September 2007

Does anyone have the answer? How do you make the decision to take a hobby and move it into a business? Do you sell other places than Etsy? Do you market your quilts all over when you really don’t know how to market at all? Do you make a business plan and apply for a small business loan to get the long arm machine that would be incredibly helpful? Or do you save and save and buy the machine eventually? Do you just keep as is and just have fun? Not that making this into a business wouldn’t be fun. But that is the question. Or, really, questions.

So, um, is there an answer? Anyone?

Black elephants? Why, yes, a black elephant.

Yesterday was our anniversary, not a business one, but a marriage one. After a wonderful dinner at Angus Barn we headed over to Barnes & Noble and dragged Sean into the crafts sections. I found a book on making sock animals and of course had to pick it up since Maeve is in love with her sock monkey.

So I tried on and I think it turned out really well for a first try. Much better than the first pair of shoes I made. I’m looking forward to using socks other than Sean’s so they don’t leave black fuzz balls all over me.

The fuzz balls are usually all over my carpet.

I hate black fuzz balls.

The all-powerful Dyson can’t even get black fuzz balls off the carpet.

Anyways, back to elephants. Here she is. I look forward to making another one and plan on looking for cool socks at Target tomorrow. I need to try another one. Maybe a monkey… or sheep… or bird… or mouse… or…

Yay! I’m featured in an Etsy Treasury for the first time.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=10077

aka Shoes.  Maeve-speak ya know.

I made a pair of fabric shoes for Liam.  The first pair was, uh, interesting.  The second pair was a bit better.  The third pair I thought had all the bugs fixed but in the end didn’t.  The fourth pair was perfect.  Now I’m addicted to making them.  They are so cute.  Wub.  Now, of course, I need to make them for Etsy.  The first two pairs went up tonight.

Ah yes. A Saturday morning too hot to go pull weeds. We all know what that means! Sewing! Yay!

As I was ironing my pieced Shangri-la (tee da) quilt top I noticed that the water squirty function was not squirting. If you pay $100 for an iron it really does need to squirt water. I blamed Sean. It’s always the husband’s fault when an iron breaks. He Googled around and found the solution. Water deposits.

So we took the iron to the kitchen sink and let it steam and steam ’til it didn’t steam no more. Lots of ick came out of it. It was rather disgusting. Rowenta recommends that you don’t run the Self Clean steam more than once a month. This is the first time I’ve used it in the three years I’ve owned the iron.

Afterwards we were left with lots of icky white dusty things on the bottom of the iron. It came off on the fabric since I certainly wasn’t about to clean the bottom of an iron with my hands (remember the burn? Irons are hot.).

I can finally squirt water on my quilts again. Yay!

Carolina Patchworks announced today that they will be bought out by a fierce competitor. The new CEO demands perfection, great designs, lots of kisses and hugs, milk and lots of burp cloths to spit up said milk. Here is our new leader lounging around.

At least he’s cute.

We hope this transition to the new management is smooth for everyone.

Empty Aurifil spools.  I should look into buying the stuff in bulk.

I must show Liam off too.  He’s an amazing little guy.  He apparently inherited the snarky gene from Sean and I.

Every sew-er has one right? Surely I can’t be the only person out there who has a hard time throwing away fabric. Something eventually can be made with it, right? Right?

One of the great things about patchwork is that you don’t need large pieces of fabric to make something. You just need lots of little pieces and a couple spools of thread.

I have a tendency(mm, k, like always) make a second project out of the scraps left over from the first project. If it’s a quilt, I’ll usually have enough scraps to piece the top together, but I’ll have to run over to the store to get more for the backing and binding.

While I’m at the store, I can never just get the backing and binding that I went in there for. I’ll have to check out the new fabrics that came in. Check out some more that I’ve had my eye one. Thirty minutes later, I’ve stacked 25 bolts of fabric on the cutting table and hope that the nice ladies will not come after me with their rotary cutters. The problem with patchwork? I’ll want every pattern in a line, but only a quarter yard. So the poor ladies stand there and cut. And cut. And cut. And hope that I don’t come back again tomorrow. Sometimes I do though. I just hope someone different is working.

So, undoubtedly I’ll overbuy for the binding and backing. I’ll have scraps leftover. I must do *something* with them. I can’t just toss it. So they go in my room. Where eventually something will be done with it. I swear.

This is my guest room. Isn’t it lovely? I’m sure I overbought. There is a lot of fabric in that little cubby. Let’s not discuss how many yards there is or tell Sean how much I spent because, well, he reads my blog too. Hi Sean! Now go back to working dear.

These aren’t really scraps as much as just fabric that I haven’t gotten to. The patchwork on top? That was going to be a dress for Maeve. I never finished it because I couldn’t get the top right and it bugged me. So I cut the top of the dress off and saved the bottom. I couldn’t throw away perfectly pieced patchwork.

Ah, some scrumptious baby knits. I love these things. And see the selvedges in the background? I can’t throw those away either. I’m going to make a quilt out of them. I saw it on someone else’s blog and well, now I just have to make one too.

Ah, yes, the beautiful bin of ribbons. And leftover fabrics underneath. They are everywhere.

See, if you use a really narrow depth of field when taking photos, you can’t *really* see how much fabric is up there. Excellent.

The pile under the window. There are actually a couple quilts that need to be quilted in that stack. I’ll get right on that.

Crikey. More quilt tops that need quilting.

I got this silly idea to organize scraps into big Ziplocs, dividing them up by lines. Great idea. I doubt it will last that long. Why you ask?

Need I say more?

This is how small a piece of fabric has to be in order to get thrown away.

Yes, I just posted a picture of my trash can. I actually at one point had an Etsy packaging idea using the long, skinny strips. Go ahead and roll your eyes now.

You think that’s all?

And there are more. I’m sure. Buried under other scraps.

I thought about destashing on Etsy. It seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, I was going to have to go into the Supplies section. They sell fabric there. I don’t need more. I don’t need more. I don’t need more. Go ahead and laugh.

I think it came out kinda cute.  It was weird to make something that didn’t include batting or quilting.  I didn’t think that was allowed.  I’m going to post it tonight.  Now to figure out a price.

A sewer is where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live. I, contrary to popular belief, am not a TMNT.

One who sews is a sew-er. We are sew-ers. A sewer is smelly. Nasty. Icky. You’d really have to put a disclaimer in your Etsy listings if you were a sewer. Some people might object to the smell.

It will be in the low 60s tomorrow morning when Maeve goes to school. Not quite warm enough for shorts but she has no cheap-enough-for-preschool pants. Most parents would just go to Old Navy or Target and pick something up. I have to make everything more difficult of course. And didn’t remember she had no pants until after dinner tonight.

Sean had rejected a couple of knit shirts that I had bought him and I never got around to returning them. They were sitting on the floor of my room because as a sew-er, I couldn’t throw away what was essentially good fabric. Any guesses what I did? Well, I didn’t have a pants pattern, so I pretty much made her a really long pair of shorts.

So Maeve now has a pair of pants made out of a Hanes Mens T-Shirt. At least I sewed some ribbon on the sides to make them look slightly girly. And the best part? The ribbon matches her uniform t-shirt. Excellent.

Or maybe I should have gone to Target this weekend.

Thread. It’s beautiful. Sometimes I’ll just sit there and gaze at the all the different colors. I wonder how many blogs have a thread category.

All cut up. Laid out. Stacked up. Now I just have to sew it, quilt it and bind it.

The first beautiful day in months. Cool, crisp air. No humidity. Are you sure we’re still in NC? Maeve and I went off to enjoy the morning at the Duke Gardens.

My little photographer in training.

Cue Little House on the Prairie music.

Need I say more?