The Key to Blogville

I wanted to give a big thanks to Blogville and all its residents, especially Mayor Frankie Furter, for bestowing me with the key to blogville.  It is a great honor to be acknowledged by such a great group of pets and peeps for my contribution to the Fearless Five Memory Quilt.

Being a part of this project brought me out of the shadows as one who previously read many of your blogs, but didn’t comment often and also didn’t post on my own blog.  It is difficult to describe to those who don’t participate in this blogging community just how great a group it is to be a part of.  We may never meet in real life, but many of us consider each other friends just the same.

I have to thank Agnes, What’s Her Name from Dachsies With Moxie, for allowing me to help with this quilt and becoming a new friend.  As a quilter my first reaction to a tragedy like what Sandra and her family went through is to make a quilt, but in keeping with their wishes I didn’t want to make one that they would have to find a place to store until their home could be rebuilt.  This quilt was definitely the exception to that wish and if it weren’t for all of those who contributed to this quilt I wouldn’t have been able to help make it for Sandra either.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank my husband, Charlie, for allowing me to be “chained to my sewing machine” and not doing much other than that for almost a week to be able to complete the quilt as soon as possible.  He even helped me with the basting and taking pictures.  Of course Nina was also there offering her moral support and telling me about everyone who sent in fabric from what she could smell about them.  She was quite mesmerized by all she could sniff on that quilt and would linger for quite some time deciphering all the scents.

According to the UPS tracking, the quilt is due to arrive in Houston by Tuesday this week.  I can’t wait to show all of you how the quilt turned out and a little about my part of the process.

Thanks again for this wonderful honor.  It is great to be part of such a great community and I love you all.

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Liebster Award

A couple of weeks ago I was given the Liebster Award by a remarkable quilting blogger.  Giles of Touch and Sew is not only a quilter, but he is legally blind.  This doesn’t stop him from pursuing a hobby that most of us couldn’t imagine doing without full sight.  I first found Giles’ blog when he entered his first quilt in the online quilt show “Men Quilt Too” in September of last year and was surprised to find out he lives in the Rochester, NY area too! To date we have not met in person and unfortunately Giles will likely be moving back to England sometime in March, but I hope we can meet up before he leaves.  I find his story very inspiring and would love to meet him. You should pop over to his blog and get to know him.

So my next order of business is to nominate 5 other bloggers.  I thought this might be tough, but after looking around some of my favorites haven’t previously received this award.  Some of the blogs I chose are more pet oriented and are familiar with me, but a couple are primarily quilting blogs that I find very inspiring.  All of the blogs I have chosen involve crafting and quilting for some of their posts.  So without further ado and in no particular order here is my list:

1. Dachsies With Moxie – Well I think many of you know that Agnes (who some of you know as What’s Her Name) and I have both contributed a lot of time to a special quilt recently.  We have traded numerous emails over the past few weeks and I consider Agnes a friend now.  I love her blog and have told her I feel a bit embarrassed when she refers to me as blogvilles’ “world-class quilter”, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel good to be appreciated too.  She has recently promoted my endeavors to start a business selling hand-made bags on her blog. Thanks Agnes.
2. Dog Eared – I have to say that Mollie Jo, her brother Bobo and Uncle Puppy always make me smile when I visit their blog.  Not only is her mom a great seamstress creating numerous dresses for Mollie Jo to model, but she also makes quilts and enjoys creating machine embroidered things as well. Mollie Jo and her mom also open their home to foster pups on a regular basis and recently took in a real cutie.  As the main voice of the blog Mollie Jo is often going on adventures and modeling her many outfits and recently won the Too Darn Cute category and Best In Show at Mango Minster.
3. Bags by KZK – Now at first blush this blog might not be familiar to most of you, but if you look closely you will see some very familiar faces.  This is the quilting blog written by the mom of Dave and Zim, of the Army of Four Digest.  On this blog Karen usually goes into more detail of her quilting and crafting projects that are occasionally mentioned on the boys blog.  Of course Dave, the guide dog for the color blind, often makes an appearance helping his mom pick fabrics and proper thread colors for her projects. I enjoy learning more about Karen’s process as she creates her projects.
4. Nero’s Post and Patch – You might think when you first visit this blog that it is about Nero the dog since he is prominently featured in the header, but it is really about his mom Teje and her quilting adventures.  Her blog describes her as “a Finnish woman living in Greece filling her days with fabric, wool and dogs”, but her cat Nelli recently posted about how she helps her mom in her sewing studio. Teje is also “owned” by two other dogs.  Check out her blog for not only some beautiful quilts, but gorgeous scenery from around Greece.
5. Quilts of Love – This longarm quilter from Maine has become my quilting inspiration.  I wish I could see her work in person as it never ceases to amaze me.  Most of the quilts she works on are not her own as she quilts tops clients have sent her, but I really love the ones she has created the best.  So far what I have seen of her quilts I absolutely love her choice in colors. Just so you don’t think this quilter is devoid of pets she and her family are owned by two cats who make occasional appearances on her blog.  If you are a quilter you must visit this blog and be blown away by her awesome quilting and even if you aren’t a quilter you will still be blown away by the beauty of her and her clients work.

So there you have my recipients of the Liebster Award.  By the way in case you didn’t already know liebster is a German word that translates to “dearest” and that is how I feel about all of my new friends in blogville.  You are all dear to me.  Thanks again to Giles for presenting me with this award.

Now for those of you that I presented this award to the rules state that you should:

• Thank your award presenter on your blog
• Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award
• Copy and paste the award to your blog
• Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that you think deserve to be recognized
• Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog

I completely understand if you don’t want to follow the rules so don’t feel like you have to.  Just enjoy the accolades and maybe you will make some new friends too.

 

 

 

 

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Nina’s News – Mr. Chewy Order

Hi everyone, Nina here to tell you about the great prize I won recently.  Wyatt over at Gardening with Wyatt had a drawing to win a $50 gift certificate from Mr. Chewy a few weeks ago and I won!  It took mom and I a few days to decide what to pick out.  Mom wanted to get some of my regular food, but I am now on a special prescription diet and so far Mr. Chewy doesn’t carry our brand.  That’s fine with me because that way I could just pick out some great treats.

We placed the order and in a very short time, in a box that was 5 times bigger than it needed to be, my stash arrived.  Mom was happy the box was so big because she used it to mail the Fearless Five quilt in it.  Thanks for that Mr. Chewy.

Look at all this loot!

Check out all this loot! I only spent the $50 for all of these treats.  It’s going to take quite a while before I can finish all of this.  The joys of being an only dog!  I did have to watch my dad as he thought those Classic Cremes from Three Dog Bakery looked good enough for him to eat (they look like Oreo cookies).  According to the ingredient list I think he could eat it, but I don’t know if the flavor would appeal to a human.

Nom, nom, ooh Classic Cremes

I gave them a taste and told dad they were great, but that he should keep his paws off them unless he is handing one to me.  I have only opened a couple of the treats so far so I have a lot more fun tasting to come.

Thanks again Wyatt for having the giveaway.  You sure made my day…and many more days to come too.

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Mission Accomplished

Well, it’s been over a week since my last post, but there is a good reason for my lack of communication.  I also haven’t been commenting much on anyone’s blogs either and for that I apologize. Just as What’s Her Name from Dachsies With Moxie was chained to her sewing machine until she finished the Fearless Five Memory quilt top I too had been chained to my sewing machine until it was done being quilted.

I am happy to report that the quilt is done and packaged to be shipped tomorrow morning.  Sorry no pictures yet as we all want Sandra and her family to see the finished product before we let the rest of the world in on its beauty.  I will fill you in on my part of the process after I get the all clear that the delivery has been completed.  Until then you will just have to take my word for it that the quilt truly is a labor of love from all of us.

I have a few blogging things to catch up on in the next week.  Nina won a $50 gift certificate to Mr. Chewy from Wyatt and will be doing a review of her treats soon.  I also was given an award that needs to be acknowledged and Nina was tagged by the Dachsies With Moxie and will be answering those questions soon.

Knitters Project Bags

In the mean time a few of you have placed orders for project bags so I will be contacting you for details and get working on them soon.  Word has it that a few of them that I sent to Michigan have already sold.  I’m hoping they will sell out of them soon so I will have more work to do.

I almost forgot to thank Puddles and her mom for including a nice bag of treats for Nina when they sent their fabric square to be added to the quilt.  She loves them.  Sorry there are no pictures to show just how much she enjoys them since Nina runs and hides anytime she sees the camera come out.  I keep trying to figure out how to sneak up on her with the camera, but so far I have not been successful.  If any of you have any suggestions on how to train a 14-year-old dog who is afraid of flashing lights to accept a camera in her face then let me know.

 

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For a Good Cause

Hi everyone.  I just thought I would start by saying thanks for the great welcome messages Nina and I have received lately.  We are very glad to be part of blogville.  Also Nina is very happy to have gotten a date to the Valentines pawty.  The Pittie Packs Brinksey Winksey has asked Nina to the pawty and she is excited to be going with him.

In other news I wanted to tell you about a quilt project that I just put the final touches on.  Last spring I found these really cute embroideries at my favorite source the Embroidery Library called “Animals in Pajamas” and wanted to do something with them.

Sleep Tight Quilt #1

I decided to make a couple of lap quilts in flannel and also decided I would donate them to a cause that helps children.

Sleep Tight Quilt #2

It took a long time to stitch out all 18 embroideries and was especially challenging since I decided to set the blocks on point.  The embroideries are so cute so I will show a few up close.

Dog & Racoon

If you click on the image to see a bigger version you can see that the dogs PJs have fire hydrants on them and the raccoons PJs have trash cans.  Most of the embroideries have these subtle jokes for their pajamas.  The cat below has mice on his jammies.  I quilted them at Jackie Lynn’s on one of her longarm machines and I just love how they turned out.  I stitched stars in the sashing and did loops everywhere else.

Cat & Rabbit

I wasn’t sure which charity I would donate them to until my sister was visiting around Thanksgiving and it dawned on me that she works for a children’s charity.  So I asked her if she thought the quilts were something they could use to raise some money for their organization and she was thrilled at the prospect of using them for a raffle.

The charity my sister works for is called Soar Tutoring.  SOAR Tutoring is a program of Eagle Sports Club that offers low-cost, individualized one-on-one reading tutoring to struggling students on Detroit’s east side.  This is a great cause so I hope a couple of the kids in the program can win them.  I shipped the quilts off to her last week and she was anxious to show them to her co-workers. I love how these turned out and I’m glad that a worthy charity will be able to benefit from them.

Tomorrow I will be at the monthly meeting of the Genesee Valley Quilt Club and will be giving a demonstration on how to make a zippered clutch (like the ones I made as Christmas gifts recently).  Some people are afraid of adding zippers to their sewing projects so I hope to show them that it really is nothing to fear.  After that I will be chained to my sewing machine working on the Fearless Five memory quilt.  I won’t be able to show you any pictures of that until after Sandra has seen it, but I plan on sharing my process later.  I may not be around much to comment on other blogs so I just wanted to let you know I am here and working hard.

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Production Line

My sewing machine has been getting quite a workout lately doing both machine embroidery and sewing and this is the reason.

Knitters Project Bags

A few weeks ago my sister called to tell me that she had just come from a visit to her local yarn shop The Wool and The Floss in Grosse Pointe, Michigan and had an interesting exchange with the shop owner.  Colleen (my sister) had one of the project bags I made for her for Christmas with her and the owner of the shop asked her where she got it.  She told Jean (the shop owner) that I had made it and a couple of others as gifts and Jean asked her if she thought I would like to sell some.  Colleen said she didn’t know for sure, but that she would call me to see what I thought.

I thought, why not!  So I called Jean to see what size bags she would like and told her I would try to get some to her by this coming weekend since I knew she had a big event to attend where she would have a booth to sell things.  Jean really liked the embroidery on Colleen’s bag so I used that and a few other cute embroideries I got from Urban Threads and Embroidery Library to embellish the bags.  I mailed out 4 medium and 5 small bags and I just checked to see that they were delivered!

After a short discussion with Jean I decided to add some features to the bags from what I made for Colleen.  I had asked Colleen if she wanted any pockets and at the time she said she didn’t need any, but I decided to add some pockets in these new bags.  For the medium bags I put a tall skinny pocket that can be used for putting knitting needles in and a large square pocket for putting a pattern or other notions you might need to keep with you.

Medium Bag Interior

The small bags just have one large square pocket and both bags have a snap loop that you can put your yarn through so it feeds out of the bag nicely.

Small Bag Interior

I also made one addition to the exterior of the bag, by adding a snap loop and sewing the drawstring into a loop.  With the drawstring fed through the snap loop it becomes a nice handle or shoulder strap to carry the bag with.

Drawstring Handle

I love the way these came out and plan on making a bunch more. If they sell well at The Wool and The Floss then I will ship out some more to her.  I also plan to see if I can sell some to yarn shops in my area and also start selling them on Etsy.

Oh yeah…I also came up with a name for this enterprise. Well actually my Chief Creative Consultant, aka my husband Charlie, came up with the name Cindy’s Thread Craft and this is the label I made to go inside the bags. Of course the label design was Charlie’s idea too.

The bags are being sold on commission so wish me luck that these sell so I can make my millions sewing knitting bags!  I know dream on, but it is a lot more fun than sitting behind a desk somewhere.  So if you are in the Detroit area stop by the shop and say hi to Jean or visit the Knit Michigan event this Saturday and find her booth.

 

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