Yikes!

Oh my lordy, I could laugh until I cry.  This Etsy seller is a crackup!  Read her writeup on the bear you see above.  Very funny lady with a very scary imagination!  :)

Another one!

It was my aim to get one of the Sling Totes made per day but alas life with a preschooler is not always that easy to schedule.  So I'm a day late with my second bag, but I think I'm still doing OK.  I basically spend every second I can sewing, but at the moment my little one is fixated on dollies.  These guys live their lives out in pink bliss and at the moment Mum is an integral part of the process.  We're giving our little girl a Cinderella doll for Xmas so I expect that's going to be a pretty big moment!  Prince Charming will be played by Buzz Lightyear (with Dad at the helm - he refused to play Ken, and understandably so).

Anyway, there's the latest Sling in Prints Charming fabric, and off I go to get the next one cut and underway!

New range!

So I decided to make a short run of Sling Tote bags for those of you who don't sew and I put the first one up today.

Here it is in all it's measurey glory - love this fabric.  I went a bit nuts and got a fair bit of it so if there's another pattern you'd like done in this one just convo me on the shop or email me at teapotandsnail@gmail.com.

I figure I can make one of these bags a day (in amongst activities with my three-year-old), so I look forward to being able to show you another one tomorrow!  I don't intend for these to hang around long though.  Anything that doesn't go on Etsy will be going to market so get in quick if you want one.

Finishing school

I've been combing the internet for the finer points of quilting lately.  I've always found that piecing the main pattern on the front of a quilt has been relatively easy.  For me the hardest part of quilting is putting these panels together somehow and then making the quilt up.  This tutorial from Craftsy is a gem.  Have a look:

http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2012/11/how-to-accent-and-embellish-quilt-edges/

Craftsy is such a brilliant place to go to learn a new crafting skill or brush up on areas that you're unfamiliar with.  Instead of quilts that look like I've thrown things together, I'm hoping this tip from Jan Krentz, one of Craftsy's instructors, will give a bit more polish to my finished products.

Things are changing round here

I turned 40 this year and it dawned on me that I really should be doing more of the things I really care about.  The things that are really me.  Start doing more things my way instead of worrying what everyone else thinks.  Crafting for Etsy has been a real experience and one where I feel I'm learning a lot about myself.  I think I'm beginning to see who I really am.

It occurred to me that I've actually been looking for a change with my Etsy shop.  And sometimes a change forward is, in a way, a change backward.  One of the things I miss doing is sewing for other people. So first of all I am going to bring back some sewn bags.  Just the Sling tote for now as that's been so popular.  And whilst I sell lots of the pattern for the Sling, I also get a lot of requests from people who can't sew and want the bag made up for them.  I had a little shop around at one of my fave lil spots this morning and found a bunch of cute stuff.  What do you think?  Can you see my fetish for retro fabric showing through?! Hopefully some of you non-sewists out there will like the choices:

Today's work

Today I used a bunch of coffee bean bags to make:

a big outdoor bean bag

four outdoor chair cushions

and a wall hanging

I've been checking out the coffee bean bags you can get on Etsy and some of them are gorgeous.  Maybe I'll pop up a tute on my Etsy shop showing how to make these things out of them...

Hoarder

Uh-oh.  I saw this program on hoarding:

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/program/25415

and noted some similarities between his house and my sewing room!  Time to get rid of some of the stash.  Maybe I should do a big spring clean and sell some of the metres and metres of extra fabric on the Etsy shop?  I have so much little girl's dress fabric it's not funny!