Support Christine Haynes’ Kickstarter

THE PLAN: Hi, I’m Christine Haynes! I teach sewing class at The U.C.C. I teach all kinds of classes from beginner level projects like totes and pillows, to more intermediate projects like skirts, tops, and dresses. I also design clothing for women and I’d like to turn those designs into sewing patterns.

What is Kickstarter? Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects. Kickstarter is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR: Print house minimums is usually 1,000 pieces per style. While the cost per print isn’t that high, when you multiply it times 1,000 pieces, it gets costly really quick! And that’s just the printed patterns! I also need the instruction sheets and illustrations, as well as photos of the finished items for people to see what they’d be making. Once totaled, it will cost about $3,000 per design to launch a commercially available sewing patterns.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!: I have had successes with my business, but coming up with enough money to launch sewing patterns is beyond my means. I am literally a one woman operation. I do all the sewing, designing, writing, and everything myself, and while I’ve been doing all this work for the last few years, I’ve maintained a day job to keep things afloat. I know it’s too much for one woman to do, but I love it and am ready to see it to the next level! No donation is too small, honestly! If I don’t reach my fundraising goal, none of the pledges made by people get collected and I won’t get a dime. As you can see, every little bit does help!

CLICK THE PHOTO BELOW TO SEE CHRISTINE’S KICKSTARTER PAGE, WATCH HER VIDEO, DONATE AND SPREAD THE WORD!

As many of you probably saw on Facebook, we got in almost two dozen new Japanese fabrics, including several Melody Miller prints. I was checking out her blog, and was amazed at how personable and friendly she seems. These days pretty much everyone has some sort of blog, but I was struck at how much Melody Miller sounds like someone I’d want to hang out with. I know this is a bit of a shameless plug, but seriously, I have to admit I’m really digging her blog.

Three years ago I decided to make an Item Block pillow for my friend Devin. We were discussing the pillow and agreed that to be a proper item block, something needs to come out of it.

“Quillows” are quilts that fold into a pillow. When it’s a quilt, there’s a pocket on the back for your toesies, and when it’s a pillow the quilt is safely tucked away.

I can’t really resist pixel art. It’s just too cool. So I went a little bit crazy and decided to make a screen shot wall hanging as well. it’s about 60″ wide and 50″ tall. (Check out my little printout in the lower corner – I found a screenshot from the game and used Paint on my computer to make a map of all of the pixels.)

The bricks, bridge and axe are made up of 1/4″ pixels, and then Mario, Bowser, the fire ball, the hammers, and the lava are all 1/2″ pixels. (For the quilting nerds out there, the grey bricks and the bridge are all pieced and the lava, characters and weapons are all appliqued using Wonder Under.)

The one crucial Mario element that I couldn’t fit on the quilt was Bowser’s fireball, which was just too long to really sit happily anywhere on the quilt. So I went to Spoonflower.com, this incredible web site where you can upload images from your computer and they will print it out on fabric. I uploaded some tiny Bowser fireballs and used the fabric as the binding around the outside edge of the quilt, and as a sleeve on the back so that it can be hung on a wall.

In the process of making the screenshot wall hanging, I accidentally made a backwards Mario who was running away from Bowser, so I put him on a pillowcase with a green pipe on the back. I put the pillowcase zipper right on top of the green pipe so that you can take the pillow out of the pipe when you want to wash the pillowcase.

When my old purse died last year, my crafty conscience demanded I make myself a new one. I chose a fabric and a pattern that I had been eyeing for a while, and got this fabulous sling bag!

The super awesome thing I discovered while making this bag is that old plastic grocery bags are perfect for tracing your sewing patterns onto. I used a sharpie and an old Target bag, and now have pattern pieces which stand up to pin pricks and still fold up very nicely for going back into the envelope. I know other people who swear by freezer paper, and I believe them, but I’m pretty excited about my upcycled plastic bags.

Check out both the pattern and the fabric on our web store!

Scooters in Natural from EchinoCatalina Sling Pattern from Pink Sand Beach Designs

New fabric from Moda – we just got in both the It’s a Hoot! and the Hideaway collections, with Just Wing It on the way! I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel some pre-summertime pajama pants coming on with one of the bird stripes . . .

Check out the entire collections on our web store!

It’s a Hoot by Momo for Moda FabricsHideaway by Lauren & Jessi Jung for Moda Fabrics

Thinking back to our Kid’s Camp over summer, I can’t wait for this time around! I’m hoping we’ll see some familiar faces from last time, and new friends too, of course! Even though the week was a sticky vortex of glitter, glue, and googly eyes, I know I speak for all of us at The UCC when I say it was one of our favorite endeavors to date. There are few things cooler than seeing kids genuinely excited about making things. It’s inspiring to have students so eager to learn what we’re teaching, and to see how their imaginations make it their own. The crafts we’ll be doing with the kids this month are some of my personal favorites, and I can’t wait to see the kids creations and learn a thing or two from them in the process. If you’d like more information about the day camp, you can download our December class schedule or simply give us a call. Happy Holidays, stay crafty!