Happy Halloween!!!

This week, I set a goal to finish my Halloween quilt before Halloween.  I made the quilt last year, but never quilted it.....so, this week, Google and I figured out how to free motion quilt on my mom's sewing machine.  I started with a couple of practice pot holders.......

Neither of them are perfect, but they helped me get a feel for how to move the fabric around and create the stippling effect.....So, I decided to go ahead and machine quilt my Halloween quilt...... it took about 3 1/2 hours of to do all of the quilting.  I finished the binding about an hour ago......and it's still the 31st! Goal achieved!  YAY!!!!  Here is the finished product....

I have decided that I LOVE machine quilting.  It really is fun and I can't wait to do more of it!!! Happy, Happy Halloween! 

A Day In the Life......

Some of you may wonder what on earth a 30 year-old, single, youngish woman who is self-employed and living with her parents does with all of her spare time.....because naturally, she would have scads of free time...right?  Well, just in case you were wondering, here's what I did today (The jam and jewelry was all done by tag teaming it with Mom) ....

Number of.......

• Earrings made and finished for upcoming craft show:   11
• Necklaces made and finished :  5
• Zipper Pulls made and finished:   24
• Pints of Peach Jam cooked down and bottled:   10
• Voice Lessons Taught:   2
• Lawns Mowed:   2 big, 3 little
• Partially decomposed, gnawed off Rabbit leg cleaned off the lawn and disposed of during the mowing process (ew, gross, gag!): 1
• Blog Posts: 2

Just another day in the life...I guess when you write it all out it doesn't look like alot, but when you add up the time, it really is......and tomorrow we'll be just as busy....Goodnight!

Wire Wrapping

This post is for my sister Sarah. Here is your personal wire wrapping picture tutorial without writing out explanations, because I am going to call you and explain......and there's not time to type it all out....  :)

Craft Show

Mom and I did a craft show this weekend. I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of our booth since none of the family ever gets to see what those booths look like.  So, here it is.  See something you want???? Let us know because if it doesn't sell, you will most likely be getting it for Christmas!

Tag, tag, tag, sew, sew, sew

What a week! Between finishing up my contract with Bead For Life, getting ready for craft shows, teaching and writing a talk for Stake Conference, I am ready for a break!  Well, I',m not going to get one, but I do get a break from tagging and that is awesome. I was able to tag all 3000 items in my last batch in less than a week which has left me with lots of time to do all the other stuff I mentioned. Here are some pictures that represent the process of "tagging"....   

Beads in the Box

Necklaces sorted out on the table with the end that the tag goes on all on the same side.  

A close up of the end that gets the tag....

The tools.....Jump rings, Metal tags, and pliers...

The finished product...on it's way back into the box..

And bracelets look like this....

And that's what I've been up to for the past six months.....1500 bracelets or necklaces every week.  It gets a little tedious but thanks to things like all 4 seasons of Felicity and a Netflix account, I get through it and get a nice bit of additional income. I hope they give me another contract soon...We'll see. 

But, for now, it's time to sew!  Mom and I have been working furiously to get ready for the craft and doll shows that are coming up beginning next week. So here is what I made yesterday....

3 of these

And One of these (made with all of the different batiks that I found in my stash)...

And now I am off to go to the Bead Show to buy some more beads for the jewelry making efforts.  Gotta go!

Table Runner

So, A couple of weeks ago, we had a wedding reception to go to and we needed a gift.  After looking at the registry and seeing that the bride had chosen red and black dishcloths and tablecloths and accessories for their kitchen, I decided to dig into my ever-growing fabric stash and make a table runner.  It took a couple of hours to make, but now that I've done it once I think I could make it faster the next time. So here's how it turned out. 

I think it's super cute and I love the colors.  Can't wait to make another one....maybe one for Fall or Christmas next?

What I've Been Making

So I haven't blogged in forever and I thought I would just start by putting up a few pictures of what I've been making. I attempted to make a hexagon quilt that I thought was going to be awesome.....until I put is all together and realized that the green was a little blaring.   So, I took out all of the green pieces from the original quilt and made a smaller version  of the quilt using all of the green.  I thought it would be too ugly to do anything with, but it actually turned out alright.  I decided that this would be a good quilt to try to machine quilt since I didn't care about it that much anyway, so if I ruined it it wouldn't be the end of the world.  I sewed light blue ric rac around the center of all of the green.  I think it looks really good. 

Here's the full picture.  It turned out to be about crib size.  Now I just need to figure out who on earth I will give it to.....

I have been wanting to make a foot stool for my grandmother's little green rocking chair that now sits in my room.  It's a super comfortable chair, but it's a little low, which made it really difficult to find something the right height.  So, with some help from my brother and my mom, I made this little foot stool.  I love the fabric I found.  It has a slightly sueded feel to it and looks like faux tooled leather.

This is a purse I made for my friend Kami out of corduroy and a couple of left over quilt blocks that I used to make her a quilt for her wedding.  It's completely reversible and turned out really well. I do have to say that sewing on that bias tape around the whole thing ended up defeating me after I had unpicked it 3 times. Mom finished that part of it for me because I was so frustrated at that point that I was ready to chuck it and just go buy a purse!  Anyway.... thanks to her, it ended up getting done. (Thanks mom, you're the best!)

Finally, I have been making these name banners for my nieces and nephews throughout the year. (Thanks for the idea Liz and Sarah!)  I don't have pictures of all of them, but here are a few of them.