry.

I am so excited, not only to hold my workshops but also to see the museum hold this symposium. They have such a great venue for this.

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on October 28, 2014 at 12:26 pm Comments (2)
Tags: Fanciful Utility, Workshops/Conferences/Symposiums

To-Make List

My current wish to-make list. It only seems challenging when it is to be finished by Thanksgiving.

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on October 23, 2014 at 12:27 pm Comments (2)

“I have not seen that”….. Yet

As many of you know, I am working on a not so little project. I have been trying hard (really, really hard) to keep quiet about what I am doing and what I am finding. But, I am horrible at keeping my own secrets. I’ve slipped. I’ve hinted. I’ve nearly screamed out-loud, jumping up and down, “you’ve got to see this!”

This has very much become a project of “Yet.”

In a world where we look for common construction techniques and norms in materials, it is rather exciting to be working on something where all sorts of materials and construction techniques.

I really feel as though when I say “I have not seen that yet“, “yet” is truly a “I just might see that” or an “it wouldn’t surprise me if” or a “let me see it”, rather than a “that wasn’t common” or a “they really didn’t do that.”

How fun is this:

Cotton batting/wadding… yep

Wool batting/wadding ….yep

TBD wadding… yep

Paste-board… yep

Paper… yep

Woven straw… yep

Cotton cording… yep

Stiff paper cording… yep

Silk…. yep

Cotton… yep

Wool… yep

Fur …. yep

Beads… yep

Ribbon… yep

Drawn… yep

Gauged… yep

Gathered…. yep

Piecing… yep

Selvages… yep

Now, this said, I am one who loves patterns, trends and tendencies. I would love to chart out the years, the regions, the urban to suburban, the age of maker/sewer, and anything else I can to get an even better understanding.

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Working on - Projects

on October 22, 2014 at 12:30 pm Comments (1)

The Quilted Items….That Weren’t

If you follow me on Facebook, I’m sure you’ve heard me whine about the last Ag. Fair entry that wasn’t to be. This last item was to be something in the “Quilted Garment” by hand category.

Prior to September, I had it in my head I was going to quilt a little quilt, something in the “Household” category. When the deadline for the entry form came, I decided a quilt, no matter how small (unless it was a doll quilt), was not going to happen. I determined I would make a yet to be determined quilted garment.

I should back up and say…. If only I hadn’t done the seams in my quilted petti with a machine. 😦

At first, I figured I could make a quilted bonnet in one of the nifty different shapes I have been looking at. Quilted bonnets are fun. I enjoy them. I think what sub-consciously squashed that was that I entered quilted hoods a couple years ago. To be personally satisfied, I would need to draft a completely new pattern from an original soft bonnet for this entry. I just didn’t get that far.

A few weeks rolled by…..

A few ideas came to mind….

and were quickly forgotten…..

As of mid-day Wednesday, I had it in my head I would hurry home to draft a baby bonnet pattern and make a silk baby bonnet. After all, I have plenty of friends and family with babies in belly or recently from belly. Ah….. nope….. Staring at the silks, none said ‘baby bonnet’ to me other than the black silk which is for something else.

I officially called the last entry a ‘fail’.

(mind, I still have the second to last entry to finish)

As of this moment, mid-day the day before I have to drop them off….. I am still toying with the idea of actually pulling something off. Insane…. yeap

While warding off the potential insanity, let’s look at some of the quilted garments that were not to be… at least this year….

A quilted shawl would have been nice.
A sunbonnet was up near the top of my list. I far prefer a corded though.
There was a really awesome quilted bum roll that I must not have bookmarked on my phone. Pout!
This is such a simple quilted hat, mid-century. I would call it a smoking cap. It is a bold colored polished cotton strip.
While completely useless for what years I do, I loved the idea of making a quilted stomacher
Or, better yet… a comfy quilted waistcoat with how cold I get in the winter, something like this would be good to have.
(I already did quilted slippers. But, love them.)