Friendly Friday and Catching Up (Again)

So I've been a little busy lately, duh, when is anyone ever NOT busy? Since I actually managed to get a new job that starts on MONDAY (gulp) I've been trying to get my house in order before I'm gainfully employed and unable to spend all my time cleaning house (yeah right). Yesterday was the second half of a wholecloth quilt class I took at one of my Local Quilt Shops (LQS). This quilt and quilting technique is just simply AWESOME! Guess what? After only two morning classes and some mad quilting in between, I've got a FINISHED quilt! Want to see?

Here it is in all it's crinkly goodness. I LOVE this quilting technique, the result looks like PLAID! Isn't that sew cool? Hmm, did I mention this before or anything? Oh, and yes, I used ALL that thread I showed in my other post. Here are some more fun pictures of the quilt.

Close up of the binding and piping, plus the back!

A far away shot, sort of

So  now that I'm done tooting my horn about this quilt, here's a question:

Would you like me to create a tutorial about this technique? It's TOTALLY easy! It's two pieces of fabric, 1 1/2 yd each and some for the binding and piping. That's pretty much it for the materials, how cool is that!?

Please let me know if you want me to do a tutorial, because if so, I'll probably have to make another one (OH DARN) in order to photograph the process. Oh, and I figured out a sort of nifty faux mitered corner technique for the binding. (Very proud of myself about that) Did I mention that this quilt is done ENTIRELY on the machine? Even the binding!

OK, enough about me. What are y'all up to today? I think I'm going to try to work on my sewing room spruce up some more, but later.

I'm linking today's post up to the usual Friendly Friday linky parties. See sidebar for links.

Happy Stitches,

Anna

Fabulous Friday

This post is going to be full of LOTS of different things so please bear with me, OK?

Friday Linky Parties:

You can see the badges in the right sidebar, but part of the reason I LOVE Friday is all the fun linky parties around Blogland! I've linked to Friday Follow at One 2 Try, Follow Me Friday at Trendy Treehouse and New Friend Friday at The Girl Creative! Friday is a great day to make new bloggy friends!! Also a new one for this week, Spring has Sprung at It's FUN to Craft.

Finish It Friday:

I managed to finish a couple of really easy and rather fun to make tote bags and I finished them on MONDAY! Don't ask me why I waited until today to post about them. Well, actually, I was going to wait until April for a surprise but just wanted to share today before I give them away. The first one, I made with Mill House Inn fabrics that my mom purchased. She wanted a tote that was small and had pockets for her cell phone and car key. I just LOVE this pattern for the Desk Deli Tote. It's supposed to be a reusable lunch bag but I found that the size and pockets make it perfect for a carryall bag and I use mine as a purse. We don't have the pattern yet because it's super popular and actually on backorder with our distributor! We will be ordering it soon though. This bag is so easy because it's made with mostly fat quarters! OK, enough rambling I'm sure you want to see pictures, right?

This is the one I made for my mom with Mill House Inn FQs

I made this one for my friend Lynda who looves shoes.

Can you tell that the batik fabric has flip flops on it? She also LOOOVES pink!

I think the fun thing about these totes is the way the pockets are made. You can customize them to the size that you want for your cell phone, car keys, pens, etc. There are some skinny pockets that were intended to use for utensils (since it's supposed to be a lunch tote) but I use them for my pens! The larger center pocket was intended for an ice pack, but that's where I stash my cell phone. Well, I'll be sure to announce when we get this pattern in and you can bet we'll list some kits to go with it!

Store Update:

Guess what!? If you are subscribed to our newsletter then you should already know this AWESOME news! (If not, visit the teal box in the right sidebar to sign up. hint: You'll get coupons!) The great news? BUTTONS! We have some wonderful and super cute buttons in our shop! Have you ever seen buttons with POLKA DOTS!? I hadn't until now and we have them! I just LOVE the red ones with white dots!

Click the image to view item in shop.

I suppose that's it for now. Thanks for reading all the way to this point! Please do sign up for the newsletter because there are A LOT of great things in store for the shop (including the Fab Shop Hop in JULY!) and I am sure you want to be the FIRST to find out about them!

Happy Stitches,
Anna

P.S. I just watched Julie and Julia last night and LOVED it! How cute! Didn't really inspire me to cook though, just to blog and sew more.

Friday Webstore Feature and FABRIC!

Since it's Friday, I thought it would be a great time to point out another cool feature on our webstore. On any page, you can see a group of links on the left sidebar. The top is the Shopping links, which are categories for your shopping ease. The section under that is called "about" and this is where you can find some info about the Crafty Girls. You can click on the About link and read about Regina and me and what inspired us to start up Crafty Girls. The Events link will take you to a calendar and if you live in the San Antonio, TX area, you'll see any scheduled events we have planned for a particular month. The Contact link will take you to a form where you can send us an e-mail if you have any questions about our products or anythying. The Catalog is another way to search the webstore. The last two features are pretty pretty cool, I think. We have one called Web Site Links. This is where you'll find a link to join our e-mail newsletter, participate in our Crafty Girls photo sharing group, visit the blog, or even link to the sites of some of the designers of patterns in our shop. The last link is called Guest Book, which may be self explanatory, but I think it's a neat way to let us know you visited and add some input about our webstore (it's still growing and changing). We'd love to know where our webstore visitors are coming from. It may just be the computer geek in me but I feel these are features that make our webstore more personal for our visitors and customers. Something we didn't have as much of on the Etsy shop.

Now for something you'll REALLY like, FABRIC! Yes, Spring is approaching and that means we're getting some beautiful spring color fabrics in. Have you seen the Verna fabrics we've recently listed?

Wouldn't these make into some adorable little girl dresses or cute tote bags for SPRING!? It's time to get a jump start on those spring projects. Tell Mr. Groundhog that you aren't going to accept his assessment that Spring is not here yet and make this REALLY cute vintage jumper, perfect for Easter.

I've heard really good reviews of patterns from the Favorite Things line and I think this would be a perfect beginner project. I wish I had a little girl to make it for! Well, I hope I gave you something to think about for the weekend (and maybe grab one for a future project.) You can click any of the photos above to visit the listing in our webstore or just click the link. Thanks for visiting! I'll be linking this on a couple of linky parties today.

Have a great weekend!
Happy stitches,
Anna