{*New & A Give Away*}

I'm going to try very hard not to be too wordy tonight! I'm going to address shop changes, FAQs, custom orders and more "shop talk" on Wednesday. I did get a chunk of orders done this weekend, but my serger needs a quick visit to the shop tomorrow. In more good news, if you are a frequent modernacorn pad buyer, I'm now including coupons for FREE SHIPPING in your orders as my way of saying THANK YOU!!!!!

SO! On to more good stuff!!!!

Firstly, I've made some fantastic new pads. And I've stocked the shop full of them!!! Get them while you can!!!

These pads are simply *fantastic*xten! Instead of being backed with antipill fleece, they are backed with super high quality (Amy Butler, Moda, Kona) quilters 100% cotton! Woo hoo!

What does this mean?

This means the pad is more breathable, making it a great choice for upcoming spring and summers warm days! They are EXTREMELY thin, great for wearing under your favorite shorts and skirts! They can even be ironed as long as you avoid the snaps!!! Sweeeeeet! Also, if you want too, you can wear the solid cotton side up against the skin or the cute patterned fabric! The choice is totally yours! YEEEEESSSS!!!! *jumps up and down!!!*

::Enter some Frank Period Talk::

Anti-pill fleeces main purpose in a cloth menstrual pad is its moisture resistant properties, which are great if you need to wear a pad for an extended amount of time, it'll help protect you if you can't get to the bathroom to change it. However, it also doesn't breathe, causing some women to sweat (myself included). Plus it makes a thicker pad...BOOO!!!!

Enter 100% cotton! WOO HOO! With 100% cotton backed pads, you mainly just have to "know your flow" and your own schedule, if you change your pad often, you won't have a problem with these pads. If you tend to go several hours without changing, they might not be for you, unless you have a lighter flow. I tend to change my pad each time I use to the bathroom and had no problems with cotton backing, I even made some overnight pads with cotton, no problem either, I believe I slept 8 hours that night, lol. If your concerned about leaking, but really want to try these, I suggest the same thing I do to cloth newbies, wear the pad around the house to get a feel for it!! The shape and core (absorbent part of the pad)  are still the same, one layer of organic 100% cotton fleece, two layers of bamboo fleece! I think your realllllly going to like these and become hooked on cotton!!!!

As an incentive to try them and to kick off a new product....

I'm giving two pads away!!!

YAYYYY!!!!! All you have to do is comment to this post and this post only by NOON PST Wednesday March 25th! At that point, I'm going to use random.org to generate two winners using their website! YAY!!!! At some point Wednesday night I'm going to post with the winners names and you'll have to email me your names, if the people don't email me, then I'll draw numbers again!!! Which pad you win is a total surprise, but it will be either Heather Ross Mendocino or Tina Givens Treetop Fancy!!!! Either pad is GORGEOUS and hey, it's FREE! International folks are more than welcome to join as well! The more people who comment, the merrier and there is more of a chance for more giveaways!

The catch?

You have to tell me your FAVORITE or INFAMOUS PMS CRAVING!!!!! For me? It's anything sweet and salty. Chocolate covered pretzels? I'm THERE!

***Contest CLOSED!!! I'll be announcing the winners later tonight!!! Thanks so so so much for playing along!!!! Check back to see if you've won!!!***

{*Info About Update*}

(sneak peak of some liner fabrics)

Hey Gang!

I'm currently working on a whole ton of great things for the shop, a few wet bags, a ton of liners, plus of course pads. Combined with a whole slew of custom orders. Unfortunately I'm going to have to push back the update and make it either Tuesday or Thursday evening. I'm pretty sure Mr.McPorkchop & I both have a stomach bug. Ew. xten.

I am so so so so sorry! I'm holding 5-6 customers pads right now for combined shipping, if you'd rather I pop them in the mail for you tomorrow so you don't have to wait, please please please please don't hesitate to email me. If you don't mind waiting, I'll post again with a more concrete time of the next update.

Also, I've gotten several emails and etsy convos about a pad maker who has started selling "look-a-like" pads on etsy. I'm so thankful that you all are keeping an eye out for me. Yes, the pattern is a tracing and yes, it upsets me very much. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it yet. But thank you so much for all your kind words and support.

I have gotten a lot of great new fabrics this weekend, plus I washed and preshrunk several yards of bamboo and cotton fleece, so once my stomach calms down, this little house is going to turn into a factory of pad goodness! If I hold off until Thursday to update, chances are the update is going to be pretty big, which I know would make quite a few of you very happy ;) OH! And I was able to get more Mendocino Mermaid fabric in blues! YESSS!!!!

I'm pretty excited about a new book I got, well, it was a gift with a coupon, but I got Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. Wow. Absolutely gorgeous book. Very funny story, I had some great fabric, several yards, on Saturday night I pulled out my old sewing machine and brought it into my bedroom with the intent of sitting on my bed and sewing sleep pants from a pattern in the book. It was a great sewing night, my bed provided lots of cutting space, I was listening to some guns and roses, I had my favorite pine candle burning, Mr. McPorkchop was doing the dishes, primo crafting conditions! Well, low and behold, I made them and they were terribly tight, not fitting at all. I was pretty bummed out, especially because I made a size large and knew I was making them with a lot of ease. This morning I'm cleaning up some books and stuff so I could sew in my nook, came across the patterns and the pattern I'd cut out, low and behold, I cut all four pieces...out of JUST the front leg pattern, not the front and BACK leg patterns. Nice right?! DOH!

To finish it off, I royally screwed up my knitting! BOO! I need to take out a row, but I'm kinda scared too!

OH! And I've been having really good fabric kharma lately. My friend Joelene mailed me some Robert Kaufman sprinkle fabric! And I found some swell fabric for Megan that she'd been looking for! I love when fabric makes me and other people happy.

Also, it was nice to read everyones comments regarding allergies, it's good to know I'm not the only one!!!

Argh. Ick. I think we are going to run to the store for some saltines >:(

{*Secrets Revealed!*}

Ok! Well, its time to spill my guts!!! If you follow me on twitter you know my secret...but...

Mr. McPorkchop & I are screen printing at home!!! Soooo excited!!! We have hemp grocery totes and organic cotton produce bags on their way, as well as a whole slew of drawings! YAYAYYY!!!!

We were going to do a traditional set up using this new line of ecofriendly silkscreen supplies we've been planning this for about 6-9 months but I've been on the limb about the whole thing, the space needed for an exposing unit, the fact that we are extremely tight on space in general was a huge thing. We've been researching, researching, researching. Plus our home is extremely humid and I was worried the screens would never ever dry and we wouldn't have a place to stash them so they could be left alone. >:(

When I first saw the info for yudu I was a little on the edge. I should probably mention that I took printmaking for 5 years in college and took less than half a semester of silkscreening before deciding that college wasn't for me right now, but I fell in love with silkscreen. I love all printmaking in general, although admittedly, I'm poor at it and a better painter. But I love love love it. But yudu seemed kinda...meh to me. I was worried it was going to be a shoddy way of bringing silk screen to the masses and undermining silk screen artists in general. But thats a different rant for a different time ;)

Then it kinda started making more and more sense, less space, all in one unit, ecofriendly, no harmful chemicals, did I mention less space?! So we took the plunge and got one!

Ordering the unit was no problem, I bought it online at JoAnns for 40% off plus shipping. It was supposed to arrive today, but showed up early on Wednesday. No problem! We found a super rad table locally at Arcata Exchange, hilariously when we tried to put the table in our vehicle, I tried to remove the sunshade and ended up conking myself in the head, losing my glasses and giving myself a goose egg!!!Yay!!! >:(

The real fiasco has been supplies. My local JoAnns doesn't carry them, which makes sense, its a small JoAnns. So on the 27th of February I ordered every available color of ink, emulsion remover, stop out, registration panels, the whole shabang from JoAnns store front on amazon.com! Randomly starting on the 4th of March, I started getting refund notices. Essentially, they were selling items they never had in stock. :( So amazon gives me 15% off my next purchase...excluding yudu. Wait? What? So I called JoAnns and got the run around, all I'd like is a rain check, I got the supplies for 40% off, they over sold them and/or never had them in stock in the first place, so I don't think its too unreasonable to ask for a rain check, can you tell I've been reading a lot of the Consumerist? After being extremely polite and biting my tongue, I got the rain check, but they have no idea when the supplies will ever be in stock again. I look online *daily* and it appears most sites only have pre-order options or prices through the roof (double retail + shipping). I sent an email to Provo Craft asking if and when the supplies will be available mainstream. I've read on various sites Michaels is supposed to be carrying it in mid-March as well. No response from them. I don't mind waiting for supplies at all, but it seems silly that they sell the kit with no emulsion remover! Odd right? Since I have a ton of silkscreen ink here, I might try printing with my own ink, they say not too, but I might be willing to give it a go.

Once we test print and get a feel for it, I'll write a review and compare it to print gocco and traditional silkscreen to the best of my ability!

I'm the most excited about being able to print my own fabrics. I have yards and yards of organic cottons here that are just dying to be printed on! YAY!!!!

Also, I think I've been spending too many days up late and pushing myself because I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick again..booo!!!! I was up all night working on building our table plus sewing custom orders. So today I got through 75 emails and etsy convos, but I still have about 15 more etsy convos to get too, so please please pretty please be patient with me!!! I also didn't get a chance to run to the post office today, normally I print postage online but my printer is acting odd, so I might run to office max tonight for a new cartridge, so if you've bought something from me this week, it's going out first thing in the morning! Yay!!!!!

Phew! Thank goodness it's Friday!!!!

Do you have any fun plans for the weekend? I'm sewing sewing sewing, I need to finish some custom orders and stock the shop!!! :)

{*OmNomNOM!*}

So Wednesdays are my favorite day of the week. I'm honestly not sure why! I mean, each day is new and different, but Wednesdays are just my day!!!

Last night I made the most gorgeous lasagna ever. I'm so glad I twitter because I got all my cooking tips from my pals and its so rad having so many people chatting away!

I roasted some veggies, ohhh veggies, I roasted kale, endive, spinach, bella mushrooms, olives, pinole nuts, yellow squash, japanese eggplant...basically, I cleaned out my fridge. I tossed all the veggies together with some super nice evoo, sea salt and black&white fresh pepper. I couldn't stop grabbing the crispy kale pieces and nibbling on them as I was assembling the lasanga! lol! I used some left over homemade marinara sauce that I had tucked in the freezer and some ready to bake whole wheat pasta sheets!

Not the best photo, but you get the idea!!! I love the size of this dish, it was perfect for 6 serving sizes! Rad! Today it tasted better than yesterday, the roasted flavors of the veggies totally came through! YUM!!!

So I have so much to share with you but I don't know where to begin!!!

Well, lets see, the shop is updated with some very pretty new things! I got some very rad mail today, but don't have photos of it yet, so that can wait..hmmm..ok moving on :)

Ok, first off, Shanna, has written a super rad review of my reversible liners!!! Totally check it out because its a really honest review and that's so so so helpful. Lots of people don't talk about cloth, don't want to think about cloth, cloth just eeks them out and thats *totally* understandable so it's nice to see women being open and talking about it! Thank you so much Shanna!

So, I've talked about how I'm doing Oh, Fransson's Quilt-Along right? Well I'm totally torn on fabric choices! People are already starting to post photos in the flickr pool and I'm so over whelmed! I can't decide if I should use fabrics from my stash, scraps or buy some new stuff locally! I know that I don't want to buy a bundle of all the same fabrics, I don't like anything too matchy matchy, but at the same time, THIS IS SCARY STUFF! This is my first full sized quilt folks!!!! These Three Inspire Me! Choices choices choices!!! I totally have tons of great fabrics, but can I make a rad quilt from them? hmmm...remains to be seen!!!!

Ok! I'm off to sew a bit more before bed! Have a great night everyone! Xoxo

{*Love It!*}

What a DAY!!!!!!!!

Firstly, thank you so much everyone for all your get well soon wishes! You all are so so so nice to me!!!

I woke up feeling ok-ish, so I got to work right away, I got done a super super fun custom order, three pads, I got to chose the fabrics, she said she liked jewel colors, big flowers and birds! AWESOME! I'm super jazzed with how cute these came out! I also ironed and got ready the fabrics for tomorrows custom orders! Score for getting stuff done!

I feel like I haven't left the house in years, even though it's really only been a few days and I needed some spray starch and a free motion foot for my machine, so we visited my favorite local fabric store, Scottie Dog Quilts, here in Eureka! Ok, I adore this shop to pieces, it's owned by a mother daughter team who are just the sweetest most knowledgeable ladies ever!!! I went in thinking "Ok, Amanda..steady...steady...don't sneeze on anyone...spray starch and leave..."! I ended up being "HOLY CRAP NEW AWESOME FABRICS!!!! *Sniffle. Sneeze. Sniffle*". I was so so so excited, they had some of the best new stuff ever, I think you can tell by my stack that I'm feelin early spring, greens and pinks! Hopefully these fabrics will turn into pads mighty fast! Also, Liz offered to teach me english paper piecing! How insanely cool is that? Once I'm not sneezing on every one I'm totally going to take her up on it!

So you all know by now that clearly, when I'm sick, I still want to build stuff and I generally can't even begin to sit still that long. I was up late a few nights ago as I mentioned before, sneezing, as always and I got so inspired by Oh, Franssons doll quilt from sewmamasew! I decided then and there that a doll quilt can totally be made while I was sick! Even better, I could make it in bed.

Quilters out there, don't worry, I can hear your laughter.

I started by grabbing my scrap bag of fabrics, I save all my pad scraps so I can make stuff from them. I cut 20 3 inch squares, by hand, in bed. See the ones that are wonky? Yup. In bed. No rotary cutter, clearly. Oops!

I then started to sew by hand the top row of fabrics. Also, clearly. Hahaha. Not so good. So I put it aside until this morning because I'm honestly not good at hand sewing. AT ALL! I stitched all my rows together with the machine and..viola! I made a mistake! See that bottom square where its 4 linens in a block? Yeah. Mistake. I need to take that apart. I'm going to do the sashing in dark grey corduroy, piece together my own binding from scraps and then back it in plaid shirting or wool. I got a free motion foot today and if it fits, I'm going to try and quilt it that way, but the idea of stitch in the ditch by hand sounds kinda nice too.

Tonight Mr.McPorkchop & I are going to go through a years worth of paypal and etsy receipts for my taxes. Goody! I got some new medicine at Long's so hopefully I'll feel a little better because this weekend we are moving around my sewing space in preparation for my top secret new project! And because my fabric collection, I don't know why, is out growing its space.

Go figure ;)

Really though, I'm sure I'll be asleep on the couch in five minutes, I'm B.E.A.T. Fabric shopping takes a lot out of you ;)

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!!! xoxoxox!!!