FAM = The FABULOUS ARTISTIC MOMS of Etsy

Ready to start your holiday shopping for the whole Family? Buy handmade this year. Stop by the FAM Made Holiday Gift Guide to find gifts for everyone in the whole family and even some handmade ornaments for the tree. Each item is carefully crafted by a Fabulous Artistic Mom of Etsy. Just click on the badge below!

I’m in the Christmas spirit with my sewing!!

Ok, I set up a Flickr account. I didn’t want to do it, because I like the Kodak Gallery for ordering prints from my camera…but it supposedly works nicely with blogging, so I’m giving it a try! If anyone has any tips for me on how to use it and what to do with it, please share!!

Now there is a photostream of some of the ten quilties I recently boxed up and mailed away. Here’s the link to that photoset.
http://flickr.com/photos/31735891@N02/sets/72157609377951078/

I had to say goodbye to ten little quilts all in one day!! They are now at Marc’ette Floral & Gifts in Sauk Centre, MN. Some were old, but most were new, made especially for their Holiday Open House.
But I’m glad to have these pictures of them, at least! Go see them on Flicker and let me know what you think!

I have had a drawer of decorator fabric swatches and scraps for many years…but haven’t paid them much attention. Now I need the drawer space for other stuff! I found a project in a BHG publication for a floor cushion and my friend Lisa brought up the idea of sensory quilts for Alzheimer’s patients…so I think I’m going to finally put those scraps to good use!!

They’re kind of ugly, and widely varied, so I hope my projects turn out ok!! Here are some photos of my table full of them! What do you think: a nice scrappy look or a mish mash?? The magazine example is a beautifully coordinated piece, that I know mine will not be, but I think it will be fun!

The floor cushion is from Better Homes and Gardens Creative Collection: Fast & Fabulous Quilting Ideas 2008, a compilation from American Patchwork & Quilting, so you may find it there too. More details on the sensory quilts when we get to that project in February.

Hey, do you have any fabric scraps?! Well, my scrap bin was getting too full…so I made a few notecards yesterday. I don’t think I made a dent in the scrap pile, but I did have a blast! Maybe I’ll make a little tutorial on this, it was a really fun and easy project. And aren’t they pretty?!

I’ve ventured into a new land…the land of felted wool! It’s a natural fit, as I’ve been saving and using fabric scraps from old clothing forever, but this is a new thing for me. It started with a few cute holiday projects in a craft magazine I bought at the airport! Now, I found Betz White’s book “Warm Fuzzies” and have a new respect for felted wool! Here is the project I started with:

I made a blue and red robin one for my son too, but he’s been carting it around the house so much I couldn’t find it for the photoshoot!

If you have any interest in felted wool you’ve got to check out this book! It has the cutest projects, great instructions and really inspiring photography! Usually I pick up a book to see what I could do to make the projects my own…this one, I want to make everything just like she did, they are so well done!! Check her out: www.betzwhite.com She has a blog too, I just discovered. I’m going to go read more there, it looks fun!

Oh, and I have to thank my mom for when I told her I was interested in felted wool, she brought me a bag of goodies, including the stunning little wings on this birdie! What a sweetie!

I just had a whirlwind evening of designing and planning holiday quilties!

Here’s a sneak peak.




I drew about six holiday designs, then rummaged through my holiday fabrics and found two that coordinated with each other and a background fabric and a thread color. I kept track of these little packets with notes on the drawings and pinning the thread to the embroidery.



All my planning paid off, because I already have three of the embroideries stitched! It’s been nice to just sit down and stitch with all the planning done. Makes me realize it may be nice to do more than one of the same thing…just so I don’t have to do so much mindwork for each!

I love my home. I spend a lot of time here and I’ve decided, I love it!

I hope I’ve made a home for my boys that they will love the way I do. I truly love my parents home too, the one I grew up in, and enjoy those memories and every visit back there.

Cheesy, but this little quilt was supposed to be a simple, honest expression of these sentiments.

This weekend was a big one for me…as it was for many, many quilters. It was the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild and American Quilters Society Quilt Show. I had 4 quilts in the guild show and was thrilled to see them up in public for so many other quilters to see. I also had two exhilarating days of looking at amazing quilts!! (and doing a little shopping!)

This quilt is an original design called “Grandma’s Trip”, because I started with a Trip Around the World pattern, added a Grandma’s Flower Garden Center and livened up a couple of the trips with other traditional blocks. It’s bigger than it looks, I had to stand far in front of it!






This is a miniature quilt. The center medallions were english paper-pieced.


I also displayed the thistle quilt that I posted about, made with paintsticks.



And here I am with my “Sunlight, Moonlight”, the quilt that usually hangs in our living room. I am very fond of it and can’t wait to get it back!
This one, too, is much bigger than it looks.

Yes, I’m mostly posting quilting and embroidering stuff here at my newly named blog “Quiltie Comments”…but by day, I’m a graphic designer. It’s a pretty fun job!! Here’s a couple graphic designer play things, in case you don’t believe me that it’s a very fun job!

So much fun! You’ve got to try this, if not just to see the pretty color strips at the end.
http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77

And this one is fun if you are a font-lover, like me. (See, I made it into the Hall of Fame!)
http://fontgame.ilovetypography.com