Today is the first day of school for our kids, and I'm just a little bit thrilled by everything I've been able to accomplish today. I mean, I miss the kiddos, but it was time for us all to have a little separation from each other.

As happy as I am to have everyone on a routine once again (and to have some time to think), I am lamenting the end of summer for one reason: I didn't get nearly the amount of creative projects accomplished that I had envisioned. Granted, I had a rather ambitious list that was pretty unrealistic, but I only managed to cross off one big project. I refinished a cabinet for our daughter's bedroom. Seriously, the thing took me all summer! I just couldn't ever seem to find a big chunk of time to work on it.

Here is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:



I especially love Joel's Aviary II Damask print in the background and the new knobs from Anthropologie:



Maybe one of these days I'll actually have the entire bedroom decorated, but there is still a lot to cross off on my list.

But really, you probably didn't care to read about my lack of summer productivity and were more concerned with finding out if you were chosen as one of the pattern winners, so here is the list of our lucky winners!:

#18 Angela: Vintage Flutter Dress

#25 Monica: Inflight Hobo Bag

#41 Melissa Ann: Meadow Spirit Skirt

#73 The Rx Quilter: Empire Maxi Dress

#110 Dawnica: Junior Meadow Spirit Skirt

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, and happy sewing to our winners!

Joel and I have been "missing in action" on this blog for a while. I wish we had some really good excuse, like “we spent the last two months on vacation in Hawaii”, or “we’ve been spending all of our extra time reading classical literature to our children”, or “we’ve been revamping our entire website, printing patterns, and finishing our studio space.”

Actually, that last one is true. We’ve been extremely busy, just not visibly so here on the blog. I’ve also been going through a weird nesting phase during the past month or so. Every room in the house is getting a major deep-cleaning and reorganization makeover. Maybe I’ll post photos in the near future once I’m completely done.

At the time of Quilt Market we promised to post the pattern and instructions for the Heirloom Quilt; it's finally up in the sidebar for download. I think this is my favorite quilt design of Joel’s. In fact, I’m making another one out of the Sapphire collection for our daughter Kirsten’s soon-to-be-made-over room. I’m really excited to get started in there!

With the new studio space almost complete, the website up and going, and patterns shipping we (and when I say “we”, I’m really saying “I”) should hopefully be more consistent in posting here because I have a lot of fun post ideas in store!

And, to celebrate the renewal of our blogging activity and our new sewing patterns, we'd like to give away one of each pattern, like the fabulous Empire Maxi Dress shown below. Leave a comment to be entered for the giveaway, and we'll announce the winners some time next week!