Having just pressed a quilt top for one of my bee quilts, I know that this seam-flattening trick isn’t well-known. If you’ve ever sewn a four-patch and always pressed to the dark side in both steps, you know how quickly that seam gets bulky. The 5 layers of fabric can turn into a hard nub that will break needles when you try to quilt over it later. I had a look around online and while there’s one or two references to this trick, there are not many clear photos to show the beauty of it. This works for 4-patches, 9 patches and anywhere you’re joining a whack of squares where you don’t want a bulky seam allowance.)

When things get quiet around here, it usually means I’m busy sewing for the shop. I’ll pop a DVD in the computer and without the distraction of flickr or twitter, I can get a tonne of fabric cut. A week of that means I’m not around online much, but I can get so much done you’d think I have a sweatshop team doing it all for me. True to form, I’ve been slowly repopulating the shop with boxbags and camera straps.

There’s some new colours and fabrics coming, including some that …

Way back ages and ages ago before we moved, sometime in June of 2009 I started working on a new quilt. I still haven’t blogged about it here, but I think it’s time is now. I’m not 100% in love with where this is going, but it’s pretty nonetheless.

I picked a block out of an old quilting book I have. The book is Scrap Quilts and the block is the Flying Squares. It’s a bit fiddly with one inset corner seam, but I’ve worked out a system to make it …

I'm furiously working behind the scenes to prep for a decent-sized shop
update tomorrow afternoon at 4pm (Eastern.) If all goes well, I should
have a metric tonne of wee pouches in some cute new fabrics along with
matching long pouches. I also finished up some great SLR camera straps
in a cool faux-bois, some dark chocolate houndstooth and in my
favourite OMG Robots! fabric.

No box bags this time, they'll be in the March 31st update when we're back from Nashville. I'm adding all the official shop update times to the google calendar I …

Remember waaaaaaaaay back in September of 2006 when I started that brown coin quilt? This weekend I finally finished it. Normally on Saturdays the last thing I want to do is spend another 8 hours in front of the sewing machine (hazards of sewing for a living) but I was feeling the need for an FO.

The quilt top had been finished for a while, so all that needed to be done was to baste the top to the backing and batting and quilt the darn thing. I chose the …

As part of the Year in Pictures group I spent last week photographing the process of sewing camera straps for the shop. Just one photo to sum up each day.  I wanted to focus on some of the details that I get to enjoy every day while sitting at my sewing machine that others don't always get to see. Stacks of fabric, colourful pins and the magic when you turn something right side out and see that it's all coming together. It's so easy to get caught up in the …

There has been a fair bit of behind the scenes email and flickr discussion about irons lately, so I thought jot down and share my own thoughts on the subject. 
I spend a ridiculous amount of time ironing and pressing. Not clothes, mind you (I'm allergic to ironing clothes) but fabrics and fusing interfacing. Over the last few months I've fused more than 100 yards of interfacing to fabric. Add in the fabric prep time and the in progress pressing and that's a heckuva lot of iron time, lemme tell …

The sewing is finished, the pricing tags are on, the inventory is complete. I'm officially all set for Bazaar Bizarre Boston tomorrow. If you're going to be there, come by and say hi. Please don't be shy, I'll be happy to hear some familiar names!
Heaps of Box Bags,

Wee Pouches,

Long Pouches

and camera straps. (No pics of the SLR straps yet, I ran out of light for photographs)

Then first thing Monday morning I'll start listing goodies in the shop!

Is it list time again? October is so crankin' busy this year.
1. I went to London for 10 days. I hardly took any photos other than Project 365 shots because we got the flu almost the instant we arrived. London Flickr set.
2. Box bags. I'm making as many as I can, but they won't go on sale in the shop until December because…

3. I was accepted as a vendor this year at Bazaar Bizarre Boston. I'll be sharing a table with the talented Stitchy McYarnpants. Sharing a table takes some …

On Monday night at knitting I realized that I've been carting around my most recent project in a ziploc bag. While effective, the clear plastic doesn't have an aesthetic befitting the professional indie crafter I'm currently pretending to be. Time to make a new project bag. (At no point did I consider finishing any of my knitting WIPs to free up one of the myriad other bags I already own. I'm not sure what that says about me.)
I've seen plenty of box bags listed on etsy and floating around flickr …