Various & Sundry 2011 #16

CPP Responses
Danny Gregory doesn’t truly respond to the Creative Prompt, but his drawings can provide inspiration. He took his son, Jack, Paris and has posted wonderful drawings of their time there. Do not be intimidated. Be inspired. Strive to draw every day so you can achieve something like his drawings in the future. Everyone is creative and it just takes practice. Danny has been drawing for a long time and you can get there, too, if you put in the time to practice (like, say, responding to the Creative Prompt every week!).

Quilting (in the sense of stitching layers)
I got some bad news this week. My quilter has a pretty major family emergency and won’t be returning for the foreseeable future. She lives part time near me and part time in Alaska. She had planned to quilt Stars for San Bruno #2 and Pavers when she returned from this quick trip. She sent me and email and apologized and I feel so terrible for her. The new grandson is great and she is great. Other things, which are not mine to disclose. For the moment, I am leaving the quilts at her shop until I decide what to do. What that means for me is that I have to find someone who can quilt Pavers and the SfSB quilts. I am pretty particular about who quilts my quilts and what they quilt on it. My quilter doesn’t charge extra for ‘custom’ quilting. That is what she does, so I think I am a bit spoiled. I don’t want Pantographs and I want someone with experience who can work with me to complete my vision. It is possible that I will go back and longarm the SfSB quilt myself, though not ideal. What a mess. She makes my quilt life so easy and now it is so much harder. Sigh.

Other Artists
Lil Sissy has a lot of new work up on her site, A Paper Addict. Most of it is not paper, but she is doing some nice work. She has a variety up there.

Pretty By Hand has a gorgeous messenger bag posted on her blog. It looks very similar to Candy Glendenning’s messenger bag pattern, but I don’t think Pretty By Hand used Candy’s pattern. The zipper looks particularly good.

Speaking of Candy’s messenger bag pattern, I have been working on reading through the directions and it is really a great pattern. I love the way she has outlined the cutting and distinguished the pieces. Why am I not sewing this pattern? It calls for home dec fabric. I have to see what I have in the closet and then decide whether I am going to buy more or make another trip to FabMo.

Fabric
I loving the Pure Elements solids by Pat Bravo! As mentioned, I am using them for the A-B-C Challenge with BAMQG. I cut up the Cozumel colorway and it goes sooooo well with the Festival Fuschia colorway (I think; it is hard to tell with solids). You can take a look at the colorways on Pat’s site.

I just finished The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking by Jane Brocket (look for a review soon). I was already in love with Philip Jacobs work, but now I am in a Philip Jacobs frenzy. I have been looking at all of his designs and fabrics. I’d like to go to his house in Dorset and meet him, see his fabric barn and get to know him. He would probably call the police, but fantasies are free and not scary. I especially like the Delphiniums, which QuiltHome.com has in 3 colorways.

I am trying hard not to buy more fabric. I don’t want to say I am on a fabric diet, because that will send me on a binge, but I want to sew through some fabric before replacing it (cut and sewed a half yard yesterday, which is a good thing). I think this weekend will be the weekend I finally make the sewing machine cover and I just may use some Philip Jacobs fabric! Still, I love those Delphiniums and wish I had a large space where I could hang lengths of them. Perhaps I could Modge Podge lengths of fabric to one of my walls? My workroom needs a serious makeover and this idea might kill two birds with one stone.

SeamedUp Logo
SeamedUp Logo

Media
Are you on SeamedUp? SeamedUp is a site that allows you to track your fabric, patterns, and books. Once you have your sewing room populated, you can share your works in progress, UFOs and finished projects with other members. The site is very much in beta, but Allison and Brye are working all the time on improving it. One of the things I like is that they are working with the quilt industry companies to get fabrics, books, patterns, etc into their database. Sanctioned information – not right-click-and-save-image-as information. They are constantly recruiting for volunteers to help populate the fabric database. Currently, they would like people to add information about patterns (not a scan of the pattern!) from current magazines to their pattern database. That is a great idea! How many times have you thought to yourself: “now where did I see that pattern recently” as the current stack of magazines next to your bed falls over? I received a notice that they had just added books to their offerings. The other thing I like is that they respond to member suggestions. There is a companion podcast (available for subscription on iTunes) where they interview a member and talk about tech updates, their own projects, member projects etc. It is a nice addition to the whole SeamedUp world.

I have added many of my projects, though not all. I started adding them randomly and now have to be careful not to add something twice! DUH! I should have been more organized, but I wasn’t. It is fun to get a wider audience to my projects and I add links to my blog in order to drive traffic here. Not sure if it works, but one can hope. I have to figure out how to add fabrics to an existing project. That is confounding me at the moment. The SeamedUp girls have a fundraising campaign going on right now at IndieGoGo. This is an opportunity for you to be a venture capitalist. Forget the guys in suits in Silicon Valley; you, in your sewing room in your pajamas, can be a venture capitalist. They have prizes, too. If everyone of the over 2K members gave $5, the system would be faster, SeamedUp would have much, much more money than they need right now to upgrade the servers and the free site for quiltmakers would get a huge shot in the arm. Go over and give your $5.

Where SeamedUp is one of the good guys (girls!), I was disappointed to see the evil side of the Internet come out last week on a review of the FabricWorm/Birch Fabrics (Go to maps.google.com and search for Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles). Last year I visited Birch TWICE on my way to and from Long Beach and they couldn’t have been nicer to TFQ and me. I wrote a glowing review, because I really thought they did a great job even when we showed up in the middle of their work day and they were cutting like madwomen. I am not going to rehash my review here, but you can go and read it. Someone, whose web name is Sunnydays, wrote a decidedly un-sunny review of FabricWorm/Birch fabrics. I have never had a problem with Birch, but I am there are customer service glitches occasionally. I am also sure that Cynthia will rectify anything that is a problem. The review as vile and I suspect someone jealous of Cynthia’s success wrote it. If you have good customer service experience with FabricWorm/Birch fabrics, do go and write a review (Go to maps.google.com and search for Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles) telling people about it. If you have had a bad experience, please call Cynthia and give her a chance to rectify before you trash her woman-owned, small business.

I saw a notice posted on Big tent that Katie of Katie’s Quilting Corner podcast had made a video of her sewing room. I am always interested in where other people sew, so I took a look. It is a long video (12+ min), but I still thought it was interesting to see her set up.

Take a look at the Hasty Quilter. Very nice photography and great description of her projects.

Someone sent me an article from the Alameda Patch about a woman who sold her fabric stash recently to raise $10,000 for the Alameda Food Bank. I am pretty sure I recognize her name from EBHQ. I just found out that one of my relatives can only afford one meal a day on her income (she just gets Social Security) and I know that she hasn’t always made the best decisions (who does?), but she doesn’t deserve to not have food. I am going to send her a care package. The article made me think of all the people who will be “fed from fabric!”

I have been thinking of asking other publishers to put me on their review list. I was talking to a person who works at one such company and she said that they send out the ebook version to reviewers. I am not sure I want to sit at my computer and read a book. I do a lot of reading online for work and really cherish the time I get to lay on the couch and read a real book. I suppose I could read such a book on one of my mobile devices, but it doesn’t seem as appealing. I am going back to the drawing board and thinking before I send out any letters.

You can get a nice view of some of the artwork in Masters Art Quilts v.2 over on the Lark Crafts site. I really enjoy working with Amanda on the reviews and giveaways. She is really nice and makes me wish there was such an organization in San Francisco that would hire me to work for them. A girl can dream.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.

8 thoughts on “Various & Sundry 2011 #16”

  1. Sigh. For whatever reason, I can only read your blog from work these days. I’m playing hooky to respond to this.

    – nice messenger bag, but I have to say, I hope her daughter who is modeling it is tiny. If not, that is one big messenger bag.
    – for your own version — you know you’re going to have to make it at least twice, so why don’t you make a practice one using quiltweight fabric? I got Candy’s pattern this weekend and it’s got so much interfacing and batting that I have a feeling even quiltweight fabric could make for a solid bag.
    – you TOTALLY cracked me up with the “free and not scary” comment.
    – sorry to hear about your quilter’s family issues! If you get a chance to, please tell her I’m thinking strong thoughts her way.

    1. Hi TFQ,
      I am sorry you are having problems accessing my blog at home. I am glad you told me, though, because I think it is an Earthlink problem. P, W and I are all unable to access the blog from home, but I can access it with no problem via Mifi or at work. I have to talk to them and see what the problem is. AGAIN.

      I think your idea of making a messenger bag in quilt weight fabric is a good one. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that! You are correct in that if I like the bag, I will make more than one. If I don’t, I’ll only make one, so it makes sense to use fabric on hand.

      I’ll pass your good wishes on to Colleen.

      Thanks!

  2. I have a friend who had some genuinely terrible customer service from Fabricworm, terrible enough that neither she nor I (nor others in our quilting group) will shop there any more. I won’t go into details in this public venue but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if others reported something similar and reviewed the store accordingly. I wouldn’t assume that a vicious review is necessarily the result of jealousy.

    I tried SeamedUp but it just isn’t for me — my quilting life is on Flickr and that works well for tracking all of my projects and seeing what others have made. I do listen to their podcast (and when you guest hosted you were great) but I wish that Brye Lynn and Allison still did their original podcasts instead. Sigh.

    I sued to think I wouldn’t like ebooks for the same reasons that you mention but once I got a Kindle I realized how wrong I was. I actually like reading on my Kindle more than reading actual books.

    1. Hi Jen,
      Thanks for your comments. I am sorry that you have not had good experiences with FabricWorm. I hope that you will call Cynthia and speak to her directly. When I had my own business, I always wanted to work things out with my clients. If they didn’t tell me, I couldn’t work out the problems. Cynthia doesn’t pay me and I am not affiliated with her company at all.

      I would love to hear what makes Flickr work so well for you. I am on Flickr and upload a lot, but I think I am missing a piece.

      I think that SeamedUp is still growing. I am looking forward to seeing how it develops. I liked their own podcasts as well and hope they will get back to producing those individual episodes again as well.

      I do have a Kindle and like it for novels and fiction. I don’t feel I can really assess quilt and creativity books in electronic format. I do need to review some specifcally produced creativity or quilt ebooks, so I can move into this new ‘container’. I’d love to hear which craft/quilt/creativity ebooks you have enjoyed and found well produced.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

  3. I go away for a little while and you write a novel! lol I have just finished two Creative Prompt words and will post the link where it needs to be posted.

    That IS a cool messenger bag! It reminded me that I need to make one that I promised to someone almost a YEAR ago! Geesh!

    I haven’t done Seamed Up yet either. As I said in my blog today, I need to reorganize and prioritize my life a bit differently!

    Loved this posting…even though it had more information than I could imagine!!! 🙂 (not that that is a BAD thing!!!)

  4. Hi Jaye,

    Gee, thanks so much for the compliment on the zipper in my messenger bag and for sharing it with your readers!

    And because you were wondering, I didn’t use a pattern at all. This bag was all my own design. My 10 year old daughter and just Googled “messenger bag” and looked at tons of pictures – analyzing size, shape, flaps, etc. She showed me the ones she liked best and then we used her school supplies (binders, lunch bag, etc.) to determine the perfect dimensions for her needs. I drew up a rough sketch and started sewing.

    That said, I used to teach at a quilt shop for 6 years and was known as “The Bag Lady”. 😉

    Cheers!

  5. Just stopping in to say hey and that this was a very interesting post and the message bag on Pretty by Hand is so fabulous. Stop showing me fabulous things I want to make! By the way, I went ahead and bought the Quilts and More magazine, but mostly because I wanted to read it. Thanks for the link, though!

    xofrances

    1. Hi Frances,
      Sorry about that! I just think you should spend more time sewing. 😉 BTW, I checked out the True Grips website thinking I would buy some of the dots and found this shipping charge to outrageous. I’ll look for them in shops rather than buying online.

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