chimesblog

I’ve been looking for a necklace or a pair of earrings that match my lovely jade ring that Mark brought me from Antigua when he visited for his sister’s wedding in February.

Finally … I found something!

… and it was from a Cedar Rapids vendor, to boot! (HeatherBerry) So that’s pretty cool. I love it. And I’ve put in an inquiry about matching earrings and another necklace  in these styles …

I’m pretty excited. And I’m anxiously awaiting a response from her.

So, I’m kind of a big deal. Maybe?

I’ve been in the paper a lot lately. Featured in Des Moines Register a while back and I’ve had my photo in various publications advertising for Market Day. And the etsy shop has been HOPPIN’ this week. Not sure what the deal is, but I’m getting to the point where I might not be able to keep up. No autographs, please.

Here’s all the lovely pretty things I sold on etsy this week (since last Sunday!):

Birdies and Coffee Creamer

Birdies and coffee sugar dish

Bluebirds and coffee oversized mug

2 of the It’s a teacup. Literally. cups

Pink musical flowers plate

Teatime with Gram set

The last 3 items went to the same lady in Korea. Not sure how she found me (guessing on Etsy), but I’m going to ask because I’m curious.

And sadly, I let my lovely butterflies and wonderland quilt go … it was bittersweet. I love this. I hope it is happy in its new home.

Anyway, I can’t believe how much press I’ve gotten and how popular my etsy shop has been this month alone. I need to get making!

Yay … I broke down and ordered more fabric. I probably shouldn’t have because my stash is kind of ridiculous, but I needed some new stuff. I had a custom request come through Market Day last week for a black and white wallet. I didn’t have any wallet-worthy black and white fabric. I like using oversized prints for my wallets, and all I’ve got in black and white is quilting fabric (for my black and white quilt that I have yet to post anything about).

So, I visited etsy, fatquartershop.com and fabric.com. Nothing really to be found on the latter two. Lots to be found on etsy. But, I realized they were all from the same seller, and that it was a familiar seller, so I just went to her website instead — Fabricworm.

Here’s what I picked up for the wallet … plus a few other things that I’ve been eyeing for a while.

Not sure what I’m going to make out of some of the stuff, but I had to have it for my stash. I also picked up a random fabric scrap bundle which gave me a couple other goodies. I wish I would have picked up more of the top black and white fabric. It is gorgeous. It’s going to make fabulous wallets.

Welcome to my much-needed new feature … FO Friday.  FO stands for finished object (as opposed to UFO — un-finished object).

To recap my embarrassingly long list of UFOs:

1. Mug for a friend’s birthday present (2 weeks ago)
2. Tattoo Dish Set (July 2009)
3. mom’s pleather jacket restyle (September 2009)
4. quilt for my mom (March 2009) — in my defense, I just haven’t had the extra $75 around to get it professionally quilted.
5. coin stack quilt (March 2009)
6. Thea’s Puzzle Quilt (April 2010)
7. Roseanne Afghan (November 2007) — this project is to work on when I don’t have any other projects to work on
8. fabric scrap greeting cards (May 2010) — I have 45 blank cards left to create
9. camera cases (July 2010) —  I have 10 cases left to sew — just need to buy buttons and elastic to get them done
10. fabric scrap flowers (July 2010)
11. jeans into summer pants/shorts (July 2010)
12. Map of the states quilt (April 2010)
13. Yellow fake-esta ware dishes (July 2010)
14. Nerdy cross stitch (April 2010)
15. cookbook (December 2009)
16. Portfolio/website/resume revamp (May 2010) — don’t worry — just time for a refresh.
17. Wonky Log Cabin Quilt #1 (February 2010)
18. Wonky Log Cabin Quilt #2 (February 2010)
19. Workout/Recipe/Craft project binders (February 2010)
20. Family recipe book (January 2008)
21. ironic greeting cards (May 2009)
22. T-shirt quilt for my cousin (August 2009)
23. Fabric Frame (June 2010)
24. touch up painting my kitchen (May 2010)
25. recycled t-shirt rug (September 2009)
26. Black and white quilt (March 2009)

Today’s FO is #1 — Mug for a friend’s b-day present.

My new coworker and friend asked me to create a mug for his girlfriend for her birthday, which was August 3. Don’t worry. I had this finished beforehand. I just wanted to save the blog post for Friday so I can have a Friday feature (and more importantly have to have some FO to share with you every week from here on out).

Also, I may have lied when I said I wasn’t going to add anything to the list … if I do this Friday feature I’m going to run out of things to blog about rather quickly. Some of the things on the list aren’t going to be able to be finished in a super timely fashion because they’re either too expensive to finish or too time-consuming to finish in my spare time that quickly. So, I’m going to probably add some projects to the list. BUT instead of including the list on my blog post every week, I’ve created a page where it can live.  There’s a link on my sidebar to it as well.

Love goes to Des Moines local Cara Hall this week and her ironically titled blog, Failed Feminist.

I met Cara last year through Craft Saturday in Des Moines. In her own words, Cara “is a writer in Des Moines, Iowa (which is cooler than you think). And as much as she never expected to, she loves all things Martha. Just try to pry the knitting needles out of her hands. She’s always trying new recipes and DIY projects, and she hopes you’ll try them too. She’s also always working on herself, and there is oh so much work to do.”

I read Cara’s blog for her crafty updates, her dog photos and commentary, but mostly for her recipes. One of my favorites is inside out egg rolls, which is pictured in the screenshot above.

So, check her out. She’s also a fellow Des Moines Register Featured Blogger.

check it out … my cute onsies were blogged about today. I feel famous!

You know it’s going to be a fabulous day when you wake up, check your e-mail and see that somebody nice and talented has included you in her etsy treasury.

MimiBird included me on her Birdies Tweet Tweet treasury today.

Check out the adorable things she picked out. Mine is definitely not the cutest.

… a growing pile of new camera cases I’ve been crafting. Look at all those fun fabrics. Lots of my favorites in there … and a lot of them are the last bits of some of my favorites. I’m looking forward to making things from the leftover scraps.

My friend Adria, who got me into quilting, is having a reallllllly awesome sale right now on her quilts. She makes the most gorgeous modern quilts and has the BEST taste in fabric (I learned from the best!)  She just finished a custom robot quilt for a little boy named Jack.  She taught me most of my skills, so I thought I’d show some love.

Anyway, check the sale out. Tell her chimes sent you and she MIGHT give you an even better deal!

<3

Calee

I finally got around to finishing the camera cases that I’d started a while back. It only took me 2 months …

Honestly, anything with a button on it just gets tossed aside for a while until I muster up the courage to wrestle with it and put the button on. It takes me more time to sew the button on something like this than to actually sew the rest of it together. True story.  It’s kind of sad.

Anyway, I finished these puppies up while I was selling at last month’s Market Day.

I kept one for myself … and a lot of them sold like hot-cakes. These are just what’s leftover and I’m finally getting around to taking pictures of the finished product. I’ll be selling these at the next Market Day and I listed them on etsy, but probably won’t be making more of them for a while. I can’t just keep making the same thing … I have to keep trying new things and playing around with different techniques.  I’m sure I’ll make more of these sometime because they were really fun to make, but this is it for now.