Manic Monday anyone? Maybe we should make it Margarita Monday?

Two things on tap today:

1. Some items for sale

2. A little bit on my picture setup

I have 600 of these glass jars. I inherited them from my grandparents. They've all been washed, so they look just like the ones that I have below.
The tomato can is just for size comparison. I don't have 600 of those :)

Specs:

Approx. 5.25" tall and 3" diameter opening at the top

I have a few and this is what I use them for [among other things]:

I think the most ideal purpose for these with the large quantity that I have would be for weddings. I use one of mine for candles, and I think it looks super cute. There are obviously endless possibilities for this, but here's mine:

I'm selling the batch o' 600 for $500 plus shipping. That comes out to 83 cents per jar. You can leave a comment on this post if you're interested [or if you know someone who is, tell them to email me!], or they'll be listed in my Etsy shop later this afternoon. I am willing to break them up into smaller batches, but no smaller than 100 jars per batch. I would then adjust the price accordingly depending on how many you'd like.

Now on to the photography!

I don't have a fancy camera. I have a Sony Cyber-Shot. It has fit my needs for the past few years. But now I'm wanting to take nicer pictures for the blog, and in the last few weeks I have been making that attempt to get away from my phone's camera for nicer shots. 

Want to see my set-up?

 In my sewing room if the light is right.

On my screened-in porch.

Fancy, right? Yes, folks, that IS a roll of wrapping paper. Silver wedding wrapping paper, to be exact. When I'm inside I have to tape one end to the wall, but outside I just rest the roll on top of the sofa. It works fantastic! I don't have space for a light box. Or the inclination to build one myself, if I'm being completely honest. 

If you want to go the wrapping paper route I have a few tips:

• Use wrapping paper that isn't so cheap that you can see the design through the paper. You don't want that showing up in your pictures. I just use whatever wrapping paper I have on hand. I don't buy the rolls especially for this, although you could.
• Make sure to roll it up when you're not using it. This will help prevent wrinkles which take away from the photo [you can see wrinkles in the photos up top; I usually edit them out]
• If you're taking pictures of something that needs to stand [like my vase and can above] put something hard underneath the paper to help prevent wrinkles. This isn't as big a deal if you're taking your photos on a hard surface.
• Try to take the pictures outside if possible. A porch is ideal because it's not direct sunlight but you still get natural light!

Now let's see some unedited examples of using this method!

 Inside at approximately 1 pm. The light source is to the left in this photo.

 Outside. I don't always have this problem, but sometimes I get a blue tint to my photos. I use Photoshop, so upon editing this picture I would simply select "Remove color cast" which allows me to select an area of the photo that is supposed to be white, and it would correct the photo. This is what I did to the photo above with the bench.

 Outside. You can take photos from above...

 ...or from straight on, which is helpful for fabric stacks or things that you'd like to maintain proper perspective of the object [like the vase].

 Outside. Obviously the best thing about this is that you let whatever the subject is take the focus of the photo. There is no background to take away from the hexie.

 This photo was taken at midnight on the floor of my kitchen. It has been edited. This is really important, because I do so much of my sewing at night. No matter how good your editing software is, you still want to start out with the best raw photo possible or else it's still not going to look good. I was able to correct the photo so that the colors are accurate because the white background allowed enough light reflecting into the photo.

Now, obviously I'm not any kind of a professional photographer. This is just what works for me using the cheapest materials. But hopefully if you're in limbo with your photos, but looking to make a quick/cheap improvement then this will help you!

Let me know if you have any questions! And tell us in the comments if you use any photo tricks! :)

*Linked with SewHappyGeek

These are a few of my favorite things [from the past week]

Cookies! 

 [apologies for the semi-scandalous nature of this photo] Getting to spend a few hours with my dog of 15.5 years before we had to put her to sleep earlier this week. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but  I wanted to be there for her, and I'll forever treasure this last afternoon spent playing in the grass and being happy.

Next Colette Sorbetto.

 Burying myself in sewing because it makes me feel better. Except it makes my sewing room a mess.

 Lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, which is a fantastic salad bar place. Eating until the afternoon rain stops :)

Morning tea and my sewing deadlines for the next 2 weeks.

Gotta love a successful swap!

So remember the llama mini that I made Jessica for our swap?

Today I got my package! Whee!

LOOK AT HOW CUTE IT IS. Seriously. My favorite colors. Paper pieced star. A pouch! That I didn't have to make myself! Because zipper tabs hate me! It's like the greatest. And that hand-stitching is fabulous.

Plus, it only gets better on the back! I know that Jessica is new to hand-stitching and you totally can't tell from this, it's so great!

So it turns out that it's pretty hard to take a picture of the inside of a pouch, but that's a French seam in there folks! Yep, no exposed, unfinished seams for this pouch. It's all about the little details :)

And to round it all out she sent a matching key fob. Heck yeah. I'm one of those people who will spend 10 minutes sifting through her purse to find her keys and then they've been in the side pocket all the time because I didn't want to lose them.

Thanks Jessica, I'm so excited to put them to use! :)

*PS, next week I'm going to reveal my new photo-taking set-up for those of you who are looking for [cheap] ideas on how to get better photos.

*PPS, Chelsea said I should put a button on my sidebar to make it easier for people to find my fabric? must.stash pattern and I thought it was genius, so it's over there on the sidebar. Click the photo and it takes you to my Etsy shop.

*PPPS, there were also several people who expressed interest in purchasing mustache minis, so there are a couple listings for those in my Etsy shop too!

*PPPPS - is too many postscripts!

Top 10 Finalist and a WIP!

Eeeee! Remember my Nautical Striped Skirt from this past Sartorial Saturday?

I entered it in the Full Skirt category over at Crafterhours and it made it to the Top 10! The judges pick a winner out of the Top 10, but there is a Reader's Choice Winner too. So, if you don't mind, take a moment and go vote for your favorite skirt! You don't even have to pick mine, although I won't complain if you do!

I think the best skirts out of the contest are in this category :)

So for today's sewing?...

I ended up going with jewel tones, added in some more fabrics and scraps that I found, and got to cutting last night!

I have to go to the LQS today to pick up the fabrics that I'll be using for my class samples, so I'll pick up some more jewel tones while I'm at it!

And on Monday my friend Amanda finished up her t-shirt Polaroid quilt. She now has more respect for quilters in general [this took us about a month, working in 5-6 hour shifts two or three times a week], and is proud to give her friend a birthday present that she worked so hard on. And I'm proud to have survived teaching the making of an entire quilt to someone that had only sewn once before!

Today is a happy Wednesday! :)

*Linked over at Freshly Pieced for the last regular WIP Wednesday of the summer!

Giveaway winner and opinions please

Drum roll please...

The winner of the Christmas in July mini supply giveaway is...

  #73!

*Because I gave 2 entries to those who blogged about it, but I didn't ask for them to comment 2 times, I added those extra entries in. That's why there aren't 79 comments listed on the post, but with the extra entries in there are 79 entries :)

 And that ended up being Stephanie! She just made a super super cute 241 Tote. Go check it out!

Stephanie, I emailed you!

...And now pretend there was some nice and easy transition into this next part...

I need some opinions.

I'm about to start a project that has a deadline at the end of June. It's a small project; I have no desire to repeat a 25-hour quilt again so soon. The project is a remake of a past project of mine, but I have to make it in a different color palette.

How vague am I being right now?! Aggravating, I know. Bear with me.

This is the direction I was given: "celebration of pageantry, royalty and the Olympics etc and the images they evoke. [...] Perhaps purples for royalty, or jewel tones, or even red, white and blue.."

Ahem.

These are the bundles I came up with:

 Jewel tones. Although I already know that I need to restock my turquoise options, so I'd add a couple more of those.

Obviously this is red/white/blue. But I didn't want it to be scream in your face Americana [and is it even supposed to be Americana? ::secretive face::], so I added in some grays/black and white prints/corals.

The item will be a pillow, so what are your thoughts? What color scheme would you pick? Remember, it needs to go with the quote up there in terms of what the "client" is looking for.

Oh, and I promise I'll never be vague again. Until the next time I'm not allowed to reveal something fully.

Llamalicious - Finished!

*Today is the last day to enter the giveaway that corresponded with the Christmas in July schedule and prizes! You have until midnight :)



I know that llamas are not generally nice creatures in real life. But on fabric they're so so soooo cute! Laurie Wisbrun is a genius.
As a result of this, there is a picture overload that follows. I'm not even sorry about it.

See?! So I was more than happy to add them to the mini that I made for Jessica in our personal swap. I completely revamped my idea to work the llamas and the flapdoodle hats into the mix. Jessica requested colors of blues/turquoise/greens/yellows/grays, and then I think the hat fabric throws in that little punch of red to keep it from being too "matchy".

 I made the strips in groupings of 4 print fabrics and 4 white strips. The white finishes at just 1/2" and the prints are 3/4" finished. Then I sewed them into rows.

 The middle part did require Y-seams around the llama diamond, but it really wasn't difficult. In fact, I had to sew seams multiple times during the making of this mini, but the Y-seams I did all in one go.

 And hey, look at those matching points!

 So the hardest part of making this...? Going from the above picture, which is everything all sewn together...

 ...to this squared off version. Seriously. I had to stop sewing and go try to relax first, because I was that nervous about it!

 And, in the spirit of keeping it real around here, this is the back. I almost always press my seams open, but I must admit it was tough with this because the strips were so narrow.

 I also really debated when I got to the quilting. I didn't want to quilt over the llama, and the mini is already pretty busy, so I didn't want to add to that either. What do you all do when your quilt doesn't have a lot of negative space?

 I used my go-to straight-line quilting marking tool...my pattern tracing wheel that I use for making clothing. I marked lines half an inch apart going against the grain of the direction of the strips.

 I auditioned several options for binding, which I usually do by pinning strips to the quilt to see how it looks. Stephen even weighed in, although he chose the gray. In the end I'm so glad I went with white.

 Jessica told me she's spending a little time with our llama friend before she names him. I suggested Larry or Ferdinand. I love pets with absurd people names. It cracks me up. 

 My favorite part about this design [other than the llama, duh] is the fact that when the strips are going in the same direction that they don't match up from row to row, which you can see in the above picture. But then when they go in opposite directions that's when they match up perfectly. I think it gives the overall design a lot more movement. In fact, I think it kind of looks like anime cartoons when they have the little character flying through the air and have those sound or movement markings around them. I'm not sure a lot of quilters are too familiar with anime...Full Metal Alchemist anyone?

 I used leftover bits of the rows that were cut off on the back. It's like itsy bitsy stacked coins! It rounds out in size at around 16x20" [I think, I was very tired when I measured it...]

 And hey, the quilting shows up great on the back!

 I'm getting pretty good at catching all the binding the first time when machine sewing it all on.

Jessica, I hope you don't mind that I might make this exact mini over again and have it in my own home. We can be twinsies :)

*Linked at SewHappyGeek, Pieceful Life, Canoe Ridge Creations
*Also linked at Quilt Story

These are a few of my favorite things [from the past week]

*Don't forget to check out the Christmas in July prizes and enter the giveaway! You have until tomorrow at midnight.

 Playing with all these triangle log cabins. Do I stick with the original plan, or do I change it up?!

 Late-night dinner of pasta with fresh squash, zucchini, onion, and garlic after a long day of sewing.

 Love building fabric stacks! I'd like to incorporate a warm color into this...maybe a magenta/hot pink?

The above fabric stack is for this design for the Pillow Talk Swap. I was definitely floundering because I couldn't pinpoint an absolute style that my partner liked. I think this is like a starburst and is graphic, so hopefully it can merge multiple tastes.