Favorite Things Friday #3: Prague Edition

This week, things are super duper busy at school - it's almost midterm season, and I have a section of my thesis due next week. There's never time for a break! Though, I am looking forward to Zumba class in an hour :)

I'll be home two weekends in a row coming up, which means sewing! Yay!

I'm still in the fall mood, with it being one day until October and all. However, I'm taking a short break from fall-y inspiration and going with some Prague loveliness, because I'm thinking about about one of my next projects (which will be a secret for quite a while, unfortunately).

(click pictures for Pinterest source)

Prague Castle. Not much else to say, right? No words.

I was in Prague in May, and, as my professor said, "to leave Prague is to miss Prague." It was my unexpected delight of the trip. I knew it was going to be astounding but I didn't know just how much. If you haven't been there, I HIGHLY suggest you make the trip! I could talk about how amazing Prague is all day.

St. Vitus Cathedral

Charles Bridge - my favorite place in the whole wide world. For real. Almost eclipsed by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, but not quite.

Really. If you handed me a plane ticket and told me I could travel to anywhere in the world, this is where I would go. No questions asked.

Old Town Square

Clock in Old Town Square

I'm drawing a ton of inspiration from this last one... is it a painting or a photo? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was a photo - that's what it looks like. However, the people look painted... who knows?

So, are you inspired?

You can see more of my trip pictures here and here. Some of them are from Prague.

See you soon!

Favorite Things Friday #2: Autumn Edition and Giveaway Winner!

It's time for the second Favorite Things Friday (and a big hello to my new followers :])! Fall is in the air this week, and that is my favorite season. I can't explain how much I love it. Most of the people who entered my blogoversary giveaway agreed! We had a bunch of springs and summers too, but no winters :) I love the snow, but only for a brief time.

Anyway, let's not talk about snow. Let's talk about FALL!

These are the trees outside my dorm window... see the little hint of color? This is one of the only changing trees on campus so far but within a week that should change!

This is one of our engagement pictures from last year, courtesy of the lovely Julie Dabour.

More fall happiness (click on pictures to get to source on Pinterest):

This almost looks like a painting!

Love art quilts. I think I've said that many times before and I'll just keep saying it :) The detail is astounding, don't you think?

Mmmm... apple cider... in apples... want... no, NEED.

Cute leaf project!

More wedding inspiration... I'm thinking fall colors, but I'm going to do a mix of real and paper and fabric flowers, I think... but I love this so much.

Perfect fall patchwork quilt.

This looks like the Secret Garden - I hope there's somewhere in the world that really looks like this.

Cutest pumpkin craft ever!

I'm feeling so content today. Done with my statistics quiz, pumpkin spice latte... mmm. Fall. Friday. There's something really nice about that.

And the winner of the giveaway is:

Congrats! I've emailed you!

Thank you so much everyone for participating and celebrating with me. I'll be having more giveaways in the future - and at least one more this year! If you are interested in a fabric lanyard, check out my shop. I plan to make one or two more sunflowers lanyards. Custom orders will be open soon, too!

Thoughts: How to Price Your Work

An interesting blog post over at Little Bluebell caught my eye today, especially since I just started taking custom quilt orders and opened my etsy store. She determined that, according to this post on ink and spindle, a baby quilt she made to sell would have to be priced at around $600 dollars to accurately reflect the hours worked and materials used. Some of the comments disagree with using the post on ink and spindle. I don't know what to think!

Recently, a family friend asked how much I would charge her to make a t-shirt quilt. I told her $30-40. I knew this was a very low price, but she doesn't want interfacing, and I would only have to buy the batting and backing (and put the hours in). She told me she would give me $75, and then said she wanted me to make TWO, each for that amount. I can't wait to start - and it made me realize that I really need to start taking my hours into account and charge for the quality of my work, which I think is pretty good, after a year and a half of making quilts and fabric-related items. Pricing on etsy is hard too - once I start making tote bags and purses and clutches and things, I'm going to have to think hard about how to price them.

What do you think?

Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway - ends on Friday! I love reading your comments and have replied to all, unless you were a no-reply!

Otherwise...

(from Pinterest)

Favorite Things Friday #1: Rainbow Edition

*If you're looking for my blogoversary giveaway, click here!*

Since I'm not making my usual amount of creative things right now, I wanted to start a weekly segment - and the theme is going to change every week! I'm using blogs I follow, Flickr, and Pinterest for inspiration.

This week I'm on Pinterest (though I don't know how to make mosaics from there like you can from Flickr - does anyone have suggestions?) Pinterest is one of my FAVORITE time wasters, besides Stumbleupon (click the link, I dare you - you won't be able to stop once you get on there). If you want to follow me on Pinterest, by the way, you can click the little red button on my left sidebar.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite RAINBOW-inspired crafty and just generally awesome Pinterest finds (click the pictures for the link to the pin and the source):

I want to make this so badly. Or something similar.

This cake just screams awesome.

There isn't much for me to say besides "love."

Yum... I love fruit... and rainbows... together is even better :)

The color wheel - on my "future project" list for sure.

This is just so cool! I love how twisty they are. Looks like an art exhibit.

This is such a perfect wedding cake. Garden wedding, anyone?

So what do you think? Any requests for future themes? And if anyone knows how to make a mosaic from Pinterest, I would greatly appreciate your insight :)

My First Blogoversary Giveaway!

*This giveaway is now closed. Check the winner's post!*

(from Leigh Loves on Pinterest)

Yay! Today is my first blogoversary! I was so excited to see the little icon on my left hand sidebar change today! Not only that, but a couple of days ago, I reached 100 followers! It's hard to believe that a year ago, I was still new to sewing, and to the bloggy world, and now I can actually sew an accurate 1/4 seam ;) That's enough progress for me. Tee hee. But really, this year has changed my whole perspective on life because I found my crafty outlet.

Over a year, I went from this...

to this...

And now I have bloggy friends! And I really can't thank you enough for sharing all this with me.

-The Giveaway-

Today, I am giving away a fabric lanyard that I was going to sell in my shop. You can use it for your ID, keys, whatever you want! They make great gifts too, so maybe if you win you'd want to gift it. I have one very similar to it for my keys (except all my lanyards are handmade and are thus different from each other) and I absolutely LOVE this sunflower pattern. Like, seriously, love. I even made one of my Pay it Forwards out of this fabric.

This lanyard is a little longer than my standard lanyards - 23 inches long from the drop (including the clasp), and one inch wide.

You can also check out my etsy shop for more lanyards if you are interested! If you've been reading my blog, you know that I am away at school for my last semester and am unable to add much to my shop/make anything really right now, but that will change soon. So bear with me as I add new items and of course update my blog with projects I'm working on for presents/charities/etc. :)

My lanyards:

-Come attached to a strong silver swivel lobster claw clasp

-Are reinforced with machine stitches to make sure they last

-Are made from cotton fabric

-Lay comfortably and flat around your neck

-Are made by me in my pet-free, smoke-free home (this is taken straight from my store but it must be said, haha - my dad didn't understand why and I told him it's a way to show that the environment you work in won't affect your products for people who might have allergies, or might be concerned about cleanliness or something - he still thinks it's weird, but I think necessary :) )

***If you'd like to win this lanyard, you must be a follower (tell me so!) and write a comment what your favorite season is and why (I'll talk about mine in the winner post). This is a thank you to all of you. If you'd like to follow because you like what you see, you can click that little Google Friend Connect button on the left sidebar :)

So, one entry per person. Please make sure I can email you If you are a no-reply blogger or think you might be, check out the red button towards the bottom of my right sidebar. I am willing to ship internationally for this giveaway because I have friends overseas!

This giveaway will end on Friday, September 23 at 12 noon EST. I will choose by random number generator, email the winner, and post the results on here!

Updates from the dorm room - hexagon projects

I finished a couple of things last week that I'd like to share! I decided not to post yesterday out of respect/in silence of the victims of 9/11 - plus, it was an emotional day on campus and I just could not bring myself to do it anyway.

This is my first time working with hexagons, but thanks to my Baby GO!, I have no qualms. This is a little table topper/placemat (not long enough to be considered a runner, I think) for Thanksgiving at my house. I love the Saltbox Harvest line! Luckily, I had a charm pack on hand.

I hand quilted and I love how it turned out!

I also made this flower from purple fabrics for my floormate and best friend. It's hanging on her bulletin board now (sorry about picture quality - my dorm room has perpetually horrible lighting no matter what I do!).

I also sold two Harry Potter inspired lanyards yesterday through my etsy shop! Gryffindor and Slytherin are still left. I plan to make more of these in a couple of weeks when I am home.

All I want to do is make things... rar... but I'm stuck here reading about German history and writing what is slowly becoming an unconsciously-grind-your-teeth frustrating senior honors thesis. As much as I love it... I can honestly say I'm excited to be done with school soon.

I'm working on a couple more little hand things - plus, my blogaversary is on Thursday - you wouldn't want to miss that... would you? ;) Plus, I'm very close to 100 followers, and that is also celebratory.

Favor?

Hi everyone, I'm participating in another quilt contest over at the Quilting Gallery - this time for Baby Quilts. I submitted my "You are Loved" quilt.

It's the very last one! If you feel like it deserves your vote, I would be very grateful if you voted!

Thanks! I have to run to class now :) I'll post more this weekend!

Organizing my sewing space... nightmare to sigh of relief!

I thought I would share with you the evolution of my sewing space aka my mom's dining room before I left for school. I'm very happy with it!

These two pictures are the mess created from trying to finish 3 quilts at once, and making lanyards for my etsy store. You know how you get inspiration, and then you go, "OH, where's that fabric?!" and then you start moving things around, but then when you find it, you don't put anything back, and you're really okay with that, because at least you found your fabric? Well, it was getting to the out-of-control point.

(too. much. stuff.)

Then - I decide to color code my fabric - fat quarters, half yards, and yards. I have *just enough* fabric that it will all fit quite snugly in a three drawer plastic thing, but I don't think that will last. I realized how much fabric I actually used this summer and I'm proud :) And now, I'm on a legitimate self-imposed fabric diet until December, except for anything absolutely necessary for holiday gifts, so I won't have anything to add. And that's totally okay.

I also decided it would be fun to organize my scraps by color, in pretty baskets. I literally hunted all over the house and found the perfect array (thanks Mom!). I don't know how long this will last because 8 baskets takes up a lot of room, but it has been helpful so far. I put white and grays in the same basket. In addition, all bigger scraps that go by fabric line are sectioned off from these baskets. You can see my overflowing basket of selveges on the far left, and the bin underneath is stuffed with them as well! All my batting scraps went in the laundry basket under the white/gray scraps.

Well, unfortunately, all of this has been moved while my mom paints/redesigns the dining room, but I think I'm going to have even more clutter to get rid of when I come home in a couple weeks. I'd like to arrange it back to the above picture, but really, who knew that sewing could take up so much space?