Inspiration: Winifred Ross Riley

Design Sponge has a post today about artist and designer Winifred Ross Riley. Look at these:

So fantastic! A grouping, on a wall, of house shapes! MAN this really does it for me! Into the idea hopper it goes! Make sure to check the whole post out!

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We have a winner!

Well, there were 93 comments and the winner is…# 37! Kim! I’ve emailed her to let her know, and if I don’t hear from her before next Friday, I’ll draw another # – after the NEXT show (and last ‘til the Fall) I do – Saturday & Sunday of Mother’s Day weekend.

The show had incredibly awesome weather – after temps in the 100’s earlier in the week and then a threat of rain, it was just a bit cool and cloudy that turned into sun! Yay!

The turnout was fair, and I did make a fair number of sales – but they were all quite small, basically scarves and the going green totes. I usually sell at least one or 2 of the big bags, a few clutches and at least one piece of art, and this time none of those sold 😦 To look on the bright side, I’ll have a nice full booth at my next show, Art in the Park, May 9 & 10. I hope it’s just the economy that’s affecting things and I hope that it hurries up and fixes itself! One encouraging thing was to have the other participating artists come up and comment on how they like seeing me have new stuff at each show – I’m glad they noticed…I always have a hard time getting away from the booth for more than a few minutes, and regret I don’t get more time to visit with them!

I’m pretty happy with the setup, and I think that hanging the market totes off the shopping cart (thanks Lizzi!) is quite ingenious, don’t you? I’d like to buy a banner or two to string across the top of the EZ-up, and I’d like to make a quilted sign to hang on the front of my stand…perhaps by the Fall show season!

       

 

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Overly-optimistic

The show is tomorrow morning, Mayterm starts On Monday, I officially bit off more than I could chew. I did get the last of the Going Green totes done:

But that’s about it. Plus I printed out new/correct signs, packed up all the show stuff, and got pretty darn far with all the prep work I need for the start of the Mayterm class which starts bright and early Monday morning. SO, I officially didn’t everything I wanted done by tonight done:

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	100%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	100%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	100%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	70%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Medium tote for Nicholle’s sister	5/30/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

But I’ve got another show in 2 weeks, so that’s my new goal!

Anyway – 92 comments! WooHoo! I’ll pick a winner on Sunday…but for now, I’m off to

Featuring 25 Local Artists

Ed Hales Park

(Corner of 5^th & State street in downtown Redlands)

Saturday, April 25^th 10 AM-5 PM

 

Pray for overcast, not too warm, but rain-free weather!

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Introducing…the Convertible Clutch!

Well, this one have been brewing in my head for like 6 months now! Finally got some done! It’s a teeny bit wider and a teeny bit longer than my Grab n’Go bags – 5.5” wide & 4” tall. Big enough for a cell phone, PDA, keys, wallet and sunglasses:

The big difference is the strap: held on with claw hooks it is adjustable and removable, so it can be worn 2 different ways:

as well as in hour hand, or clipped to your larger bag:

 

Yes, my model is just out of the bath and ready for story, so not to happy to be standing still!

I’m happy with how these turned out!

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Orange Muffin Festival

Really quick – the festival was fun. It was held here:

My good friend Liz came with her “raggy” quilts, button jewelry and little bags made from recycled ties:

As it was only 3 hours, I “only” took bags, notetakers, scarves and mini art quilts:

One of the hardest things about selling scarves (well anything really, but especially the scarves) is display. Here you can see the rack I use to hold more scarves:

I’m busy getting ready for a full blown day of selling at Red Dirt Art Festival this Saturday, and don’t forget to enter my celebratory giveaway! One more day til the comments close (gee, I hope I can figure out how to do that!)

I don’t show my face too often (I prefer being behind the camera) but here’s a half decent picture, so I thought I’d say HI!

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My 3rd Year of Business! Celebratory Give Away!

It’s official – I’ve been in business for 2 whole years! My 1st selling venture was the Red Dirt Art Festival in April of 2007, and here it is, 2 years later, and Red dirt is coming up next weekend! It’s amazing, everything that’s happened in my artistic life, in these past 2 years! I’ve had a lot of success, one of the most important things was for me to define what success IS! And for now, my success is defined as:

Being able to financially support my artistic endeavors, and to continue to grow as an artist.

For me, this is a big lesson! Just because I can keep making bags and scarves and selling them doesn’t mean I SHOULD! I want to continue to make the art I want to make as well, not make another $1000 this year…because, lets face it, although $1000 is NOT chump change, it doesn’t go far when it comes to paying the mortgage, or putting food on the table.

So, in celebration of 2 years being in business, I’d like to share a little by offering my 1st giveaway! I made a bunch of going green totes this week, and I’ll be making more in preparation for the next show.

To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post by Friday, April 24th (make sure to include your email so I can get in touch with you). I’ve been enjoying picking a particular color palette and working within it, right now I’ve got two: In your comment, let me know which colorway you prefer:

Warm

Cool

• Edit: One entry/person please – if not, my stepsister Pam will fill the ballot box! 😉
• I’ll draw one lucky winner who will get their choice of any of the Going Green Totes that are left at the end of the show!  (If you’re international and you win, I’d love some postage help!)

If you’re local, please try to drop by next weekend:

Featuring 25 Local Artists

Ed Hales Park

(Corner of 5^th & State street in downtown Redlands)

Saturday, April 25^th 10 AM-5 PM

Rain out day the following Saturday, May 2^nd

Unique gifts for all occasions

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Orange Muffin Festival

Is OVER! Phew! I’ll have some pix in a day or two, I forgot my camera, but luckily my friend Liz brought hers! I did manage to get over half of my going green totes finished:

They were fun to do… and the list looks a little better!

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	100%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	100%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	100%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	70%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Medium tote for Nicholle’s sister	5/30/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

I’m actually glad I did this little festival, it got me to realize all the MISTAKES in my signs I need to fix for next weekend! ARGH! I met some nice people, I was shaded, the orange juice was fabulous, and it was nice to work alongside Liz. Once home, I spent some time in the hot tub, while the boys played in the pool (yes they are NUTS, the pool is NOT heated, so it was nippy, to say the latest). Our yard is in full bloom, the show was over, I wasn’t sick, the boys were happily playing, my husband is home too – basically, all was well. And the feeling that Jan DiCinto blogged about the other day was there – the  relaxed, happy, all is right with the world feeling. Welcome back feeling, I missed you. Lets see if I can keep hold of it.

Tonight – collapse…tomorrow – sew!!!!!!!!!!!

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Well Travelled Pears

 

This quilt hands in the entry of my home, and always gets lots of attention from visiting friends, and  I love to tell the story about it!

Back when we lived in Ohio, I belonged to a large quilt guild, and we had what were called “splinter groups”, in our case it was a 12 person group we called the “Stress Knots”. We met once a month in a meeting house (so no one had to clean!) and once a year, it was your turn to prepare some sort of quilt like activity. In previous years I had showed the rest of my group how to dye fabric, or paper piece. My last turn to host was right before we moved to California, which was going to be quite a long car trip. I brought 20 pieces of hand dyed fabric and a pear block I had designed and printed off a bunch of copies onto freezer paper. I handed out the packets to my wonderful friends, and we all spent the next hour cutting out a pear, an accent and a leaf from freezer paper, ironed them onto the fabric and prepped them for freezer paper applique (wonderful explanation of that here).

Then we had a blast arranging the pears on the backgrounds and putting together 20 wonderful combinations. Once the block color distributions were figured out, each got it’s own ziplock bag. They all went into a bag with needles thread and scissors, and stayed in the front seat of my car as we drove the whole  family west to Redlands, CA. I only managed to get about 7 blocks done during the drive, it took me another year and a ha lf of “free time” to hand applique the rest of them, but it was finished in October of 2005 (thanks goodness I quilted this into the quilt or I never would have remembered that!)

This was my 1st (and LAST) large hand applique project, and is a wonderful memory of “the Quilter Ladies” (as my husband and kids called them) – dear friends back in Newark, Ohio!

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Slowly but Surely…

Items get crossed off the list:

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	100%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	100%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	100%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	30%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Medium tote for Nicholle’s sister	5/30/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

 

Today I just finished 10 cute notelets, 5 in the warm colors and 5 in the cool:

 

The green one with the flower in it is a special order for my friend Leslie, the rest go in the box for the Orange Muffin Festival I’m doing on Saturday! Yet another fun little event in Redlands celebrating the local citrus!

6th Annual Orange Muffin Festival

Saturday April 18th

10am –1pm

Historic Kendal House at Plymouth Village

120 E. Palm Avenue, Redlands, CA

Orange Muffins, Orange Butter, Juice, Coffee/Tea ~ $3

Muffins are also being sold by the baker’s dozen

I can’t wait to see what’s inside this gorgeous house!

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Blogger’s Quilt Festival

I’ve always wanted to go to one of the really big quilt shows and I’ve never been able to…here’s our chance to have a virtual one!

Starting tomorrow, April 17, you will be able to attend the First Annual Bloggers Quilt Festival! Amy of  the Park City Girl blog has set this up; read all about it here.

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