After last weekend's first craft bazaar in several years, I came home with a few extra dolls. It seemed like the perfect time to relaunch my Etsy store!
Until December 31st, 2013, I'm offering 20% off any item in my Etsy store. Use coupon code HOLIDAYLAUNCH at checkout. :)
It's been a while since my last post. Between the day job, the non-paying evening job, and life in general, I've been pretty sidetracked from any sewing, knitting, or crafting. I still haven't caught up enough to sit down and seriously sew or knit again, but I did find clumps of time where I could at least do something crafty and creative.
I love hand made quilts, but I don't have the patience, or surprisingly even the fabric stash, to make a lot of those gorgeous, intricate patterns I admire so much. But I have a lot of scraps from cutting out doll clothes and other projects. And my local quilt shop sells bags of scraps, too, which I can't resist when I venture in.
So when my brain just needed something other than work and feeble attempts to keep the house from being labeled a hazardous waste site, I sat down at my sewing machine one evening with a big bag of my scrap stash, and started sewing. No pattern in mind, just a scrap quilt. I made squares, rectangles, lopsided triangles. Then I combined those shapes together, trimmed them down into roughly even squares and rectangles, and kept going.
The result after three weeks of a half hour here, sometimes an hour there, and I finally had a good sized quilt top. There's a lot of colors in there, and I love it!
Of course, my seams aren't all perfect, and there's some puckering going on, especially after I did a slapdash machine quilting job on it. I just went with a vague semi circle from one corner, and continued on out until I reached the other side. I also quilted "in the ditch" along the borders. Then I added a big piece of fabric for backing, and did the worst mitered corners you've ever seen.
But I still love it. It turned out to be 27.50 inches by 37 inches. It's a perfect doll sized quilt, or baby sized. I do plan to list this on Etsy, assuming it survives the wash and dry cycle. It should, since these are all cotton and cotton blend fabrics, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't both test wash it to confirm it will survive a gentle, cold water wash, and air dry tumble, and to get out as much cat hair as I'm sure crept into it while I made it.
I'm going to ask a high price for this, in my opinion: $75, firm. There's a lot of fabric, and a lot of my time in there, and I personally think the imperfections add to its charm. Imperfections also may make someone more willing to actually use it, too, despite my asking price. Nothing breaks my heart more than to pour time and energy, and often love, into a project, give it to someone, only to hear "It's too nice to use!" No, it's not! It's meant to be used, and maybe dragged around in a little pair of hands until it needs to be washed, and then washed again until it gets that soft and worn feel I love in old quilts.
And if no one wants to pay me $75, plus shipping, that's quite alright with me. I have dolls that need a fabulous quilt for a bed I'll eventually create. And my cats would be quite content to curl up on the sofa with me with this on my lap to stave off the morning chill while I drink my coffee.
So this project helped keep my sanity the last few weeks when I just couldn't focus on anything else when I had the time. I personally love it, but am still willing to sell it. But like most things I make, if no one wants to pay me a fair price for my time and effort, so be it. I have plenty of uses for it myself! :D
My oldest kitty, Rocky, helps with the photography process.
I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but I ordered a custom made stamp just for Fashionable Figures. I can stamp my own business cards (in small quantities, on custom paper), stamp up my own coupons, price tags, packing/wrapping materials, etc., and have it all contain the pertinent information I want people to have.
And best yet, total cost even with shipping was around $28.00. I don't think I could purchase a mass produced stamp of this size (3.5 inches by 1.5 inches) with this level of detail in a store for that!
I ordered this from an Etsy seller, JLMould, finally choosing one of her listings after sifting through a lot of other seller options. This is a laser cut stamp so the small text was possible (versus hand carved). Plus, that also reduced the turnaround time. I ordered the stamp on August 25th, and it arrived Sept 4th (with Monday the 3rd being a "no mail" holiday).
The ordering process was also very easy (although you do have to leave Etsy's site to go to her nifty portal). You upload the graphic you want made into a stamp, specify any extra instructions, and go from there. Since I already had my graphic designed out exactly the way I wanted it, and sized to fit the stamp (and made at 600 dpi resolution), I think that saved me a few days. If you needed her assistance to tweak or even design the graphic, naturally that would add time. But you have all the instructions/specification at your fingertips, both on the Etsy listing, and at the ordering portal, so nothing should be confusing. Unless, of course, graphics just aren't your thing, and things like "DPI" sound like a weird disease you should have been immunized against as a child. :D
I have JLMould "favorited" on Etsy, because I know I will eventually want/need more sizes and graphic combinations. I had been holding my breath to see how my stamp would look, and how well it would work in actual use, and I couldn't be more pleased!
Of course now I need to craft some more items for sale so I can replenish even that relatively small price back into my budget. And I think some of my dolls are feeling more than a little neglected these last few busy days... :D