Fabric Coasters

Coasters are all packed up for the craft sale this Saturday in Chestermere Alberta! $10 for a set of four. Also available in my shop! 

Getting ready for Christmas Craft Sale season

My sewing room is a mess! I dumped out 2 Rubbermaid bins of scraps and unsorted fabrics to make room for hauling finished products to my first Christmas craft sale of 2013. I'm a list maker, so I've made an inventory list of what I'll be bringing and checking it against what I can actually find in my closet. Chaos rules, but piece by piece, this mess will disappear and I will be ready for the sale!

Piles of fabric scraps

 I don't remember how I packed it all up last year - the large quilts are NOT fitting nicely into the tub! And this is the first year I've packed a pillow - definitely bulkier than the quilts! I definitely have more table runners than other years and I'm looking at a way to hang them so they are easier to look through - maybe a clothing rack!

packing quilts

 And I hope to pack the small items right inside their display cases (aka whatever baskets and containers I can find here at home!) I've only got a few more days to figure it all out!

More chaos in the sewing room

 But I'd rather be sewing and finishing some more of these - a Christmas table runner and a red/taupe quilted runner that can be used for the holidays and all year round.

Currently on the design wall

How do you organize yourself for a special event?

--Ann

Prepping for Christmas Craft Sales

Last year I made a list in the quiet times of the craft sales I participated in. This list was for things that people asked for when they looked at my table. Some wanted more country colours, some asked if I made coaster sets, and some looked, walked away, came back and left again without purchasing anything.

Country Greens Table Runner

 I've expanded my table runner selection to include a number of country coloured quilts, made some coaster sets and still have a couple weeks to make a few more surprise items that will be new to Magpie Quilts.

This year I am going to be set up to accept Visa and Mastercard credit cards. I'm hoping that this will help purchasers who might otherwise not carry the amounts of cash for some of my larger quilts.

Christmas Poinsettia Table Runner

 And I've been trying to increase my number of actual Christmas themed items - after all, these craft sales are meant for the Christmas market!

--Ann

WIP - Friday, October 18

The sewing machine has been humming and things are being finished in preparation for the Christmas Craft sales coming up. I find it hard to work on Christmas items when Halloween isn't even over! So I started my sewing spree with some great Canadian themed fabrics from Northcott's Oh Canada by Linda Ludovico.

Fabric Coasters - set of four - FOR SALE

Canadian Wallhanging - FOR SALE

Skinny Canadian Wallhanging - FOR SALE

These fabrics were designed for the Quilts of Valour Canada - a great program that provides quilts for members of our Armed Forces.

I still have some of the panel fabric left and have a few more projects in mind for them, so watch for them in the coming weeks!

--Ann

Orange - My Least Favourite Colour!

(FYI - before you say I'm a terrible speller, I'm Canadian, so that means British English spelling rules!)

I don't have much in the way of orange fabrics in my collection of quilting cottons, but quite a few more than I had 2 or 3 years ago. And I've never been one to decorate a lot for Halloween. Maybe it's  because when my kids were prime age for trick or treating, we lived in the far north and Halloween meant costumes over snowsuits. And maneuvering kids and treat bags up flights of icy stairs to get to the doors of houses that were built with above ground crawlspaces so they wouldn't melt the permafrost. But probably mostly because the colour of the spooky day is orange and it's not my first go to colour pick!

And so it was with surprise that I found myself with a nice selection of Halloween themed fat quarters when I cleaned up a bit in my sewing room. I brought them with me to my weekly sewing day with a couple friends and I just cut them up into 5" charm squares - all of them, every last Halloween fat quarter. Then, I randomly put squares together in pairs, then in rows of 4 and slowly pieced together a Halloween quilt top.

It's hanging in my dining room right now (just the top, not quilted) and covers up my blue and white quilt (which I LOVE!) We'll see if it lasts through to the end of the month as every time I look at it, it surprises me and gives me a little physical "jolt".

And just to be sure I wasn't surprised when I looked in my fabric stash, I sewed the left overs into coasters. (And I even used up the selvedges!)

Do you have a favourite and not-so-favourite colour? Tell me about them!

--Ann