Monday, October 31, 2011

Frustration

It seems I feel a lot of this these days...
I cannot make a decent picture. It's either my camera [more like we're in a little war here, I can't seem to figure her out], or the fact that none of the little fellows in my house are helping here...


[That's Finn McMissile, in case you were wondering....]


I did start to give free motion a chance, things look like they could be done, but I can't say the same thing about making pics of pillows. I just suck at this!




Oh, wait, did I tell you I chose a new home for the fabrics in the giveaway and can't, for the love of God, remember where I saved the picture? So I have to chose again? 

It's just one of those weeks, where nothing goes as it should!

I truly hope that for Sonia this is a better week :)

 
sonia said...

Your blog is lovely, indeed!!!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Ups - a little giveaway

GIVEAWAY CLOSED - Thank you very much for entering. I will draw a winner on Monday.


Posting about my kokeshi book made me see that my [pardon my lack of modesty :))] lovely blog is more than one year old and I didn't even notice.

I really feel like I should invite you to some tea and cookies, but since we're all quilters here, what better way to do it than with fabrics? So I jumped to my recently destashed stash and got a little something.


There are some really nice prints from Joel Dewberry Heirloom, my absolute favorite is the one on top. They are fat eights or so.


There are some really nice neutrals, Moda, Wendy Slotboom and Amy butler [18" square]


And a lot of charms. More than 50 [I carefully counted them and forgot after the first picture :)))] from different collections, I think I saw some It's a hoot, Lilly & Will, Bliss, Sugar Pop and Sweetwater. I think :D


But feel free to count :)))))



Just leave a comment telling me what you're wearing :))))))))) if you'd like to have them. 
I'd love if you'd follow my blog too, but you don't have to do it for the giveaway only. However, you must have an e-mail address, either to your profile or the comment. No e-mail = no entry.

I would really like for my regular readers to have an extra chance. It's so nice not to have to talk alone.
So, if you know me [you're an old follower, we talked, we met, we exchanged mails, whatever:)], leave an extra comment. If some of you win, I will add something more, something I feel it's more you than the fabrics above.

I will ship all over the world, comments are open until Friday, October 28th, midnight romanian time [GMT +2h]


Two new pillows

I finally got a chance to play a little with the Go! cutter. I really love it, you know? :)
The only problem I really have with it, is that it doesn't piece :D. Really, cutting tumblers or circles is a PITA, but even when they're perfectly cut it's still darn hard to piece.

Anyway, for one of them I used the tumbler, for the other the drunkard's path. I love both of them equally.


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But as I was taking pictures today, I realized that although my mom kept saying they are winterish :), they look so autumn to me. Don't ask me why, I just feel like I'm preparing for winter but I'm not there yet :)

Each of them has a zippered back and they look so much nicer than the envelope ones. I have to add zippers from now on!

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I tried the rounded corners for the pillow because I keep planning a kokeshi quilt [for almost an year, since I received this kokeshi book] and the round corners were a must.

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You have to admit they're pretty cool :)

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I'm adding this pillow to Rachel's Celebrate Colour in Home decor for Octomber. Just in case you didn't see what others made, you should really take a look.


patchork-pillows

I'm so ready for winter here :)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Inspiration

The order from the lovely Monica from Mondragon arrived. What a fest for my eyes!



So did the solids.



I am in h.e.a.v.e.n!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

My 0.02$ on the Accuquilt and how it works

The short story is that I sold myself :D. The long story is that in my country, quilting is not very popular, not to mention modern quilting or quilt fabric stores.

But a couple of month ago someone opened the first quality, modern quiltinf fabric here. Just in case you'd like to take a look, it's called Fabrix.ro. The prices are european, not american :D [ ~10 euro/meter], but, hei, we're in Europe :)), and the owner is a very very nice person.

Plus, the Brother people here are very opened to new things and extremly kind, so we have things moving around here.

So why not have an Accuquilt tested here? So, yeah, I sold myself, wrote to accuquilt and 5 days later received the Go!Baby cutter and the oportunity to give one to someone from my country [unless one of you lucky internationals win it :D]

We are now celebrating International Babywearing Week, so the giveaway will happen sometime in the next two weeks, but I already made some pics and here's how it works. It wasn't very clear for me either when I saw it online.

So, I got the Go! Baby cutter. You'll se later what does it means.

The cutter works with dies. These dies are made from a wodden board, blades, and foam to cover the blades and fill the places between the blades.

You first have to choose a die. I chose one for my mom, she makes a lot of evening dresses and makes a lot of appliques. And I will tell you later about the other machine we have, also used for cutting applique shapes.

So, first step, take the die, blade/foam side up.


place a couple of layers of fabric, die size, on the die. I used 3 layers of fleece and one of thin poliester [I had some leftovers from a babywearing cover, that's were the weird chose of fabrics came from :) ]


Put the plastic protection on the fabrics.


Take the cutter, 

open it, 

and place the die, fabrics and plastic cover on one side [any side] of the cutter.


Rotate the handle [my son's favorite part :). It is that easy!]


 The cutter has two rolls inside, that will press the sandwich so bad, that the blades will cut through the fabrics. And leave some marks on the plastic protection.
When you lift the plastic protection, you'll see this:


Take the leftovers out 

And enjoy the flowers :) 

And arrange in a pleasing manner :D

Now, because I have the Go! Baby cutter, I can only use certain dies. The problem is that the cutter itself has about 6 1/2" or 17 cm width when opened. So I can only use small dies and cut small shapes. I have the tumbler one and while I think is terrific, and the cutting is just amazing, the tumblers are just too small for what I like to do. At 3" finished it would take a looot of tumblers to finish one baby quilt. On the other hand, if used  for small crafty stuff [I can see a dozen had bands with this flowers :)], it would be terrific!


If I was to make quilts for selling, and sell them outside my country :D, [where no one would pay 2-300$ for a quilt :D] I would totally buy a bigger cutter. And use it daily :)))

Yes, there is some fabric loss. But are you kiddin' me? Cutting anything in 5min tops would help me make [&sell] enough quilts to compensate for the fabric loss. And even more :)

And the clipped corners for the tumbler or triangles...or the drunkard path.. priceless :)



I also read Badskirt's [Amy] opinions about the accuquilt. And while I do believe their blogging campaign was a little too much, and there was a point where I could not stand to hear about accuquilt anymore :D, I do like their products. A lot! And just to be clear, I received my cutter for making it available to my romanian public, I don't think they even know I have an english blog, so these are my thoughts, not a payed opinion :). I just love these products !

Monday, October 10, 2011

The mom and the accuquilt

When I first started buying designer's quilting cotton I thought they were soooo expensive. Ok, I still do, but at least I got over the shock phase :). So when I made the supermom quilt, although I really loved it and felt it was my quilt, I decided to list it in my shop because it seemed just too expensive for me.

50 + quilts later, this one not only did not sell [it had the longest life in my shop and I'm sure the crappy pics helped a lot :))))] but matched my 3 sisters pillows perfectly. So, you know what, I'm sure I deserve it :)


Plus, the backing is just perfect for a more quiet look.


On the other hand, I just received the Go!Baby from Accuquilt and started playing with it. Oh.my.God! Cutting is so incredibly simple, it just makes the fabric waste totally worthy. I will tell you more about it and probably forget a link to my romanian blog post when the giveaway will happen there ;), but just needed to say it is awesome. And I didn't expect it to be that awesome :)

Monday, October 3, 2011

A Tale of three sisters

Do you ever wonder how the-crafty-people-you-follow are, in real life? Do they like the same music with you? The same movies? Are they parents? Your kind of parents? Would you become friends if you lived near by? Would they be those obnoxious neighbors?

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I remember the moment I decided to follow Rachel at Stitched in colour was the one she mentioned she would like to try homeschooling with her kids. For me, it mattered more than the fact that we don;t have the exact same tastes or not like the same things. And I decided her work can still be inspiring for me because of her parenthood dreams.

So today, to all of you my 50 followers :), I am going to talk about me. And my sisters.

3sisters (3)

You see, we're not really sisters. We met on the internet and we're pretty different and pretty much alike in the same time.

We met when we were all in the beginning of our motherhood journey. And we followed different roads, with the same purpose.

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Sis 1, the youngest and still crazy one :), finished her Lamaze and doula classes and now she teaches soon-to-be-moms about natural birth, about beeing themselves and trusting themselves. I guess she's the blue one with crazy crosses, crazy quilting and a touch of red.

Sis 2 finished her training with La Leche League and now helps mom with brestfeeding. She's quite a lady and the oldest, the red crossed one is just like her.

And me, sis 3 :), I have a babywearing business, trying to help moms keep their babies close as much as they need. I recentlly got involved less and less, turning to my family for a change and just keeping it low. I should be the whitish one.

3sisters-011

So that's the real me, the one you don't get to see very often, part of a beautiful family, daughter of the attachment parenting romanian site, sister of two amazing ladies, mother of an, obviously, extraordinary child that I chose not to expose on the internet.

3sisters

So who are you? :)



P.S. Did you see A tale of two sisters? Now that's a creepy movie :)