Thursday, September 30, 2010

My House is Full of Craziness

I read somewhere that crafters should take three times the amount of stuff they want to sell to a craft fair. WOW. That's a lot of stuff. I took that statement to heart because it makes sense. The rationale behind it is that you never want your booth to look empty.

For the past several weeks I have been buying fabric, cutting out fabric, and sewing fabric . I think almost every room in my house might have fabric or finished products in it. When I look at all of it, I feel that I have enough...but...I always feel like I could make more. My husband says I'm too hard on myself, and I say that I can do better. Did I mention that I also homeschool our 4th grade son?

WHAT. AM. I. THINKING?

I signed up for the New Salem Mountain Festival (a big craft fair) a long time ago before I decided to homeschool. Had I known I would be homeschooling, I would have passed on the craft fair!

Alas, I have a week and 2 days until the craft fair. I still have about 20 aprons, 10 camera straps, 30 makeup bags and a couple of purses to sew. I think I need to re-evaluate this! There's no way I can get all of that done and maintain any ounce of sanity.

Needless to say, next week will be a slacker week as far as homeschooling goes.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Facebook Fan Page Maintenance

This is just a quick post to explain how Facebook Fan Pages work. Or don't work, for that matter. They are not the same as regular Facebook personal profile pages. Oh no, that would be too easy.

When someone writes on my wall, comments on a wall post, comments on a photo, comments on a comment on a photo or wall post (you get the idea), FB fan pages DO NOT send notification to the administrator of that fan page. Unless...the admin "likes" everything on their page. Then the admin looks like they just love themselves to pieces.

As far as photo comments go, there is a page the admin can go to to view the comments made on the photos. They are not in order of date of comment, they are in order in which the photo was posted. Yikes. So if I posted a photo 6 months ago and you just commented on it today, it would be put with the other photos that were posted 6 months ago, not with today's comments. I have to go and fish for these comments, checking my photo comments daily.

As you can imagine, this gets very time consuming and cumbersome. Keep in mind that when you comment on a Facebook Fan Page that the administrator probably won't see it unless they are stalking their page almost constantly. Send them a message/email/text (or you can also call--my phone number is listed on my fan page).

So...as of this morning I have deleted any photo comments that were not made in the past week (sorry!) or so. People have asked questions about price, etc. All of my pricing can be found on this site under the "Product Pricing" tab unless the item was a custom order. If you want to inquire about those, please email me. aprilforshee at gmail dot com I will work to update my photos with the appropriate link (blog post, pricing page, etc.) so that there is no confusion. Feel free to continue to comment, though, as I will check that photo comments page almost daily. I will respond to them and after a week or so, I will delete them! I think that may be a good way to manage the comments.

Have questions? Let me know!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Patty Young, American Girl Dress

Patty Young first grasped my attention when I discovered her Mezzanine collection of fabrics for Michael Miller Fabrics. I became obsessed with the Gothic Flower print (and I still am!). I have a very popular Buttercup Bag in my shop made from fabrics from this line.

Patty also has sewing patterns for little girls and their dollies! Now, I do not have a girl to sew for and I generally do not care for pastels, frills, lace and the like. This is why I love her patterns. Even though I don't have a real girl to sew for, I have an American Girl Doll (I have Molly). Many of my friends still have their dolls from when they were children also...and their daughters and nieces have them too!

A friend of mine asked me to make a Mini Kyoko for her niece and I jumped at it! We carefully chose four fabrics and some ribbon for a nice dress for the Felicity doll, who is red headed. Sewing the dress took me about 2 hours. The bulk of that time was dealing with the tiny bias tape and the tiny gathers in the skirt. I have big hands that do not get along with tiny things. I do recommend making your own bias tape, though, as it looks better and can be whatever fabric you like!

I am completely pleased with the way the dress turned out! I might make my Molly one. The only thing I would change is that the next one will be made with some of Patty's fabric!

Oh, and I got to meet Patty Young a few months ago at Intown Quilters here in Atlanta! I even sat in traffic, which is something I swore to myself I would never do since I retired from working downtown, so I could go meet her. She had a new line of knits coming out and gave a talk about how to sew with knits, which was very informative and helpful! The videos of what she presented are on her website.

Enjoy the photos!


2010 09 15 Mini Kyoko

Molly in the Mini Kyoko I made! (I guess she was tired of being in her Georgia Tech cheerleader outfit?!)
2010 09 15 Patty Young Visit-2
2010 09 15 Patty Young Visit

Patty & I

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Above All Fabric

Melanie at Above All Fabric asked me to make some zippered pouches to show off her new zippers that she is carrying in her shop! I stitched them up today and couldn't be happier with the results!

The following fabrics were used:

Melanie has an informative post about sewing with zippers in store for her blog next week. You won't want to miss it!

2010 09 09 Above All Fabric
Two large pouches
2010 09 09 Above All Fabric-3
A view of the weird quilting I did on this one.
2010 09 09 Above All Fabric-6
Medium-sized pouches, about 3.5" x 8"
2010 09 09 Above All Fabric-8
A coin purse

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

What I Did Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend, I sent my husband and son out of town so I could sew. I needed some uninterrupted time to get ready for the New Salem Mountain Festivalwhich is in one month. I have lots and lots of these made, but none of these.

So I ended up making 9 Buttercup Bags and 3 Marti Bags! I also made one of these. Here are the pics:

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Labor Day Weekend 2010