My booth at RMSC Holiday Bazaar

Happy Thanksgiving to all. A big thank you to everyone who attended the Rochester Museum and Science Center 49th Annual Holiday Bazaar. I had a great time and "The Sewing Husband" was joined by "The Quilting Wife." Deb did a great job talking with customers and inviting them into the booth. Tina came on Sunday and you can tell she grew up around retail. She shared knowledge and pride in the work done by both of her parents.

Deb made scrunchies, hand warmers and purse pockets to sell along side of my wall hangings and table runners. Of coarse the first sale of the day was a scrunchie! These are also available in my shop #407 at The Shops on West Ridge Road in Greece, New York. The Shops on West Ridge is a coop of over 150 vendors selling artistic creations, antiques, collectables, home decor, repurposed furniture and much more. It is located at 3200 West Ridge Road and is open Thursday through Sunday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm with additional days in December just visit the website.

My booth at RMSC Holiday Bazaar

If you are reading this because of the listing on my business card you should know the post here are not as often as they should be. For more current information and updates please visit my Sewing Husband Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/sewinghusband like or follow the page to get regular updates.

The Snowmen are Coming

I love these guys and I have gotten a lot of positive encouragement from friends and family on FaceBook. The base of these projects comes from an in the hoop design at Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery Designs.

Each snowman takes over an hour, closer to two hours, to sew out in the embroidery hoop. I choose the colors for each part of the design through the fabrics that I apply as I sew through the multiple steps. I have five variations of snowmen to choose from. Once these are completed I play with how they are arranged as table runners or wall hangings. 

Here is my first set of snowmen all in black and grey. The blue snowflake border compliments the blue snowflakes in the designs of the snowmen. Below is a wide variety of ways that I have chosen to finish my creations. From single snowmen to groupings of two to five with a wide variety of borders. I continue to create these products as I get ready for upcoming shows and stock for my shop.

Irony in my world

As I come back to my blog today, I realize that it has been approximately 5 months since my last blog entry. The irony is that my last blog entry was part of a challenge to blog daily. That Is Irony....!

Current shop # 587 on the lower level

So what is new in my world since then? I have a shop that is part of a co-op. The Shops on West Ridge Road in Greece, NY is the new home to my Art Quilts, Wall Hangings and Table Runners. It is a great location with wonderful wall space to display my creations. It is on the lower level of the building. Because there are so many vendors with artisan creations, antiques, home decor and so much more many people never get to the lower level. That is about to change.

The next chapter is about to begin...

Vacation Photo on Fabric

I have given notice to leave my part time job at Wegmans. I will jump full scale into supporting my shop, developing new products, relaunching my Etsy shop, writing patterns and teaching. In the line of new products I am able to put photos on fabric. This can document an occasion or celebrate a special memory. I can put a photo or invitation on cloth for you to use in your project or I can produce a completed item such as a pillow or wall hanging. The sample to the right shows a special memory I have from a Caribbean vacation. In this house they showed the process of making batik fabric and had batik fabric for sale.

Another view of what is available in my current shop.

Another part of this next chapter involves changing the local on my shop within the same building.
Sometime in the next few weeks I will be moving to the main level of The Shops on West Ridge Road. I have walls to paint before I can make this move but the location is great. I will be in the back right corner of the building near the rest rooms and the 1 2 3 Cafe. Not there just yet so watch for an announcement of my location change.

My new location will be #407, not my cases, see why I need to paint the walls

 

Welcome...

Welcome to my blog and welcome to my home away from the sewing machine. This blog will also show you the evolution of my welcome banner. As with most everything I do I started with my wife's scraps (there is a whole 'nother blog about using the wrong scraps...). I found the ends of some strip piecing in the scrap drawer. There were a few so I started sewing them together into 4 patches. That was to simple and boring so I sewed the right sides together on all four sides and cut an X. I put the those together with some gold fabric and got the block on the top left. By the time I got done I had a bunch that you will see in the next few blogs as well.

I put the blocks together as you see on the right above with a few extra white blocks to leave space for text. I love lettering and fonts which you will also see in the next few blogs. I guess I do have a bit to write about. I used my silhouette cameo to cut a stencil for the lettering and painted the letters with fabric ink. I didn't want so much white space around the letters so instead of stitching on top of the letters like last time I let the letters stay on their own and stitched around them. This made the letters stand out a little and softened the white space.

So now it is almost done. (photo bottom right) I still have to add the binding and the hanging sleeve. But there is not enough time to sew before work today.  Since my wife hasn't taught me to hand sew yet, I haven't put hanging sleeves on any of my projects. I have at least three more pieces to finish from this set of blocks. Last night I started something totally new, I saw a Greek key design and wanted to translate it to fabric.

I have also discovered a new problem... I set out to use up my wife's scraps and the hand-me down scraps from my mom. But now I am generating scraps of my own. I also started quilting one inch squares so we can't throw away anything unless it is smaller the one inch square.

This is the fifth post to this blog to other posts are listed on the right.