I’ve Signed up to Etsy

After much procrastination I finally got myself an Etsy account to sell some of my handmade things. It seems the logical way forward. Somehow the etsy community seems large with a huge international base of sellers and buyers alike.  I am excited.  It seems user friendly too – so far I have listed the two items below – the link underneath each image should take you to the beginnings of my shop, I still need to add some personal touches and write a profile – all takes a bit of time….

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  Red Oilcloth Wallet

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  Mexican Oilcloth Purse

and I hope to add a few more over the next few days.

Thanks for coming over, will chat soon.

Dianna

Festival of Quilts – Birmingham – came and went – as has the month of August

Well almost the month of August!

I loved The Festival of Quilts, it was my first time there and who better to visit it with but my mum and aunt.  It definitely lives up to its reputation.  The two halls the festival covered were decked with large displays of any quilters who wanted to share their quilts.  The quality and quantity spoke volumes of how popular the event is and I was astounded at the standard of the textile artists work.  Beautiful.  Apologies for not having names, I shared a program and don’t have it now as a reference.

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I can’t quite believe that it’s been two weeks since the event, nor that I haven’t written for a whole month, don’t time fly? So much has been packed into the school summer holidays for us, I have had little time for the computer and my beloved sewing machine (sigh).  This has been a good thing for me, having time away has been refreshing and given me time to reflect on the past year of blogging and sewing.

In the new and second year of this blog I would like to add some some different elements.  I’m keen to up my computer skills and learn some more about various programs to help me produce clear and exacting patterns of bags, wallets and a few surprises.  I am also thinking to introduce a few oilcloth and cotton patchwork kits and, of course, to continue to add some helpful tips and tutorials in between.

I feel I have learnt lots by talking with my mum and visiting the quilt festival put me in awe, I realise how many talented artists there are in quilting which in turn has given me huge inspiration.

In the meantime I have my first quilt to finish – I had a small lesson in free motion quilting, learnt how to put a quilt sandwich together as well as the binding to complete it, all thanks to having my mum around.  I cant wait to share some pic’s when it is done.

Until then, the last week of the school break looms and routine will return second week of September.

Thanks for reading and I will be chatting soon. x

Growing List of On-line Haberdashery Shops…

Thought I would begin a list of on-line  ‘Haberdashery’, craft and sewing machine accessory shops.  There are so many and lots I have found have been for my search of quality products – with bag making at the forefront of my mind.  This is the beginning of a list.  Some I have used and others I have found which I have remembered and gone back to have another look.  If you have any you would like to add and share please leave a comment and a link to the on-line shop and I will add it to the list below.  So here goes:

http://www.howdenssewingmachines.co.uk/

This one is all about sewing machines and accessories, if you are anything like me and break lots of needles here is where to go for bulk buying of good quality ones at a better price than by the small packet of six.

http://www.jaycotts.co.uk

This site is good for sewing machine accessories, I have bought some presser feet from them.  I also spied a good deal on continuous zips.  They offer  a good amount of sliders with the zip on a reel.

http://www.quiltdirect.co.uk/index.html

Okay, this one I visit to look at the beautiful bag patterns they have, I have yet to buy anything from them.  But will soon.

https://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/

I got my cutting mat and cutter from here and now receive a great quarterly magazine from them which I have blogged about, they are based in Birmingham.

http://www.u-handbag.com/

This was one of the first sites I came across when becoming addicted to browsing the internet in search of all things handbaggy – Lisa Lam is an inspiration to many.

http://www.bagsofhandles.co.uk/

This site is great for all those bits and bobs for bag making too, I like the webbing they have.  I have seen that they are expanding and have added wool and stitching items to the product list.

http://www.folksy.com/shops/MakingBags

This I found today and got excited and ordered a whole lot of clasps for my bag making in the new year.

http://www.rainbow-creations.co.uk/

A fantastic shop for all sorts of crafts, have ordered from them before.

http://www.sewessential.co.uk/

I just found this haberdashery shop through a quilting site I have been looking at:  http://www.quilt.co.uk/ I like some of here posts and the site also talks through various methods of patchwork.

http://www.bagfasteners.co.uk

This has some good deals on bag fasteners it also sells varying lengths of webbing.

Birthday Excitement

Much excitement round here as my oldest turns another year older, and with all the excitement not much sewing is going on, but that doesn’t matter.  We have had such fun this half term it has been a good change from the everyday run up and down the hill to school.  Just a chance to get off the very fast treadmill for a week.  Lovely!

On the blogging front, I have once again found CraftBlogUK which is written by Haptree.  This blog is fantastic on tips on how to run an effective blog and get quality traffic to your blog in all sorts of ways.  I had forgotten about it, but have recently rediscovered it and am so pleased I have.  So if you are stuck for a moment on how to get the most out of your blog take a look.  Thanks Haptree, lots of good advice.

Oh yes, I thought I might add the huge pumpkin bought home from the market and carved for today too!  Happy Halloween Everyone.

Tips for selling via blogger…

This is great advice from Zoe at ButtonsandBows blogspot.  I have tried to do the same thing with a ‘buy it now’ button from paypal on my WordPress.com blog but it didn’t seem to like it very much at all.  I think I was doing something wrong though as WordPress does have a section on paypal and how to insert a ‘donate’button in the support section.  Maybe I should give it another go.  I did however set up my shop through BT/Google websites.  Who, as I mentioned in an earlier post are offering free .co.uk domains for two years.  After getting used to the way they did things, I was able to put my paypal buttons for each item on my shop in the same way described by Zoe and have had success with it.  Feels great to be able to have the freedom of selling via the internet like this.  Thanks Paypal and Zoe!

Book Title and One More

An update on the post of 2nd October 2010:  ‘How to set up an online business.’ This is the book title of the ‘bookmag’ I borrowed from a friend regarding setting up a business online…I think I need to buy a copy myself, available from amazon.co.uk, it does have a few useful tips in it.  It is also written by someone who set up a candle kit business in the UK, so tips relate to this country in particular.

And this is the latest bag I made today.  It takes itself more seriously.  A little lady bird landed on it while I was photographing, I couldn’t help myself from taking a few close ups of it.  

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I could sew all night

Given the chance I would.  I am so excited at the moment.  Got some interest and a new pattern I am working on.  I just want to be cutting and sewing to see what the outcomes are.  Thank you Jane from groovy pumpkin and little miss pip for your comments on what fabric you liked.  A bag is in the making with the patchwork fabric you both chose.  Already it is taking shape and I like the look so far.  I also have two more bags in the same style coming along, and the reason behind all the excitement is  I met someone very briefly in a museum.  She liked my patchwork bag I had made and has ordered some for herself and friend.  Exhilarating!  Hopefully I will complete at least one of these bags tomorrow as the little ones are now asleep so my work space is unavailable until then.

On a more serious note, my endavour to create my own web page is also in the making, due to serious inadequacies regarding computer HTML knowledge I began to read a very good ‘bookmag’ recommended by a friend, available from amazon.co.uk, in the hope I might absorb a bit of that much needed knowledge.  The bookmag is about how you can create your website through wordpres.org.  Not to be confused with the free blogging wordpress.com, as I initially did just that.  I read through some of it whilst searching across the internet and got lost somewhere between web hosting, HTML and something else…..  Hmmm, still a lot to learn there, so much computer jargon and when, if you are at all like me, it becomes difficult to decode with many hours of time spent achieving little, it is extremely frustrating.

So I have opted for a slightly less daunting method of creating my own website.  Google and BT are offering a free .co.uk domain name for two years and the ability to set something up with themes to choose from.  The themes are not very inspiring but you can change a fair bit yourself with not too much computer savvy.  FAB, just up my street for what I need right now and you can add a basic paypal to this.  So I have begun.  Watch this space.

Any way that is more than enough of me rambling on for one night.  Photos of the latest creations will follow soon.

UK Handmade

I have joined a group of artisans all making things from home, as I am.  I am always amazed at how skilful people are in their crafts.  Here is the link to the site, you don’t have to be a member to look at some of the magnificent work, check out the photo section, you might recognise some.  http://ukhandmade.ning.com/.