Hey! I’m so excited today to be sharing about the new book, Spruce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Upholstery and Design by Amanda Brown and more importantly to be giving away a copy to you! Woo! I first met Amanda Brown this past August at ALT San Francisco and when she introduced herself and handed me her business card I was like oh my gosh I know about your shop! Her shop, Spruce, is located in Austin, TX where I lived for 4 years. I must have passed by the shop dozens of times and here I was meeting the owner, of course it’s after I’ve moved cities but it was still really cool. She was super sweet and I didn’t even know at the time she was in the process of writing a book.

I was contacted recently to review the book and give away a copy and immediately said yes! I have always been a pretty hands on gal but I never really considered upholstery. I absolutely love that she has created this book to make the idea of upholstery approachable to the average person. The pages are beautiful and beyond inspiring. I decided to complete the easiest project in the book but I’m already thinking about my next project and stepping it up a little.

I decided to make a knife-edge pillow case for one of my couch pillows. I have been wanting to do this forever and I just recently got my sewing machine sent to my new home, nice timing huh? I already had fabric waiting for just this purpose so I got right to work.

My finished pillow size was 23 1/2″ square so I cut to pieces of fabric that were 24 1/2″ square. I followed the instructions pretty closely with the exception of using the zipper foot or a single-welt cord foot when attaching the zipper. I left my regular sewing foot on the machine and made it work. I also salvaged the zipper from the previous pillow case for my project. I really like the contrast of the dark fabric and the bright red zipper.

The pillow took a very short amount of time to complete and turned out beautifully. Here it is with the other pillow that will soon be redone. The instructions were well written and I found the pictures quite helpful since I tend to be a visual learner. I can’t wait to tackle my next project.

Ready to win your own copy of the book and start some seriously awesome projects?! Enter to win below (US applicants only please)! If that isn’t exciting enough Storey Publishing is hosting an ugly chair giveaway on facebook. To enter find the ugliest chair you have and enter it and if you win you get an upholstery hand tool kit ($250 value), a $200 gift certificate for fabric from Spruce, a custom design recommendations from Amanda Brown, and a signed copy of the book! Holy cow! It’s got me on the lookout for a seriously ugly chair.

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Can I just say how proud I am of my dad?! A few years ago he founded Great Lakes Clean Water Organization to come up with a plan for keeping prescription and over the counter drugs out of the water and that’s when the Yellow Jug program was born. The program works with pharmacies to collect unwanted drugs to keep them out of our water. He started with 12 pharmacies in our area of northeast Michigan and has now expanded to over 270 pharmacies! Even though it began in Michigan this is an issue that concerns everyone everywhere.

Basically the program is doing really well. What I’m extra excited to share today is the documentary they just finished and is currently being aired on all PBS stations across Michigan. It has been in the works for a little over a year and it is now complete. If you’re interested to know more please do watch the video.

It means a lot for the organization but also for our family. My dad obviously put quite a bit of work into it and is also in the film. My brother is in the documentary picking up drugs but more importantly filmed quite a bit of the beautiful scenery in the film. I also played a small part. The image below, that was featured in the film, was taken by my brother after I drew on the rock while we were vacationing in the upper peninsula last fall (at the very early stages of the documentary). Also if you pay close attention you’ll catch a few glimpses of my Michigan necklace. Pretty cool! While I was home my family all sat together and watched the finished documentary right before it began airing on the PBS stations. Every one was pretty impressed with the quality and the emotion it conveyed. A couple of days later while my dad and I were in Marquette, MI on our mini UP vacation we arrived just in time to catch the documentary and watch it on tv for the first time. It was a pretty special moment and a little unbelievable. I captured a few still from the film because I was so excited.