Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Doll Coats

On Friday I was at Joann's looking at fabric for Christmas presents when a lady walks up to me looking for somebody to make 4 doll coats by today. She said she had asked the ladies at the counter and they weren't any help. She wanted to know if I sewed or if knew anybody she could pay to make the coats. I handed her my business card and told her I could make them. We then headed to the pattern section to pick out a pattern. She had been looking at a bunch and showed them to me. She wanted one that could be buttoned and had a hood, so we ended up going with the pattern she wanted because it had several options for me to play with. I continued my shopping and she went to pick out the buttons, have the fabric cut and then went and bought all the supplies. She handed everything off to me as I stood in line to make my purchase. I headed home and looked at the pattern more closely and realized we didn't get any satin fabric for the lining. I knew I had some in my stash, so called her and told her it would cost a couple extra dollars a coat for the lining. No problem!! Friday night I did a test run and realized I needed to use a different view on the pattern. I also realized I HATE working with FUR!!! Never again will I take on a paid project using fur. I thought I could sew all the coats up in about 4 hours and to my surprise it probably took 10!!! In-laws were visiting over the weekend, so I didn't get to start on her coats until Monday, but they were finished on Tuesday and she picked them up today. Hopefully this will lead to more orders from my new customer!!!!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

9 Patch Quilt Blocks

For Christmas I'm going to make my younger brother some pillows for his new couch. His couch is a sage green and I'm waiting for pictures to see if I have some fabric that will work with his couch. While shopping at Joann's (one of my favorite stores!!) on Saturday and I looked for some fabrics that might work for his pillows. I will see him Thanksgiving and plan to send some scraps home with him so he can see if any of them work. As I was picking them out I was noticing how well they all go together. Then the other day I came across directions for 9 patch quilt blocks (http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts/2006/10/crazy_about_qui.html) and thought it was the perfect quilt block to make a quilt for my brother. Now I'm really hoping one of the fabrics I picked will work for his pillows, but if not, I have started a quilt to sell. Here are my first 9 quilt blocks....