New camera, new shop

I have a new camera! I'm quite excited about it, but please note I haven't read the manual yet. Due to a modest budget, I bought it on craigslist, but to me it's pretty fancy. It's a Canon Rebel XT and I'm so happy to finally have a DSLR after using my little point and shoot for so long. (I used to love my old SLR but couldn't cope with film anymore.)

So to celebrate, there's lots of new things in the shop today, including the little coin pouch pictured above. It started with a fabulous super-wide vintage tie that I had to buy despite the fact that buying a tie for the fabric doesn't make too much sense. It had a hole in it, so I had no compunction about pulling it apart, washing it and cutting out pieces for my pouches. It turns out you can get a surprising amount of fabric from a nice wide vintage tie. I have more of these pouches in a variety of sizes so if you have a request let me know and I'll add it to the shop.

Oddly, the final motivation to get the new camera was those blue quilted pouches (mentioned in my last post) whose colour just wasn't coming out right in the photos. And in the end the blue wasn't quite right with the new camera either. I guess it's just a hard-to-capture blue. Is there such a thing? I'm not sure but I'll be doing my best and getting those into the shop shortly as well.

And sometimes it doesn't matter what the motivation is if it works out in the end. I'm very happy with my new camera. Good-bye autofocus!

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Quilted pouches

I've been taking a little blogging holiday this summer, apparently. So here's a little post just to get back into the habit, some new quilted pouches that are making their way into my shop today... The colours of some of them didn't come out quite right in the photographs so I'm fussing with them, but the first three are in there now.

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Getting ready

Tomorrow is the City of Craft crafts sale and I'm puttering around getting ready. I have things to sort through and find, things to finish up and new things to make. Everything is lined up on my dining table so I can see what I have: shoppers, totes, messenger bags, earrings, necklaces, pincushions, pouches, one hat, one flower brooch, one eyeglass case, trivets, bracelets, bird postcards, and last but not least needle books!

This picture shows some completed needle books. Please visit me tomorrow and don't forget the first 100 people in the door get free swag in a fabulous tote that I'm coveting myself!

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Needing the barkcloth

I've been hoping for years to have lots of things made and be able to rent a table at a Fall/Christmas crafts sale. I've decided this year I'm finally going to do it. I've even ordered "needle book" fabric labels to put in my things. I was inspired recently by Practically necessary's barkcloth bags. I finally won a little bit of barkcloth on ebay and made some messenger bags. I love how they turned out, the hard part will be parting with them.I've also been making granny bags after creating a pattern for myself. A bit tricky but I think anyone could do it. Mine are all one-of-a-kind, depending on how big I want to make them, the amount of fabric I have and where I feel like putting the pleats. I make coordinating lined pockets to go inside and of course attach those before assembling the bag.

I like this one, from a wool tweed:

This ones is from my Cath Kidston circus fabric with olive green straps:
And I've made a bunch of pouches:
My favourite pouch is made from Liberty fabric:My favourite fabric these days is still the scenic barkcloth and I'm trying to buy more on ebay, but I keep getting snipered with 5 seconds to go! One auction went from $75 to $225 in the last 5 seconds. My maximum bid was $220 for 10 yards of barkcloth which I already thought was high. But I loved the pattern and I was very disappointed. It was part of my new plan to think big, and invest in my craft business a bit more so I could make enough things to have a proper table.

It may be for the best though because my dining table is still covered with stacks of fabric...but that's another story.

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