Welcome Giveaway

Hello and thank you for stopping by the Fabric Seeds blog. Fabric Seeds is my online fabric/quilt shop I recentely opened in March 2011. To celebrate the opening of my new store, I wanted to introduce myself and host my first giveaway.
My name is Sarah. I am a self-taught hand quilter. I am married, and have two young children. I was laid off from my airline job of 10 years,  one year ago, which also happened to be one month before I was due with my second child. I have been a stay at home mom since losing my job. When I got laid off, I had suggested to my family that I open a quilt shop. The thought had been toggeling in my mind for many months.
I made my first quilt when I was 18, with no clue what to do. I had always associated quilting with a much older generation, like my Grandma. I didn't know there was so many around my same age who quilted. I never would have thought I would be one of them. Working at the airline, I started out in reservations. Time passes slowly when you have a phone job. I needed something to help pass the time and reading was not always convenient. Quilting became my outlet.
My first quilt was (and continues to be) a learning experience. My sister in law had given my brother a quilt for their wedding. I remember thinking, I want to do that. It didn't look hard. But I really had no idea how to even make a quilt. I went down to the closest store that sold fabric, and started buying remnants. Didn't matter to me that I was picking up heavy weight home decor and corduroy, because I liked them and was going to make a quilt. A month or two later, still not knowing where to even start, my mom told me I had bought the wrong fabric. We went to the store together and bought a pattern book. Not even paying attention to size, I picked out a wall hanging that I was going to turn into a twin. Again, not knowing the difference in fabric quality, I bought half the fabric needed at Wal-mart for $2 a yard. I sure thought I found a good deal. The fabric was very light weight; so much so that you can see through it in the dark. The thread count must be ridiculously low, because those pieces of fabric are falling apart at the seam stitch. I was so proud of my first quilt. I doubled the size of cut pieces to make it wide enough. But I didn't want a square quilt, I needed it to be a twin; so I added another half of the quilt to the bottom. I now have a finished twin width with longer than king length. I still love my first quilt.
I have come a long way in my appreciation of quality fabrics, design and use of colors. I was so ambitious after making that first quilt; I immediately started making my own patterns, which I now hope to be able to publish as well. I love that there is always something new to learn in quilting. When I first joined the online quilting world a few years ago, I was amazed how many quilts one person could make in a year, start to finish. I was lucky if I could finish a quilt in a month or two. That's when I learned about machine quilting. I don't know everything there is to about quilting, I am still learning how to applique and machine quilting is not as easy as it looks. I do appreciate this fine art and try to perfect what I do know. I would love to share my talent and passion with you thru this blog and my store.
Before I move on to the giveaway, I just wanted to give you a little background on the name Fabric Seeds. My husband grew up in the greenhouse business and I grew up helping my Grandpa in his enormous garden. We now work the Farmers Market in the summer selling vegetable & herb plants for gardens and specialty container pots & hanging baskets. When I was trying to come up with a name and logo for my business, Fabric Seeds just made sense to me. After all, with out seeds, nothing can grow.

Okay, time for the giveaway. Since this is all very new for me, I don't have a gaggle of followers like most everyone else. So, you will have until midnight MDT on April 15 to enter. All entries recieved after midnight will be deleted.
I have at least one Chrysalis charm pack to giveaway. (Depending on the response I get from this, I have more packs to add.)

Here's how to enter:

Leave a separate comment for each entry.

one:

leave a comment about anything

two:

blog/tweet/facebook about this giveaway

come back and tell me you did (with a link too. I'd love to see it!)

three:

visit my shop and tell me something you like
about the site or products or whatever

four:

become a follower

Winner(s) will be selected by True Random Number Generator.

Winner(s) will have until April 22 to claim prize or a new winner(s) will be selected.

I know a lot of you have your profile set as 'no-reply'. I will not be able to contact you or reply to your comments if you are one. Please be sure there is a way to contact you, either in comment field or profile.

Thank You and Good Luck!

The contest is now closed!