brand new for fall!

check out the new Echino "Chelsea" pillow
in the shop!

once i can get around to it, i'll be heading to the store for some new quilt batting and some pillow forms, to stock up for fall/winter. i'm doing two custom projects this fall (a car/truck quilt for a 4 year old boy, and a new baby's nursery quilt and two matching pillows), but still hope to get some new items up in the shop when i can. i have a Heather Ross Far Far Away quilt in the works right now (blocks are sewn up), and about five or six others planned out awaiting their turns (little red riding hood themed, heather bailey's fresh cut, and erin michael's lush ...to name a few!). so stick around. schoolwork & the custom work will be at the top of the list, but i can't wait to create some new things to share with everyone!

goals!

i very rarely write such personal entries as this, but i find its nice to share from time to time things that may be related to my sewing business, or just life in general. you never know who may be going through something very similar or who may have some great advice or opinions! please please feel free to share!


as the summer is dwindling on and is more than half over (i can't believe it! we've barely had a summer this year as far as weather goes..), i find myself getting ready to make my goals for the upcoming year. my boyfriend starts his school year in about a month, he's in the process of getting his second bachelor's degree (has one in biology) in engineering); i've been graduated from college for almost five years now (my original degree in sociology). we both work full time at the hospital, and although our jobs are getting us by, neither of us completely enjoy what we're doing, and hope to move up to bigger and better things.... and we're both trying to get on our paths for the future (which will hopefully include buying a house).


some of my goals for the next year include:

* continuing to work on paying down my credit card debt (which i had racked up living on my own for the first three+ years) - i have a tendancy to do really well and pay off a bunch, and then slip back and add to it. i've since cut up all but two of my cards, and have a running tally of what i owe where. it can be frustrating not having large lump sums to put towards paying each bill at a time, and resorting most times to paying only the minimum monthly balance.

* i have recently decided to open a destash fabric shop on etsy to try to sell though some of the fabric i have stashed in my studio that i may not want to use as readily. a great way to make space, and a little money! i have always liked to share fabrics with friends and others who may love to sew as much as i do. it has given me an oppurtunity tmae room for some fabrics i've been looking to collect, and also to put some money into my savings a tiny bit at a time (it all adds up). in conjunction with this, i have decided to do my best not to buy any more fabric, unless absolutely necessary (batting, backing fabrics, and sashing fabrics are not included in this, as i tend to need more of those with each project!) - i have a great stash of fabrics, and plenty to work with for the time being!

* i have a big goal to actually try to sew more! a couple of years ago, when i was working retail, my schedule was a bit more condusive to having my second job of sewing. now that i work a regular 9-5, i find when i get home from the OR i am often times completely unmotivated to sew and really just want to put my feet up on the sofa infront of HGTV or Food Network ;) ...so, my goal, starting this week, is to schedule myself for a couple hours at least a couple of nights a week up in my studio. after the last holidays, my shop was dramatically (and happily) depleated of quilts. sooooo, i need to bulk back up! i have a tendancy to start a bunch of projects and never finish them -- so i'm going to start with some of those unfinished projects and get them up on etsy. then, i have a whole bunch of projects i am dying to start! and as usual, i'll keep things updated here with works in progress and finished items!

* my biggest goal is to hopefully go back to school next fall. i'm not ready for this school year, as i still have some planning to do and funds to find ;) but i am hoping for an online bachelor's program (that will make two of us with two degrees each!) in interior design. i have had a love of interior design since i was a teenager -- i always used to rearrange my bedroom much to my mom's chagrin, and my college dorm rooms were always way more organized and coordinated and decorated than my friends' rooms. i have had so much fun living in apartments being able to design my spaces, and most of the time on a very limited budget. most importantly, if i cannot be fully supported by my sewing, i need to have a job where i am happy and doing something i love. i enjoy my hospital job, and the medical field is a very stable one to be in, so clearly i will not be leaving my job any time soon; but i am excited at the prospect of being able to study interior design -- i would love to be able to run my own business or have a business with others -- where i can incorporate my love of color, space, design, furniture, and creativity. it will be interesting trying to take those steps towards fulfilling this goal!

i have a lot of work ahead of me, and i am really looking forward to be able to look back at progress (on all of these things!).

summer update.

i admit, i haven't really done a lot of sewing so far this summer. i've been meaning to... there are piles of fabric ready to be cut, piles of blocks already cut waiting to be sewn, quilt tops that are partially sewn and ready to be finished... luckily it seems when i am least motivated to sew, i am snapped out of it by the potential for a couple of custom orders. i hope to finalize those plans soon, so that i can once again feel the undeniable happiness of successfully finishing a project.

mostly this summer has seen us out to brunch and basking in the sun (when it hasn't rained, thank goodness it has stopped raining! it rained for weeks and weeks...); we've taken up tennis, spent time at the small beach just a few blocks away from our apartment, slathered on the sunblock with high spf (for the boyfriend) and endured/enjoyed slight sunburns (on me).

we've been slowly but surely accumulating clearance/on sale summerwear to take on our cruise this november! bathing suits, shorts, strapless sundresses, sunglasses... we also purchased our first set of luggage together. (well, he paid for the cruise, i paid for the luggage!) i've started collecting travel size, travel safe, travel approved toiletries -- i can't even explain to you my love of tiny toiletry items, its weird how much i love the mini shampoos and toothpastes. we still need to get our passport, but we'll be doing that in a week or two! and then, we wait. 18 weekends to go until we're carribean bound!

okay, okay, back to sewing related things.. this coming saturday i'll be going to an awesome quilt show, and can't wait! i've gone the past couple of years and am always left feeling inspired and ready to tackle a new project. all of the vendors selling designer fabrics, though, is really my secret reason for going. last year i ended up with a new stash that lasted me until just recently! i'll be sure to get photos to share of all of the amazing work.

also, i've been getting good feedback on the mini quilts i posted to my etsy shop last week. i figured a few smaller projects were better than no projects at all, and i LOVE the wonderland collection of fabrics! the mini quilts are perfect to hang as wall art, to use as a doll quilt (or if you have a newborn preemie baby!), of even as a tabletopper.

i've been swapping hard to find and out of print designer fabrics in an online group, and have managed to collect some fabrics i'd been unable to find up til now! so exciting... its been fun to see what other people have in their stashes, and i can't imagine parting with some of the things they're swapping! my problem is that i collect these fabrics and then don't want to use them because they are so hard to come by! i just love staring at the gorgeous pile all stacked up! XD

so, in short, summer has been great so far -- hard to believe it is already half over, as it feels like we've just started! its been wonderful to share the sunshine with the boyfriend, friends, and family -- the first summer in recent memory that has felt so relaxed. here's to hoping the next month and a half is more of the same!

<3

it was a nice sunny day so i opened up the curtains and enjoyed some time in my sewing room this afternoon...

working on a custom boy baby quilt:

and i scored 6 yards of this discontinued denyse schmidt county fair fabric this weekend, at a totally discounted price!!

a few charm packs that are just waiting to get made into quilts for the shop:

birthday present from my boyfriend:

our "garden"!!


<3

quilting inspiration!

i have some great fabrics that i'm wanting to work with in the very near future, and i'm thinking of working with some triangles. (i still have a triangle/zigzag quilt that needs to be quilted and binded...tisk tisk!) here are a few little pieces of inspiration - so pretty!

happy weekend!

i am loving this apartment that is for rent, as well as this one. ...just a couple more months til we can start looking for a new place of our own!

in the meantime, here are a couple of other things that i love:

(this one has the exact colors i am using in our bedroom...)





AND, its almost time to shop for a new bathing suit!
(wishful thinking..)


have a wonderful weekend everyone! i am working in the OR just a half day tomorrow, and then have plans to work on sewing projects for the rest of the weekend... i'll be sure to update once i make some progress! xo

[click to see larger:]

i found this wonderful quilt on flickr, and fell in love with it.. i've made a few zig zag quilts before, but this one is just so fun.. i'm dying to try something similar with the colors! .....but not until i finish top stitching the zig zag quilt that's still sitting by my machine ;)

sneak peek & goodbye.

this is just a sneak peek of the first quilt i've completely finished for my new collection, "Homebodies" (which previously had a tentative different name). i have four more quilt tops awaiting topstitching and binding, one more sitting beside the machine to get pieced together, and four more little bundles of fabric dying to be cut. so, i have my work cut out for me. my goal is to have the collection up on etsy by the end of february, thus making it my winter/spring '09 collection. i am really excited to get through this pile of work, and i believe it really is my best yet! all will include interesting top stitching (this quilt pictured has zig zag stitching), as well as hand sewn binding.

totally unrelated, i said goodbye to a dear old friend of almost ten years last week. it was bittersweet, and slightly ridiculous ;) i will miss him.

project #2 for today: sewing "room" redo

well, when we moved the living room around, we sort of just tossed my sewing area back together on the other side of the room. after spending a week trying to sew, and realizing that the space wasn't efficient or pretty, i decided today was a good day to fix it. eventually when we move and i hopefully have an even larger space to work with, i'll do more with the walls and add a cool lounge-ing chair, and buy a new work station table and chair. but for now, this will have to do. i organized EVERYTHING today, dug out some little bowls to hold small things like buttons and trims, and purchased a neato birdcage (and bird) to hold my ribbon spools. (pat won't stop making fun of me for buying the birdcage!) i moved the hanging lamp from the bedroom that we never used in there, and now i have sufficient lighting, which was a problem before.. i can't wait to get a new table, the one i'm using is an old dining room table that is my mom's that she won't let me paint because she eventually wants it back (good reason! ;))-- the only good thing about it is that it has leaves that fold up and down if i need them or want to tuck it away quietly. you can see the 2nd half of a quilt i'm in the midst of, ontop of it (the 1st half is hanging on the wall to the right...).

okay, onto the photos....
[click each photo to see it larger]

here's the before:

and here's the now:

cupcakes!

i am not generally a very girly girl. i do like makeup and the usual things like clothes and pillowcases and candles. but my style isn't overly girly, i'm not normally into pink, or ruffles, or sparkles. but one thing i am very much into recently is CUPCAKES!! the pinker the frosting and the more sprinkles, the better!!

thus, i have made the big decision, that once i can decorate my sewing space, the theme will be cupcakes. they make me happy. they make me smile. and they make me hungry. which are all good things. something about them, just seems to work for me as far as my sewing space goes-- it is the one area of the house that i am allowed to step out of my usual box, anything goes.

since my space right now is overrun with fabric and quilts in process strung across the wall, it isn't necessarily the best time to try to decorate. plus, that wall is made of plaster and is terrible for trying to hang frames. i am going to just start collecting, and see what happens. i may make several strings of clothespins for hanging art, if all goes well. i'm going to attempt to do this without it looking too kid-ish, since i'm almost 29 ;) but i think once i can get the new sewing table i want, and a new chair, and keep the furniture modern it will work alright. (plus, its okay to be a little kid-ish, right???!!)

check out my etsy favorites to see what i'm thinking (among other things i love):

Etsy Buy Handmade littlelegwarmers

if you click just above here, where it says "littlelegwarmers" you can see my full favorites list, more than what is shown here. you'll notice a few art prints i'm thinking about for the bedroom... as well as the usual anatomical and weird stuff i love ;)

zig zag 2.

i'm in the midst of working on my 3rd zig zag quilt. this time i'm using orange/peach and green/mint colored fabrics... the colors of the photos aren't exact, i had a hard time with the lighting in the apartment right now, but you get the idea. the pile of fabric in the last photo are the fabrics for the remaining zig zags, with brown at the bottom just as at the top.





as soon as it is completed along with the rest of the quilts in my new collection for winter/spring 09, "pinky promises", it'll be up on etsy!

zig zag!

i'm in the process of finishing this quilt for my winter/spring 09 collection, "pinky promises"...
(click on each photo to make them larger.)



with the border that you see hanging alongside of it, it will be approx 3'x4'. i haven't decided on a backing fabric or what i'll use for binding, yet. it will get listed in my etsy shop as soon as i'm ready to list my whole collection!

the top grey fabric is a calico from jo anne fabrics. the dot, paint-by-number nature fabric, and aqua flowers are from the "lush" collection from erin michael for moda fabrics. the bottom two brown martini dots and apricot wallflower prints are from amy butler.

productive new year's day.

in progress:


they'll be up in my shop once they're done :)
...of course, the fun stuff is left to do: backing, top stitching, and binding!

rearrange.

pat and i spent all day sunday rearranging our living room! we've been in this apartment for six months, but our living room has mostly stayed the same. now we have our Expedit shelf from ikea as a room divider, instead of pushed up against the wall. on one side is our "living room" and on the back side is the "sewing room" and the "drums". haha..... i love the new ottoman we got at target this weekend, and we'll be going to ikea next week to get some things like a rug for inbetween the tv and sofa.... (as well as things for the kitchen and the bedroom!)...







i now have a big sewing wall to decorate, and have some really awesome art picked out on etsy to purchase later in the month :)