Poncho Madness

I love these ponchos... so much that every girl I know got one for Christmas. They are quick and fun to make, and fun to wear. My daughter wants to wear hers all the time, no matter what the weather.

Plus I love , Love, LOVE varigated yarn... it makes each one unique and fun without trying!

Here is my latest one now for sale in my Bella Jane Bibs Etsy shop.

Another Quilt Top fromThe Basement

Here's another quilt I finally got around to quilting. Why is it that piecing the top is so much more fun than quilting it?

The teddy bear theme was inspired by my sister-in-law who collects all things bear.

The color scheme was inspired by the teddy bear fabric. So you see it's all relative (no pun intended!)




I love the scrapiness of this quilt, There is something so satisfying about creating a quilt almost entirely out of left over fabrics.

I love knowing that I salvaged some scrap of fabric from the trash and made something functional and beautiful out of it.

Plus there is always the challenge of working an ugly fabric into a quilt and making it look way better than it did alone.

I guess that goes along with my philosophy of art as function and function as art. Or maybe I'm just a pioneer woman at heart, or I'm just cheap (my husband is nodding in the background).

Here is a link to the finsihed quilt in my Etsy shop if you'd like to see more photos. Scrappy Teddy Bear Quilt

Thanks!

Thanks to On The Dot Creations for featuring my space ship photo album on her blog today!

http://onthedotcreations.typepad.com/onthedotcreations/2008/07/to-the-moon.html

Custom Bibs

I've been making custom order bibs out the wazoo lately, but they are so much fun. i love creating things that I know other people are going to use and love.

Why did this take me so long?

I've always considered myself a borderline techie. I like to figure out how to do stuff like html code for fun. Yes that's sick I know. So the other day as I was photographing fabric for a client's quilt it suddenly struck me..."Why not use close up photographs of the fabrics to construct a computer mock up of the blocks to give the client an idea of what the finished quilt will look like?"

I mean DUH! How long have I been doing this for? But I'm excited because it opens so many new avenues for myself and designing quilts. I can try out color combos and patterns without having to commit. So here is what I came up with...

BLOCK 1

BLOCK 2

New treasury

Make sure you check out Morgan's new photography shop...her stuff is awesome. She inspired this treasury, fair dinkum!

Fabric Photo Albums

I've been adding some more photo albums too...

Space Aliens

Starry Math Genius

50's Retro Space Boy

Celestial Time Traveler Quilt

Finally got this one finished! It is one of the many quilt tops I found in the basement just waiting to be finished... Click here for the etsy listing http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10404411

This quilt is for our etsyFAST March challenge - Fairy Tales. Although this may be more mythology than fairy tale, it reminded me of the stories of all the gods and goddesses that lent their names to the zodiac chart. My favorite has always been the story of Orion and the scorpian; my favorite constellation and my zodiac sign! To see other etsyFAST entries enter etsyfast or marchchallenge in the item tag line.

I know the second photo is horribly crooked, I've been waiting for another sunny day to photograph it again.

Purplicious!

Thanks to Ohio Crochet Lady for featuring my Hearts Delight Baby Quilt in her latest treasury.

Another Midnight Treasury

This time featuring other EtsyFAST Quilters

Number Match Quilt

I finished off this cute quilt for my mom to send to her great niece for her birthday. Originally I was going to sell it in my shop but mom grabbed a hold of it before it was even finished!

It consists of two pre-printed panels. The first you sew into a quilt, the second you sandwich with a stiffening agent (I used Pellon fusible Decor Bond) and then you can use it as a matching game with the quilt.

The stuffed block was just some left over fabric from the panel that I didn't know what else to do with it!

Too cute! I'm glad I bought enough fabric to make another set!

Experimenting with my camera's micro feature...

Two Treasuries at Once!

I'm in two treasuries at once, and both for quilts... go me, go me! o.k. I'm done ;D



Thanks to North Star Alpacas for including me in her fine EtsyFAST collection! She is by the way incredibly cool and raises her own alpacas. Check out her blog for more about what she does.



And here is a link to the treasury check it out and click, click,click away. The more stuff you look at the higher up on the list we move and the more people see our stuff and want to buy it (know what I mean? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Not sleeping so I thought I'd snag another treasury

Springtime Pooh Quilt

I finished it! Here is the listing of the Pooh quilt that kept me binding, binding, binding!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9797314

and lightmyfire liked it so much she put it in her treasury! Thanks lightmyfire !

Binding

I got the baby quilt actually quilted in a matter of hours. Now the annoying part is putting the binding on by hand, which will easily take me another couple of hours ( in addition to the two hours I've already spent binding) , but honestly, I feel there is no other way to do it. Using a machine always makes the edges a little wavy and you can see the stiches on the other side, and frankly, it just looks bad.

So it's kinds weird that it takes me longer to sew an edge on, than it took me to quilt the entire quilt. But when you have a blanket, what's the first thing to wear out? Right, the edges. So I feel it's worth the time to stitch by hand so that the edges will last as long as the rest of the blanket.

But man is it a pain in the a$$.

Quilting Galore

I dug out a tote from the basement entitled "Unfinished Quilts". Inside I found no less than 7 quilt tops needing to be quilted.



Now quilting is generally not my favorite part, but I am excited about some of the tops because I forgot I made them. The first one I started is a really cute Winnie the Pooh baby boy quilt. I'm using lots of stars, swirls, and curlyques to quilt it.



Although it gave me such problems trying to quilt it the first time, that I quit and stuffed it away half finished. I'll admit it didn't start out so well this time either. After several broken threads and a snapped needle, I declared it was cursed and would kill the baby that it was bought for. That was late last night, I'm feeling a little more optimistic this morning.

Wow! Paper Couture

I am a fiber artist at heart, but these really wowed me (And technically paper is part of the fiber arts...). they were brought to my attention by River at Stone River Studios, another EtsyFAST member. Check out this website: Papier-Couture.com

I'm Addicted to Treasuries

But what else should I be doing when the insomnia rages? Here is my latest featuring some of Esty Fiber Arts Street Teams Finest. Makes me want to smoosh them all over my face!

Finished the 30 pouches...

Finally! They took longer than I thought, but maybe because I couldn't get more than 30 minutes at a time to work on them. But at last, here they are.

My February EtsyFAST Challenge

"Hearts Delight"

The title of this quilt could refer to the fabric, the fact that it's February, or that children are the heart's true delight. This quilt is for our etsyFAST February challenge - Unexpected Love. The challenge was to create something that wasn't traditional Valentine's (i.e. red or pink) but that conveyed love all the same.