Friday favourites

So for today’s favourite I am going to choose a blog. And that blog is called Cat Patches. It is written by the lovely Barbara and occasionally the two cats might take a moment or two to comment.

I first found Barbara’s blog through a blog hop and quickly became addicted. There is a healthy blend of quilting, cats, food and family, and all of it is fun to read about. I consider Barbara a friend after all these years and I think that is pretty awesome.

So go ahead and check it out :)

Exciting news!

Remember my pillow?

I won first place! It is so validating knowing that people think your product is worth first place. Thank you to Lindsay for the book, Craft Buds for the quilt along, Sukie for the pattern, and the judges for taking the time to play along. Thank you also to the sponsors who make something like this even more fun!

I also just want to announce that I will be closing my Etsy store. As items expire, they will not be renewed. Right now everything is 40% off with the code 40PERCENT . I haven’t been having sales lately and I figure it is time to move on. One item expires tonight, 4 more tomorrow, and the rest within a couple of weeks, so if you were interested, now is the time to buy :)

Friday Favourites!

 

OK… so maybe this reminder thing will work… guess we will see next Friday :)

For today’s favourite I am going to go with a new one… my Sewline Glue Pen!

I love English Paper Piecing, but the basting takes forever. Recently I read a post from someone who glue bastes… well what an eye-opener! So simple and fast, and that means that so far this week I have finished these…

and started on this…

In the post it was mentioned that one can’t reuse the papers but as you see here, I haven’t had a problem so far.

I am very excited to finish this project but it technically is an on-going one and not a priority as it will be a wall hanging for my house.

Hope you enjoyed another favourite of mine!

The Big Man

There is a Big Man in my life. He is one of my parents’ best friends and he and I have shared a close bond. Recently I found out that Jim had been in the hospital for quite awhile, and nearly died a couple of times. I went immediately to the hospital the next day to see him.

But before I did that, I started cutting.

You see, I never got to make my Dad a quilt before he died, and I am not letting that happen with Jim. The picture is of me basting last night at my Mom’s (thank goodness for her floor space :)). I almost finished the quilting today but it was giving my shoulder a lot of trouble so I am hoping to finish that on Monday. I hope to have the whole thing bound and ready to go to Jim by next weekend.

In other news, I realise I have missed all my subsequent “Favourite Friday” posts since the debut one. I now have a reminder in my computer… cross fingers it works LOL! I am terrible at following through on blog ideas :)

Adventures in light box making

I asked my friend to check out my Etsy shop recently as it hasn’t been doing very well, and I asked her to give me suggestions. Her main one (after telling me I don’t charge enough lol) was to maybe try new photos using a light box. Being the resourceful friend that she is, she even had a link to how to make one ready to go. http://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox

Here is my setup

I had everything I needed but the poster board (89 cents) (side note – why don’t keyboards have a cent button like the $ one?) and the second light (free from my Mom – thanks Mom!). I used crumpled up white tissue paper from some packages and just smoothed them out… waste not, want not!

This first picture is with no flash… no photo editing at all has been done.

This next one is the same item, but using a flash. Once again, no editing.

Note to self… flash is not needed, in fact, it makes it look bad.

First, no flash.

Now with flash.

These last two pictures were cropped because my box is too small, and you could see the sides of the box. Because of this I will be making a new box. I will still keep this one for smaller items. Both of these are with no flash.

I hope you enjoyed my little experimenting and that maybe it helps you in your picture making.

Ummm… what happened?

January just FLEW by this year… it is already time for my second monthly goal setting post. Time flies when you’re having fun :)

My goal is to quilt and bind my dachshund quilt for the end of the month.

I’m figuring that will keep me pretty busy… I have some other bits and pieces I want to get done as well, but this is a priority.

Linking up with ALYOF!