Hello!

Welcome to my blog! I’m new to this so bear with me while I find my way.  I’ll be discussing my many (omg so many) craft projects in progress, the materials I’m using, and the craft stores or websites I’ve visited (and any deals they happen to be running at the moment).  Where available, I plan on providing links to all products used (books, tools, materials, information, etc) so you can find them for your own use.   In regards to the mentioned stores, there are tons of craft stores both physical and online, not to mention stores like Wal-Mart and Amazon.com, where you can get craft supplies; however, I’m only mentioning the ones I personally use on a regular basis.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Oops…Hi!

So, yeah.  Kinda horrible at keeping up with the blog thing, in case you can’t tell from the 8 month gap in posts *facepalm*.  I swear, I meant to come back.  Well, I hope everyone is doing well and is looking forward to summer.

For some flashback stuff, I had my family friend order a bunch more bags for Christmas so I was busy making pyramid bags for a little while at the end of last year.  Some of my husbands co-workers also ordered a couple items, so I made a couple crochet hat and cowl sets and some some coasters and catch-all boxes.  I also decided to make Christmas presents for all my family since I was kind of broke but had lots of fabric (probably part of the reason I was broke lol).  I also learned to do inset zippers and add snaps to projects and have made a couple new projects besides my regular projects.  Oh, and I made a purse for my mom which was definitely a new and different (and trying) project.  I don’t know if I’ll ever make it again, but it turned out well.

Promised Pictures

Since I’m about to leave town for a few days, I figured I better get a post in before I miss another week.  In one of my last posts I promised pictures of things I’d been working on or had completed so here they are.  Obviously, this post is going to be very pic heavy, so depending on your internet connection or browser, you may need to take that into account.

First off is the wall hanging I kept mentioning that I gave to my mom.  This was made using the exploding block pattern I found from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I used squares from two different charm packs, one lights (Butter Churn Basics) and one darks (Kim’s Favorites), and while they weren’t to my tastes, I figured she’d probably like it.  Aside from my bag projects, this was the first big project I made and I definitely considered it a learning process (basting spray and a walking foot are definitely going to be used in my future large quilting projects).

Exploding Block Layout

Exploding Block Top

Mitered Corners

Exploding Block Wall Hanging/Table Topper

For my little fabric catch-all baskets, I’ve actually made quite a few now as I had someone buy six of them (*squees and dances*).  As mentioned the last time, these are super easy to make, I think it takes me about 15 minutes to make each one.  I got the original pattern from The Crafty Gemini, but I’ve actually made a semi-tutorial on how I make my modified version.

For my charm block purse, I’ve made one and have a second one in pastels in process.  These are using the 30s Playtime 2017 Charm Pack.  Once again, not to my tastes, but since I’m looking at selling them, they don’t have to be.  This is another pattern from Missouri Star which shows how to make three bags from one charm pack.

And I finally finished my flying geese log cabin block, also from Missouri Star, though I have no idea what I’m going to wind up doing with it.

For my paper crafting projects, I’ve made little journal books as well as the magnets and basic little card packs.

I have a couple new projects I’ve tried out, so look for the post talking about those coming up soon.

Tutorials mentioned:

• 3×3 Card Sets – by lyriclover810
• Pocket Notepad Holders – by lyriclover810
• Mini Notepad Holder w/ Pen – by Schell Fabian
• Fabric Catch-All – by Crafty Gemini Creates
• Exploding Block – by Missouri Star Quilt Company
• Self Binding Quilt w/ Mitered Corners – by Lorena’s Quilting
• Flying Geese Log Cabin Block – by Missouri Star
• Charm Square Purse – by Missouri Star
• Fabric Catch-All Semi Tutorial – by ME!

Fabric Haul and Mystery Pack Review Videos

Hey, everyone! Hope you all have a great week.  As mentioned last time, I did a video about the giant fabric haul I had at the end of July, which became an adventure in itself.  I actually wound up recording it twice as the first time had no sound (apparently my video program was defaulting to some speakers that didn’t exist?); then I kept trying to find a way to edit the video and that was nothing but aggravation.  I never did find a good program to use, so if any of you have any recommendations, please leave a note and let me know.  Well, I finally got it edited to a point I wasn’t completely unhappy with and got it posted to YouTube, so you can go see all the stuff I came home with here.

Weekend Fabric Haul and My First Sale

So this past weekend I visited my mom at a quilt retreat at Camp Blanding in Starke, FL.  It was my first time going to something like that and it was interesting to see – one giant room filled with tables set up with various sewing machines and projects.  And wow, the projects some of these ladies were working on were amazing.  Well, along with the work area, they had a section set aside to sell…stuff…tools and patterns and material that I guess people didn’t need anymore.  So, of course, having several tables of random fabric, I had to go poke around.  I was actually really good and didn’t get that much, but they had a stuff a bag section (and you have no idea how much stuff I can cram into a quart size bag *insert evil grin and cackle here*)  and fabric by the pound, which was actually quite a bit of fabric for just over 2 pounds.  And they had a pack that someone was selling with 4.5yds of Robert Kaufman metallic accented fabric that was just gorgeous for only $10!  Not quite sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but I’ll figure something out.

La Vie en Rose and Why I Hate Directional Fabric

Since I’m way behind on my flashback series, I thought I better get caught up.  This is about the third tote I made, dubbed the Pink Paris Bag.  This is the same San Clemente pattern as my first two totes but amended slightly due to the directional quality of one of the fat quarters…which leads to the second half of my title.  I had picked out these 6 fat quarters that were almost all from the same line, got them home and ironed, laid them out to begin cutting…and realized that one of them wasn’t going to work.  Why would this fat quarter not work when it was actually sized correctly (unlike some of the ones I’ve gotten)? Because the pattern was going horizontally across the fabric instead of vertically.  Now you have to understand that the bag pattern gives you specific cutting instructions for each fat quarter in order for you to have enough pieces to assemble the thing.  The problem I ran into with the pattern running in the wrong direction from what I needed, I couldn’t get the right size pieces.  I wound up fixing this eventually, after several hours of debating on just going to get another piece of fabric to replace it or adjusting other parts of the pattern, by deciding to just make one of the interior pockets smaller.  It worked, the bag came out well, I experimented with zig zag stitching, but it was my first exposure to the perils of directional fabric.

 

Record Keeping and Flying Time

Um, oops? I seriously did not mean to let three whole weeks slip by before posting again.  So to catch things up for the past couple weeks – I really haven’t done too much craftwise but I have been busy doing record keeping.   To start with I found a bookkeeping program called Wave which is actually free for most of the features, always a big plus.  I will say the program does take a little getting used to, and it would be much easier if you have a separate business checking/credit/saving account instead of using your personal account for both purposes.  It gives you the option to split your transactions into different categories like personal (and various fields under there), materials, tools, shipping, etc which you are then able to make reports based on your information for tax purposes and just general tracking purposes.  Only problem is that you will have to manually enter any cash transactions as well as any transactions processed on accounts you don’t have linked to the program and that credit/debit layout is not quite intuitive, it’s basically the reverse of what you think things should be I think.

Holidays and Sales

Hi, everyone.  Hope you all had a safe and happy 4th of July holiday.  I’ve been listening to fireworks go off since Friday so I can’t really say I’m sad that the holiday is over though LOL.  One thing that’s been killing me is all the sales EVERYWHERE! There’s so many things I want…and so little money to buy them with.  I know, you’re all probably in the same boat too.  But moderation can be a good thing; at least I keep telling myself that LOL.  Besides, I need to finish the projects I’ve already bought materials for anyway…that way I have room for new stuff.

Slow Week

So this past week has been kind of slow on the actual crafting front, but I’ve been doing a lot of backroom type stuff like watching videos for ideas for new projects, looking up business and tax information (such fun *headdesk*), even Twitch‘d cutting fabric up for a couple projects I worked on later in the week (you can listen to me fuss at my cat who was tripping out the entire time too LOL).

Second Tote and More Blocks

*Cue flashback music* So, after the success of my first tote, I had to make another.  And because I’m incapable of focusing on just one project at a time, I was also playing around with some other blocks that I thought looked really interesting and wanted to try.  My second tote (from the same pattern as the first) was made using a fat quarter bundle that I got from Joann’s and some yardage that I’d been sitting on for a while that I finally decided to use.  It’s been so long I don’t even remember where I bought it, if it was a remnant, what size I asked for if it wasn’t (I didn’t measure before I started cutting it up), or anything.  But the fabric was cute and matched really well with the fat quarters in the bundle that I had bought at some point and never got around to using.  Also, the bundles only have five fat quarters so I would have had to buy another one anyway to make the bag.  As it was, since I wanted to use the yardage fabric that was essentially a type of panel, I opted to have a solid front and back instead of the pieced stripes like the first bag so wound up with extra fabric left over from the fat quarters to use in other projects.

Solid Panel San Clemente bag

Interior Solid Panel San Clemente bag

Busy Day, Lazy Day

So, Sunday was actually a really productive day.  I completed the bag that was from the sewing pattern, which is a folding market tote, and I am never never making it again LOL. To be fair, there’s probably nothing wrong with the pattern, I just suck at understanding them, as I mentioned before.  The bag itself wasn’t really that difficult, the most complicated part of the body of the bag was attaching the bias tape around the handles, but the pocket panel gave me so many issues.  Once again, I think it was because I just didn’t understand what the pattern was telling me to do.  I’m also not thrilled with trying to sew around curves, it gives me a lot of issues but that may just be a lack of practice.  I might take a stab at a similar type of bag at some point but after making a couple changes to make it more… logical? accessible? understandable? to me.

Fold up market bag – closed

Fold up market bag