Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Baby Plus Quilt

Today I'm finally sharing my latest finished quilt-my baby plus quilt. I've had this one done for awhile, I took it to the craft fair with me (so you may have seen peeks of it already). I really LOVE this one. I usually like all of my quilts, but I just love the colors and fabrics in this one.


A plus quilt has been on my 'to-do' list for awhile. They've been popular in blogland for awhile now, and I like the simplicity of them, and how they can really showcase colors and fabrics. So with the design picked out, I just needed a color scheme. I've been pinning color cards on Pinterest like mad, so I figured that was a great place to start looking for inspiration.


This is the color card I went with. What do you think? Did I capture these colors with my quilt? I think I did pretty well. The daisy photo  is so pretty, but I like how the colors themselves can actually read gender neutral. I think it is so difficult to make really nice gender neutral pieces. It seems like all of the cute prints just end up looking like a boy or girl fabric.

I ended up ordering several teals, aquas, and golds for this quilt because my stash was lacking in those colors. I tend to use them a lot. I found it really difficult to find the 'right' teal or aqua when ordering online! It seems that every manufacturer has a different interpretation of teal and aqua...so some of my picks ended up more blue and others more green. That's fine, more fabric for my stash!

I typically don't enjoy sewing long rows together for quilts, so I sewed this quilt top together in blocks instead. I arranged all of my individual squares on my design wall first. Once I was satisfied with the layout, I began sewing the squares together into 9-patch blocks. This worked wonderfully! The top came together pretty fast and my seams matched up pretty well. I think if I had done this in rows I would have had more misaligned seams.


I used my typical Warm & White batting on this one, but I didn't have a piece that was quite big enough. I ended up splicing two pieces together. This was my first time trying this technique, and it worked really well. I laid the two pieces side-by-side and used my zig-zag stitch to sew them together. You can't tell where the batting seam is in the finished quilt at all. It's a great way to use up batting scraps.


You can see my new HardcoreQuilts fabric label in the binding of this quilt. I'm happy to report that it was a cinch to sew this in. I also used flannel for the first time as the backing. I will definitely do that again! It makes for a really soft backing. I was a little worried that I'd have trouble with the quilting since I have cotton on top and flannel on the back, but I didn't. The quilting was pretty simple, I echo-quilted a few of the pluses and then a few rectangles here and there to fill in any open spots.

I love this quilt so much I'm tempted to keep it! But, I don't really need more baby quilts around here (yet!) so I've listed it in my Etsy shop. I may be making more plus quilts like it soon though...it was so much fun :-).

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

New Shop Listings

Good morning!

If you're like me you've already started (at least thinking about) your Christmas shopping. I hate fighting the crowds in December, so I try to get it all done early. Well...(get ready for shameless plug now)...I added some new listings to my Etsy shop! So if you're looking for a high quality, unique, handmade gift for someone please check out my shop or contact me for a custom order. I find handmades are great for those on my list that are hard to shop for, that seem to 'have everything'.

I've expanded my listings to include baby/child products from the craft fair. I always planned to, I was just a little slow in getting there ;-). I now offer made-to-order burp cloth sets, crayon rolls, and personalized plush baby blocks.







There's a couple mug rugs on there too. Have you heard of a mug rug? I LOVE them. It's basically a large coaster, made pretty with some piecing and quilting, and insulated with batting. I use them to hold hot bowls of food, as a decorative candle mat, or to absorb condensation from my water bottles.




That's it for now...I'm working on another listing or two but not quite ready yet. I've started some of my holiday sewing too and I'm excited to share what I've been working soon. Thanks for reading!

Monday, November 3, 2014

Craft Fair Recap

A few weeks ago I had a table at a local vendor and craft fair. It was my first time trying this, I wanted to see how well I liked the experience as well as whether it would be worth it financially. So what's the verdict? A bit mixed I would say.

There was a lot of prep. I spent a little over a month diligently creating inventory...for me that meant probably 1-2 days a week of sewing. With a little one keeping me busy that's about all I could manage. I also spent some time designing my table, but I kept it really simple so I don't feel that I spent too much time on that. In the end I had about 40 items or so, not a ton but enough, I felt, to fill a small table and feel good about.


Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of photos, but you can get an idea (I apologize for the smartphone photos!). I went with a simple grey table cloth so that my products would 'pop' off the table. Most of my other 'props' are things I found around the house. I wanted to give my table more dimension, instead of just laying items flat on the table. So I found a plain old box, wrapped it in white and silver chevron paper, and used it as a stand for my basket of burp cloths. I used my bathroom towel stand to display one of my favorite kitchen towels. I found a simple chalkboard at Hobby Lobby and used it as my brand sign. I wanted a nice way to display my baby quilts and tote bags so that they would be eye-catching. I had a drying rack sitting in storage and...presto! Instant quilt stand at no extra cost. The bunting was draped across my sewing room design wall, so I borrowed it for the event.



Even with only my Etsy shop I figured business cards are a must. I ordered them from Vistaprint, which was extremely fast, great quality, and easy to use. I highly recommend them. For the craft fair they doubled as price tags.


I also tried to incorporate my sew-in labels where I could, much of my inventory was already made by the time I received them. I ordered them from BixbyBasil and I am very happy with them. The text is printed on twill, and they were easy to cut apart and sew into my pieces.


I did my research too-how much cash to have on hand, what to bring, how to sell more. All my research and preparation paid off, because the day of the craft fair I felt very confident and prepared. I really can't think of much I would have done differently.

So what did I sell and how did it go? I brought small amounts (5-10 range) of several products. This was sort of a 'test market' for me, to determine what sells and what doesn't. In the home goods category I had kitchen towels (sets of 2), coasters (sets of 4), mug rugs (large coasters), pillow covers, and tote bags. For baby/children I had burp cloths (sets of 3), baby quilts, and crayon rolls. I ended up selling a bit more than I thought I would, and it was a smattering of several items. The towels and burp cloths were well liked. The coasters sold better than I thought they would. I was a bit surprised at what did not sell-going in I thought the crayon rolls and tote bags would go. I only sold two crayon rolls and zero totes. I'm glad I had the variety I did, since I wasn't very accurate in my predictions ;-).



From a financial stand point I definitely made back the money I put into the event. I didn't make out like gangbusters, but it was worth doing the fair. I also had a pretty good time in the process. I will say the time frame of the event really helped-it was 9:00am-2:00pm so the day wasn't too long. We noticed a definite 'lull' after about 12pm, so the high I felt from selling in the morning sort of evaporated by the end of the day. However, a major fringe benefit to this experience was the exposure and networking with other vendors/sellers.

I'm really glad I did the vendor and craft fair and I plan to do more in the future. I decided to take the rest of the year off though, to build inventory over the winter. Plus it's a busy time of year at home! I have gifts to make for family and friends as well as a few orders to fill :-).