Grand Opening celebration--with a giveaway!

Hi everyone!  Today we are celebrating my friend Bernie and the expansion of her Etsy fabric store, Needle and Foot Fine Fabrics.  You can find the shop HERE.  Bernie has had a shop for a while, but a couple of months ago she expanded it into a full service fabric store carrying new fabrics and some vintage pieces and patterns.  Bernie is also sponsoring a great giveaway, which appears at the end of this post.

To the project! Here is what I made with fabric that I got from Bernie's new shop:

I used the Modern Tykes line and made alphabet letters and a storage basket for my tiny grandson!  He can't read yet, of course, but it's never too early to start. And based on how much he's chewed on them, he already loves them.  As a bonus, these are genuinely some of the cutest and easiest things I've ever made.

These letters are super-easy to make.  The biggest challenge is deciding on the alphabet font and the size that you want.  My letters turned out to be about 4 inches tall (the width depended on the letter, of course).

To find an alphabet, you can go into Microsoft Word, look at all those fonts and choose one, then go to Text Effects, and (I assume) say some magic words and wave a magic wand to get the alphabet you want.  Or you can go to Pinterest or Google and search for alphabet printables or alphabet coloring pages and find one that way.  That's what I did.

I used the Modern Tykes fabric for the fronts of the letters and solid charms for the backs.  Once I printed the letters and cut them out, I traced them on the solids backwards in chalk.  This ensures that the solids will always be on the backs of the letters, with the fun fabric on top. Then I sandwiched them with two layers of quilt batting and just straight stitched around the letters.  This is a great place to use up those trimmings from the sides of quilts.  Two layers makes them extra nice and puffy.

After stitching, I just cut out the letters with pinking shears.  Pro tip: do this over a table!  You will have a huge thready mess after trimming.  Seriously, thread and lint everywhere. 

If you're giving these to a small child you may want to wash them before gifting them.  (The letters he got went straight into my tiny grandson's mouth, after all.)  I suggest washing the fabric before construction and then tossing the finished letters into the dryer to get some of the lint off.  When they're washed, the letters shrink a little and twist, which is not a problem except when you want something to look "new" for a gift.  Otherwise, you can wash them and then iron them out again.  Your call!

What about this cute basket?  I made this from a tutorial by Film in the Fridge, found HERE.  It's super-easy  and only took two fat quarters.  I used a piece of leftover quilt batting instead of interfacing and it worked great.  Best of all, that size basket holds more than one entire alphabet.  This is the small, but she also gives instructions for a larger bin as well. 

My grandson's full name is really long, and I wanted hm to be able to spell out the whole thing eventually,  so I made him two sets of consonants and five sets of vowels.  I was able to get all of those letters plus the basket out of the set of fat quarters I received from Bernie.  I did add a whole mess of solid charms and the lining for the basket from my stash, but you should be able to get at least two full alphabets from the fat quarters if you use them for both the front and the back.

Now for the giveaway!  Bernie has generously offered one winner from each participating blogger a choice of either six fat quarters or three half yards from her new shop!  Your choice!  To enter, go on over to Bernie's shop (click HERE) and find something you like, then come back here and leave a comment letting me know what you might get if you win.  (Do yourself a favor and "favorite" her shop while you're there so you can find it again easily!)  For a second entry, follow Bernie on Facebook or on Instagram and leave a comment back here to let me know.  Two entries per person, please.  (Don't make me be an enforcer!  I hate it!)  International readers can also win, but will have to split the shipping with Bernie.

**If you are a no-reply blogger, make sure to leave an email where I can reach you!  If I can't notify you, you can't win!**

***This giveaway is now closed!  Congratulations to Allison!***

I will choose one winner randomly at noon on Tuesday, March 28.  But you can have many other chances to win by visiting all the other great bloggers who are participating in this hop!  Here is the schedule:

• Monday: Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs
• Tuesday:  Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework
• Wednesday: Bonus day!!  Kitty at Night Quilter and Jayne at Twiggy and Opal
• Thursday: Mari at Academic Quilter (that's me!)
• Friday: Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl

As an added bonus for everyone who has made it to the end of this blog post, Bernie is offering 15% off any orders of $5 or more from her shop, through Sunday, March 26.  Fifteen percent! That means the Modern Tykes fat quarter bundle would be only $14.45 before tax and shipping!  Use the code NANDFREADERS15 at checkout to get your discount.

Good luck to everyone, and be sure to go over and check out Bernie's shop even if you aren't entering the giveaway.  She's standing by with rotary cutter at the ready and is just itching to fill your order!  Seriously, she's very easy to work with and ships fast.

Have a great weekend!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Finished or Not Friday.