The New Year

Have you all gotten you New Year Resolutions ready? I am working on my list. Sigh! I don't like these lists because I find it very hard to stick to them. I found a list I made a few years ago and had to laugh at myself because my outlook on things have changed. They were big items too, so maybe if I stick to the small stuff I can accomplish a few.

I have decided to make mine a one item per month list so if will be easier to adhere to.

January-Perfect my free motion quilting more.
February-Make at least 2 charity blankets
March-Pay off credit card.
April-Finish online class with an "A"
May-Start a bigger garden than last year's.
June-Clip hedge down (IN THE BACK)
July-Go to the 4-H Fair Dairy Show/and see my nephew show his pigs
August-Stay cool during 2-a-days fall sport practices
September-Can veggies
October-Plant spring flowers
November-Clear off lawn and rake leaves.
December-Make all my gifts-and not buy anything

ePattern Shop site

Here is my site with new epatterns on it.

http://www.epatternshoppes.com/shoppes/epsashlawnfarms/

Featured here....

I received an email last week that I had been featured in this blog.

http://e-patterns.blogspot.com/2008/11/come-meet-ashlawnfarms-rag-quilt.html

My first attempt at Free Motion Quilting

DH wanted me to make him a little table topper that matched some of the other raggy quilts we have in our living room.....so here is what I made for him! He is so spoiled!

New Patterns For Sale!

Well it took longer than I hoped, but my new patterns are finally finished and ready for purchasing. I have them listed on etsy, eBay at this time and will be uploading them my epatternshoppe site sometime today.

The patterns include:

1. Rag Quilted Pincushion
2. Rag Quilted Cosmetic Pouch
3. Country Chenille Rag Quilt
4. Toile Strip Rag Quilt

New patterns designed today!

Well I have some sweet news! I finally sat down and created 2 new "Ashlawnfarms Rag Quilt Creations" patterns today. I will have a 3rd one done shortly. My hubby will get them tomorrow so he can start the graphics and design layout for the pdf. document. I plan on adding these to my ePattern Shoppe hopefully this weekend.

You will just have to stay tuned to the unveiling of what they are of exactly!! I will be listing on etsy and eBay as well!!

Project is underway.....

Some of the Rag Queen Quilters have entered into another group contest: 1st Annual Craft Fair Project. We have 5 categories: Baby items, Quilts, Home Decor, Wearables, and Purses. Each member could list up to 2 groupings per category. Our project committee consists of Barbara, Maryellen, Bea, Joey, and myself. The committee has posted pictures on Photobucket and the voting poles are going on now through Oct 22. If you are a member and have not voted, get yer hiney in there n' vote! We had a lot of fun with this and yes-it was a lot of work!

eBay's Paperless Payments

So today I was skimming the forums and ran across a situation where a buyer is wanting to send payment with Money Order when the seller is not accepting them. eBay is making a change that just so happens TODAY for the first time. No more money orders and checks. Personally, I am happy to see this. I like to get transactions over with quickly if I can and waiting on payment is hectic and inconvenient at times. Sure I wish the fees were not there, but when the transaction is complete in one day-I am done with it. That is a time saver for me and so paying those little extra fees is ok.

When eBay announced this back a couple of months ago I went ahead and started making the changes for me right away....that way I would not have many listings to revise. Sellers do have a grace period to get the information out of their item descriptions until January. Better go and check the listings.....lata!

Been Quilting!!

Last night I set up Grandma's quilting frame that has been hanging on the wall in the living room for 7+ years now. It is time. For those of you that do not know, she suffered a stroke in Jan of 1997 and lived until Feb 2004 in a nursing home until she passed.

Grandma had taught me how to sew and quilt, but usually I just made the quilt tops and she did all the quilting. We made over 20 quilts together. Through groups on ebay and etsy I have found my passion of quilting again, so I sat down at the frames last night and begun finishing the quilt that Grandma left unfinished. Ironically, the quilt in the frames was a log cabin that she bought at one of the department stores. So yes it is manufactured. However she did not like the way it was quilted and was taking out stitches and putting in stitch in the ditch stitches. It is a really good one for me to start with, you could say, for "practice." I have a stack of tops piling up that need quilting, so that is the plan for the winter months this year.

My feature.......

Thanks FNQ for featuring me in your blog!!

http://fabricsnquilts.blogspot.com/2008/10/etsy-artist-feature-ashlawnfarms.html

Bodies

Here is where I am taking my class this month!! The students are very excited for this field trip and this will be the first field trip I have done since I started teaching 6 years ago. It will be interesting I am sure!

http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/

October things to do.....

I have listed 3 new purses in my etsy shop and decided that I would forego listing them on eBay. Times are just hard right now for everyone, so I will keep my items around or just wait this crappy economy out for awhile. It won't last forever. :)

On my agenda this month are:

1. completing a baby rag quilt, matching pillow, diaper bag and burp cloths for my sister-in-law, Svetlana, and my brand new niece, Veronika (Nika.)

2. completing my items for the RQQ craft fair-those are secret for now.

3. making a baby rag quilt for my co-worker, Janae, who is expecting her first baby October 17th.

4. completing some fabric sandwiches to send to FabricsNQuilts for a Breast Cancer Rag Charity Quilt she will be putting together.

5. Finishing up a couple of traditional quilt projects for our new Block of the Month (BOM) project in October. I finished my first block today and will be showing that later on this post.

6. Taking my class to see Bodies in Indianapolis!

7. Starting Christmas shopping!

8. List items from the craft fair....after the competition.

Well that is it for now!!

project

Well we are in the middle of recieving pictures of items from the ladies in the eBay group for our 1st annual RQQ Craft Fair. I have a fe items sewn but not clipped yet and will be wrapping those up here soon. The pictures are due by Oct 15th!

eBay group Project

I am a moderator in a group on eBay called Rag Queen Quilters. Back in July/August the group held a County Fair Rag Quilt Competition in the group and then sold the items on eBay after the judging. We had 6 classes of different items and the winner of each class were judged again to pick our Grand and Reserve Grand Champions. The project went so well that we are doing another group project starting very soon!

This next project will be geared towards items that are sold at craft fairs. Our planning committee is excited that members will be making items for Fall and Winter for this competition and every item will be offered for auction in the end. Stay tuned for more information.....

My weekend so far...

Being an athletic trainer, I cover sporting events on a regular basis including Friday Night Varsity Football Games for a high school. We traveled 2.5 hours away last night (our longest trip of the season) to barely nip a team we beat by over 70 points last year. This team was incredibly improved from 1 year ago, and we underestimated their ability based on what happened last year. At any rate the trip home was long and grueling even with the win. I climbed into bed at 2:30 am and slept hard until 12:30 in the afternoon.

I got up, drank 2 cups of coffee and proceeded to read threads upon threads of information in my ebay and etsy discussion groups. No time for sewing today. I am not in the mood. I am so tired that the thought of being creative is laughable!

At about 5pm I planned on fixing dinner for the hubby and me. Then I realized etsy treasuries were about to open up. I have never created one before, so I decided today was the day I would try to create one. I waited about 5 minutes for the last ones to expire down to under 333and it opened up. Luckily I got one! I had many purses saved to my favorites and just copied and pasted them in. Here is the link to the treasury. It will expire Monday sept 8 around 5:30pm so check it out NOW!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=6122

Sept 1 Etsy Treasury I am in

Hey just wanted to post this: August is OVER which means my life just got a little less BUSY with work. I actually got to list some stuff this weekend. Etsy is easier to list on so I started there first and woo hoo! I am on a treasury! Here it is!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=5175

Etsy Treasury #2

Hey I made another Treasury! Wow! I am so honored!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=1132

I made Treasury on Etsy!! Woo Hoo!!

My friend, Shannon, clued me in on the fact that I was selected to the treasury on Etsy! Thanks! It will expire on Monday August 4th I think....check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=20521

Vacation Week

Well I have had vacation this week, but I stayed home and did not go anywhere. I had a couple of meetings this week that I had to attend before pre-season starts up next week at the high school. I am a certified athletic trainer besides being a quilter.

August is always so busy and grueling to me. I am looking forward to it, but then again I am not. I really did not get as much done this vacation week that I had planned on, but then who does? It always flies by quick and whoops! Lookie here 2 more days left!

In my eBay group this week I put together the final stages of a "County Fair Quilt Show." It was a private thing, so I won't discuss it here. However it was really fun and I had a great time getting others involved with it. I entered a few items myself and was working until last minute of course. Oh well!

Last weekend I spent most of the time outside working on things I wanted to get done around the house. Ended up with a nice sunburn in the process, but after the peeling is done it will look nice and tan. I am usually a ghost! So I think I look healthier with some color even though I know it is not good for the skin! Live and learn. Take better care of myself-I will try better.

Here are some pics of the garden and some sewing project s I did complete this week.

Invisible Thread

Last winter I was running low on thread so I looked to eBay and found an auction that suited me for what I was looking for. The lot consisted of around 18 spools of thread and 2 bigger 1200 yard spools that I wanted. The rest was nylon invisible threads. I thought maybe I could resell the invisible threads and make my money back because I got a great deal on the lot. Well they are still sitting on my thread holder.

A few weeks ago I was reading through QIAD site and read some interesting posts regarding invisible thread. I am a novice sewer to the world of up-to-date quilting and sewing, but have been sewing for 20 years-with the same type of thread! I was very happy to find out that I could use up all that thread and not have to sell it off.

So today I am sitting at my sewing machine, looking at the almost empty thread spool on my machine, and thought "I need to think about getting some more thread this week." Then I remembered the information about invisible thread I read a few weeks back. So I pulled some down, loaded it on my bobbin and tried it out. It works and looks great! I might just try it out on the top too-not just in the bobbin.

I guess the bobbin use only of invisible thread is used when quilting traditionally on your machine. I was excited to learn and try something new and had to sit down and write this in my new blog!

Projects for the weekend

Well I made it through another week of work at my "regular" job. I am an ATC and have been running a sport enhancement program for youth all summer. We have 1 more week, then I get VACATION.

My vacation will consist of SEWING!! Which I love! So this weekend I am going to prepare for what I will do during vacation.

I need to go shopping for fleece fabric (for the Soldiers Angel Project I am doing in one of my eBay groups), Pink flannel print (to make a girlie raggy quilt for church charity project), and more white flannel (cause I am running low.) I might pick up some groovy remnants as well and some fabric for another custom purse I need to start on for my step-sister's friend.

My sewing project list:
1. Shopping
2. Call about custom order
3. Finish clipping quilts
4. Work on group projects

My outside project list:
1. Mowing the yard
2. Take pics of the flowers and garden
3. Prep Hummingbird Garden area-maybe!
4. Water flowers/garden if it does not rain-which it is suppose to!
5. Pick greenie beanies if they are ready!

First Post! ePattern shoppe link

Good evening! I just created this blog so bear with me in the world of blogging. I have tons to post, but glad to know I have all the time in the world to do it!

I also wanted to inform y'all that I just started selling my ePatterns for rag quilted purses on this new site:

http://www.epatternshoppes.com/directory.html

Check it out and let me know what you think!!