I've decided I think I need a gocco. Well, not really like I need, but I want it really badly. So... I've been doing a bit of research. The Goccos of course are no longer being exported to the US, and they're reasonably expensive on ebay. Savegocco.com has hints that a mjor US arts and crafts retailer may be carrying them later this calender year.... but I feel the printing urge NOW.

The B5/B6 seems to be the most common system, and the most common size around. I think I'd like to be able to print a little bit larger than 4x6 ish, but it's all up in the air...

Mini Survey:
Do any of you have one?
What size do you have?

Well I've done it and taken the plunge to open a second etsy shop purely to destash myself. I came to the conclusion that I have more crafty stuff than I'll ever use, and that someone else could be using these things and I won't feel wasteful If I pass them on to someone else to use.

In addition I often buy in bulk when something inspires me, and then something happens.... or I get distracted by something else... and I've got a lot left. So nothing in the shop is junk or trash, they're all things I've bought to use myself at some point, and just didn't. Or I'll just never use the quantity I have.

So check it out.
Shooting Star Supplies at Etsy



:)

I've been working on this great quilt at work for a shop sample, and I think I've finally figured it all out.

These designs are Huge which leads to my first problem. I'm doing them in the 'grand hoop' which requires that the machine sews one side of the designs, then you turn the hoop 180 degrees and it sews the other side. In addition there are almost 60,000 stitches, which leads to puckering and all sorts of other problems with the fabric. I'm using silk dupioni (which is amazing by the way for embroidery) so all I needed was enough stabilizer to make it happen.

I stitched one of the other designs out previously and had a lot of problems, so I doubled up on the heavy duty (Inspira - washable sticky back) stabilizer and it worked! so the design with some puckers will most likely become a pillow, and I'll redo that one for the quilt.

one a side note: These designs are from the Pfaff Grand Elegance collection, which has 10 of these huge floral designs. You'll be seeing more of them as I get going. The designs take about 3 hours a piece (with no thread breaks or problems etc).

It's been beautiful here (until about two hours ago when the skies opened) but spring has definitely sprung. The sun has been out, the skies are blue, and the butterflies are out.

This photo is of Papilio cresphontes also known as the Giant Swallowtail. This butterfly is a swallowtail and is common across the southern United States. Adults feed on a variety of nectar sources in gardens and the caterpillars are referred to as "orangedogs." The larval stages feed mainly on citrus and can be a pest especially in non-commercial settings.

This photo was taken at the Boston Museum of Science's Butterfly Garden Exhibit in the Spring of 2005.

I'd like to give a quick shout out to powderpuff on etsy. She did a great feature on my shop at the end of January in her blog, and when I went to check out her shop she makes awesome super cute stuff and furry monsters.

This is a link to her blog post she did on me (I'm all the way at the bottom) but she profiles an etsyian (is that a word?) fairly often.

I've been sitting here procrastinating doing statistics labs becuase I'm quite far behind, and I have a lab practical tomorrow. I have all my programs written and run, so I have output to write about, but now it's 11:25 pm and I'm ready to go home and go to sleep.

But in the meantime I've been sitting and reading the news online, which while much of it is too serious and makes me sad, or it makes me want to go and find another planet to live on. I ran across this article this evening about Roger Ebert, the film critic. He's currently undergoing a series of surgeries for cancer and refuses to hide for the public eye while he's going through treatments. While he can't speak becuase of the number of surgeries he's had, he writes lots of notes and will be at a film festival soon that has installed a lazy-boy recliner for him to watch movies in. He requests that all gossip rags refer to photos of him as a "lay-z-critic"

If you're a new junky like I am for stupid news, you should check out fark.com if you haven't already. It's a fabulous way to waste lots of time.

I took this great quilting class this weekend to make a Blooming Nine Patch quilt, and got four out of eight fabrics up on the design wall. I'm not entirely sure that I love it so far, but it changes with each color you add, so stay tuned for more photos.

The pattern for the quilt is from the book "Traditions with a Twist" by Blanche Young and Darlene Young Stone and while the photos in the book aren't that exciting some of the other quilts I've seen in this pattern are amazing!

technorati tags: quilt blooming nine patch make

I am absolutely in love with this quilt. It's part of the QuiltPink auctions happening on Ebay right now, and If you don't know anything about them you should check out the information at www.quiltpink.com and the auction site here.

Over 1000 Independent quilt shops around the country (and the world) hosted quiltpink events last year. Both groups and individuals contributed finished pink quilts and they are currently being auctioned, with 100% of the proceeds to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Fund.

This particular quilt was donated by Sharon Smith from French Fantasy Designs, and looks absolutely amazing. I have a strong desire for it to be hanging on MY wall (and I'm not a wallhanging person) but with several days left on the auction the price is already over $300. As much as I would love to purchase this quilt I love that so many people are bidding and buying quilts to support research. Even better is that there were nearly 4,000 quilts donated to be auctioned off with starting bids of $150 each. While many are going for the minimum bid several quilts have sold for much more. The top earners so far have been sold for $535 and $530 and were amazing as well.

If you haven't gotten a chance yet, you should go and check it out.

I also have to give major props to Tigerlillyshop on etsy. She's one of my contacts on flickr and when I saw this gorgeous necklace float across my homepage I knew I had to have it!.

It came in the mail this week and I wore it and got tons of compliments! I need to shorten the chain, but I like shorter necklaces than the rest of the world I think.

That and the photo is amazing. I"m a sucker for gorgeous product photography.

So I should really go to sleep so I can get up early in the morning. It's bound to be a busy crafty day. I need to try and get some quilting done, my bookcase is getting out of control with tops..... hopefully I can double up on some of the smaller ones.... we shall see :) Ameila is out of town in Berlin for a dealer trip- so Linda and I are going to try and get other stuff done around the shop as well. We need to try and assemble the shop-hop sampler quilt (it's going to be made out of the Benartex Metro fabric - you can see an example here)... and I'm hoping to get part of the needle felted table runner finished. There's no way that it will all get done, but you never know.

Oh- and I'm going to skip out and try to go to the departmental crawfish boil for a bit as well!

I'm also making strides to organize my crafting space. I've got cabinets along one wall now with plenty of room (but I haven't had time to fill them yet) and my desk set up with jewelry supplies. I need somewhere to set up my serger and sewing machine, and I need to find a new home for the cat box farther away from where I sit. I bought magazine organizers today at Target and put them up on top of everything, hopefully I don't need more than what I bought, since they were the last ones on the shelf!

Since I've linked on the right to the EtsyJournal Project, I figured I'd start by showing you my contribution. I was completely inspired by a fused quilt class I took at the Gulf States Quilting Association Meeting this year with Robbi Eklow called Free Expression Quilting.

So I started with a big roll of wonder-under and fused the blue batiked background into the book and started playing. I have so much fabric that working this way is almost like playing with stickers. Each piece can go anywhere you can iron if you can cut it out.

I was really happy with the result, and love the finished project. I can't wait till all the books are finished and we can get a reproduction! as for right now I'm the last person in my book to have finished (that I know of) so I hope it's moving along...

Well this is officially to welcome you all to reading this (though currently no one knows it exists). I love crafty things, indie-ness, bright modern fabrics and crafty things, and I *hope* to eventually blog about things I make, things other people make, and generally cool stuff.