Getting Back to Quilting

Now that all the excitement from Fog Fest has died down, I have been able to settle back into some quilting. The creativity is flowing again and my brain is on an overload of ideas. But, I can only do one quilt (ok, maybe two) at a time. I have plenty of fabric lined up in my stash for some beautiful quilts!

First up is my mom's quilt. I started this a while ago and am now getting back to working on it. Gorgeous yellows, greens and white, this quilt is sure going to brighten up her room!

I have also been trying to streamline my production. Feeling a bit tired tonight and not wanting to take out the ironing board and iron (lazy!), I decided just to get the blocks ready for assembly. Much faster to buzz a bunch through the machine.
 
Ok, so yes, I am working on two quilts at once. The other, is for a friend who just had a baby. Her friends and family decorated quilt squares and now that I have them all back, I am assembling the quilt. It is going to be amazing. Stay tuned for final photos of this one!

One row from the decorated baby quilt.

So after those two are finished, I will begin working on a quilt for my friend's daughter. She had me make the curtains for her room when they had room makeovers to welcome the new baby. I was so inspired by the fabric she had, that I found some coordinates and promised her a new quilt for her older daughters new room. Can't wait to start on this one.

Stay tuned for plenty more quilting projects coming soon!   

Fog Fest Success!

After months of sewing (and crocheting for Michelle!) until all hours of the night and constant worrying about whether there would be enough inventory, our first craft fair was a huge success. We had such a good time just being there and talking to all kinds of people. The two days were long, but passed very quickly. We had a lot of support from all of our friends and family, some of who actually purchased items from us and some who just came by to say hello. It was nice to also meet people who were interested in our crafts. Both Michelle and I had some inquiries for some custom orders and we also met a couple people who were interested in having us join their craft fairs. And yes, we actually made a little money (which was not the main goal).

The back of the booth.

The two separate days we spent in my backyard organizing and tweaking our booth set up, were very well worth it. When we arrived on site the first morning, we unloaded, got right to work setting up and fortunately had no surprises. My years spent in the events industry helped keep me focused, as I just jumped in and got things done in our two hour set up window. By the second day, we had time to spare and ended up tweaking our set up a little more to showcase certain items a little better.

The left side of the booth.

The right side of the booth.

Michelle and I on the first morning...yes, we are super excited to get the day started!

My kids were both asking to "help" sell in the booth. So I handed them business cards and told them to pass them out to people walking by.

My son was really into passing out cards and super cute walking up to people. Who can resist an adorable 4 year old?!?!

I am really proud of all that we accomplished and learned from this experience. Especially of our professional looking booth. You would never have guessed this was our very first craft fair ever! After having such a great time at Fog Fest, we are looking forward to getting more craft fair experience under our belts. We are getting a list together of the possibilities for next year!

Boy or Girl?

How do I make a quilt when I don't know the gender of the baby? This was my dilemma about 8 weeks ago when thinking about the quilt I wanted to make for my good friend Dana and her new baby. She chose not to find out what the baby was and I really didn't want to make a gender neutral quilt.

One night, while trying to go to sleep I came up with the idea that I would make two quilts, one girl and one boy. This way, I would have a quilt ready to give her when she got home from the hospital. Then, whichever quilt I didn't need, I would sell.

I set about my research for fabrics through my regular channels online. Yes this quilt was for the baby, but it is for Dana too, so I wanted to make sure it suited her tastes as well. I found the boy fabric quickly, an adorable monkey print in greens, brown, orange, blue and white. The monkeys came from the Urban Zoologie line and the coordinating prints came from the Remix line, both from designer Robert Kaufman.

Now I had a little more trouble finding fabric for the girl quilt that was just right. After a few searches, I found a retro looking fabric called Flock by Andover Fabrics. Soft pink, orange, brown, yellow and white, it was calling Dana's name.

Since I was knee deep in production for Fog Fest, I came up with a design that was cute and would showcase the fabrics, but could be constructed quickly. Also the baby's due date was fast approaching! I went with a simple framed four patch with a large border on the outside. The back was pieced together with a row of 4" framed squares pieced to the main panels. Each was quilted with a coordinating thread in a meandering pattern over the whole quilt.

Both quilts turned out completely adorable and I made matching toddler pillows to go with them. I made them slightly larger than a crib size, so they will fit a toddler bed nicely and be cozy to snuggle with as the child gets older.

Well, surprise, it was a baby girl! So Dana and her new daughter have a beautiful new quilt. She absolutely loved it and loved the colors, so my gut feeling was right! The best part was seeing her smile and almost tear up over it.

The adorable monkey quilt will be available for sale at Fog Fest or in my Etsy shop after October 2nd. 

Fog Fest Booth Test Run #2

We had a chance to do another test run of our booth today. After tweaking a few things, now we are super happy with the results!

Michelle and I have two different crafts and it so happens, I have a lot more variety of items than she does. Our original set up had her stuff all on one shelf and the rest of mine everywhere else. It felt too "this is your side and this is mine", which is something we talked about avoiding in our original discussions. So today we did a much better job of co-mingling our items on the shelf and the back display table. We achieved the cohesive look we were going for.

We came up with a Plan B for the bag display just in case we can't zip tie the wire framing to the frame of the tent. Also we set up with the mannequin heads which we added wigs too at the last minute.

We are loving this wig with the beanie on it. The bangs sticking out are so great!

With just a few more items to create for inventory and price tags to be added, I would say we are just about ready for our first craft fair!

Fog Fest Booth Test Run

Michelle came over on Friday and we had a chance to set up a test run of our booth. I must say, we were pretty excited at the results. Michelle did such a great job of designing it and making it all come together.

The cool thing is we have spent very little money making it look nice and professional. We re-purposed the black wire frame from my house, the A-frame shelf came from eBay and I made the T-stands. We marked off a 10 x 10 area on my backyard patio and used the fence to hang the wire frame. The wire frame and quilts will actually be hung from the frame of the tent that is provided.

We stepped back and admired our work. A plan Michelle drew out on paper, now had come to life. We just looked at each other and grinned at how awesome it looked. Now, hopefully there won't be many surprises on our first day of set up!

Wire frame to hang all the bags.

Got my 5 year old to take pics of us holding quilts to see how they would look as the backdrop.

Home made T-stands to showcase the belts and headbands. Vase for cat toys and a container for the marker roll-ups.

Another quilt back drop.

Baskets to hold the remainder of the quilts and the baby blankets.

A-frame shelf to showcase all the beanies. We ended up painting the shelf white.

Two very happy and excited girls!

Ramping Up

Oooohhh! Michelle and I are ramping up for Fog Fest and we are getting very excited to be participating in such an event. Our production of items is booming and our inventory just keeps growing. One of our main concerns (well, mine really!) is not having enough items, but every time we get together to go over things, Michelle brings me back to a comfortable place.

Our booth design is coming together nicely, thanks to Michelle, and we are hoping to have all we need to do a test run in a couple weekends. Thanks to a Pinterset post and the blog that went with it, I have been having fun making my own T-stands to display my belts and headbands. Super easy to make after a trip to Lowe's and Michael's. A saw, a drill and some Gorilla glue and I have this beauty. Now it just needs a coat of paint!

Toddler Pillows

When my oldest daughter started preschool, we had to put a "sleepy" bag together for her to keep at school. A crib sheet, a blanket and a sleepy friend or special item is what the bag consisted of. My daughter wanted to include a pillow also, which was fine, until I realized how cumbersome it was to take her Dora pillow back and forth to school.

I had an extra pillow form lying around and decided to take her to the fabric store and pick out some fabric so I could make her a very special pillow to keep in her sleepy bag. She thought this was the greatest. When my son started a year later, of course I had to make him one too. Now, my youngest hasn't started preschool yet, but caught onto these cool "little" pillows her brother and sister have, so now she has one too.

I noticed that the teachers and even other parents had asked me about these little pillows. Commenting on how adorable they were and where ever did I find them. They are incredibly easy to make and take about a 1/2 yard of fabric. Now my kids love the super soft satin they have on their blankets, so I make each of theirs with a satin side and a character side.

These little cuties will be making their appearance at Fog Fest and in my shop, so stay tuned!