Category Archives: Custom Work

Drop and Give Me Twenty

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I’ve joined the “Drop and Give Me Twenty” challenge for February and pledge to quilt for at least 20 minutes every day this month.

I’ll be working mostly on the turtles quilt for camp. I’ve had this community project in my hands for quite some time now and it’s time to finish it up. Thanks to everyone who sent tree blocks I’m adding the final borders now. Soon it’ll be time to sandwich and quilt. Yay! I hope to get it completed this month.

There’s a Facebook group for the challenge here. It’s a fun place to share photos and ideas and encourage each other. Prizes are available too!

fourtreesborders   trimmingtreeblocks turtlesquiltborderstart turtlesquiltcenter

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Come See Me at the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique!

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Come see me this weekend at the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique! I will be shutting down the etsy shop  and opening an in-person booth on Saturday, November 7th 2015 from 8:30am to 3:00pm. Admission and parking are free at the middle school location in Ventura, CA. Bring cash or check to buy handmade art from me. Boutique benefits the local no-kill animal shelter.

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Here’s the details for the Purrs and Paws Holiday Boutique.

  • November 7th, 2015. 8:30am-3:00pm
  • Balboa Middle School – 247 S. Hill Rd., Ventura, CA 93003
  • Benefits the Humane Society of Ventura County, a no-kill shelter
  • Meet Megan. Buy stuff with cash or check. Hugs included! 🙂
  • Over 30 other vendors.

This is sure to be a fun event. I’ve been busy the past few weeks making some new things. Here are some of them. (For sale in the shop until Friday, then whatever doesn’t sell will be relisted after this weekend.) More are available at my booth that have yet to be photographed.

handquiltedbatikfrontandback selvageheartornaments starcrumbcornamentsstarcrumbpillow

I hope to see you there!

Teal Mini Quilt Blog Hop: Ovarian Cancer Awareness

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12107159_10207273810744087_3802108283043761333_nWelcome! I’m the last stop on this year’s teal mini quilt blog hop. Yay caboose! This swap, hosted by Beth of EvaPaige Quilt Designs, raised $2,000 and awareness for ovarian cancer. The quilts in this post were exchanged between me and my new friend Sarah. Here’s the quilt she made me. It’s double sided!

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Sarah lost her mother to Ovarian Cancer. She has a Pinterest Board dedicated to awareness for this specific disease. I encourage you to check it out. The biggest predictor of successful treatment is early detection and there’s no medical tool that catches it in the earliest stages. Pay attention to your body women of the world! If you feel like there’s something amiss get it checked out. My survivor friend Trisha’s here today in part because she was paying attention and became her own advocate.

Ready to see what I made? I had a back injury while I was making this quilt so it’s 100% hand sewn. I started with some teal yo-yo’s and a contrasting orange batik background fabric. It needed s’more circles but I wanted the teal to be the star so I chose brown. After playing with the placement for a bit I appliqued those yo-yo’s upside down onto the fabric. They’re dimensional and a bit poufy which is fun.

auditioning threads teal quilt

I wanted the thread to stand out a little so you could see the quilting but not too much. So I auditioned them like so. It’s helpful to unwind a bit of thread to see what the strand looks like against the piece. The red’s too bright on the spool but just perfect this way and it’s what I ended up choosing to quilt with.

glue basting teal quiltDouble-fold binding is my jam but it was going to be a pain to sew on entirely by hand so I decided to fold the back over onto the front instead. Usually I’d use a gazillion pins to hold it in place but I saw a cool new thing on Sam Hunter’s Back to School Blog Hop. It’s glue basting and it’s pretty amazing. I learned on the tutorial from purpledaisyquilting in minutes. All you need is Elmer’s glue and a hot iron. I found these cute fine-tipped ones at the dollar store. Score!

final press teal quiltfinished teal quiltHere’s a nice close-up I took while doing the final pressing and the finished quilt. There’s no right side up; It can be hung vertically or horizontally. Can you see the concentric circles quilting? No? How ’bout in this pic Sarah took upon receiving it? It got a little smushed in the mail but this is a much better angle to show off my handiwork. Pretty cool.

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Check out these links for the other artists in this blog hop and mark your calendars for August 2016 to participate in next year’s swap. Sign-up via Facebook.

October 12th Tweety Loves Quilting and One Quilting Circle

October 13th Susan Brehm and Books, Hooks, Sticks, etc

October 14th Teachpany and Bobbin’s Lullaby

October 15th Splitting Stitches and Purple Leaf Quilts

October 16th Blue Ribbon Sewing and quiltartbymegan <— you are here!

Treeline Border for Turtles Quilt

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Help wanted! If you’re making trees please send them my way by January 20th, 2016. Thanks guys.

Here’s a little tutorial for the treeline border blocks my friends and I are making for the turtles quilt. This quilt has been a collaboration from the start so it makes sense for this last bit to be made by many artists as well. If you want to help out and make one, I’d love that! As you can see from the last photograph I’ll need a lot of them to make it all the way around.

You’ll need some medium/dark greens and light blues for this 8 x 11.5″ block. This can be as scrappy or not as you’d like it to be. Use one green and one blue or a bunch of ’em.

 Cut:
  • Four 4″ green squares
  • Four 4″ blue squares
  • One to four strips of blue 1.5″ wide which add up to 40″ in total length
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Time to make some half-square triangles. Mark the diagonal line on each of the blue pieces. Sew them, right sides together, to the blue pieces on either side of the marked line. So, you’re going to get two half-square triangles out of each one. I like to chain-piece these, sewing 1/4 inch to the left of the marked line and then flip ’em to sew 1/4 inch to the right of it.

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Cut right down that marked line. Press ’em to the dark side and now you have 8 half-square triangles. Sew them into sets. You’re making a larger triangle shape with each one now. Press.

DSCN0009 Decide which piece will be the top of your pine tree. Set that one aside. Cut the other three by measuring 2.75″ from the bottom. Chop the tops off at that point and discard.

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Stack the pieces together and sew ’em up. Hello little tree! Border on all sides with the blue strips you cut and then trim the whole block down to 8 x 11.5 inches. This block is my own design. No need to worry about super-precise piecing on this one.

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Fine Art Doesn’t Belong in the Nursery

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My for-sale quilts (mostly) are for two kinds of customers: lovers of heirlooms and fine art; and those shopping for baby. I also have arm warmers and table runners but I’m mostly in those two categories. I’m working hard on learning marketing and merchandising and came across this great article.

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This article includes photographs of booths whose displays enhance their products. Landscape paintings are on easels made of tree limbs and natural soap is in an antique washing machine.

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This got me thinking my photographs in this blog and the etsy shop. A future craft booth would look different depending on the audience I’m looking to reach. How much better would it be if the products were displayed more relevantly? Art quilts like the portrait quilt above should be in a minimalist, gallery-like setting. Maybe they’re hung on a black curtain with spot-lighting. Balloons and brightly colored backdrops would not be appropriate. They could be photographed above a beautiful fireplace or fancy bed.

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Baby quilts, on the other hand wouldn’t make sense in that setting. Maybe they’re draped over a crib or spilling out the drawers of a changing table. A kids’ picnic table and stuffed animals would be awesome. As for photographs, why not have a baby playing on the quilts?

duckie bibs double sided

I don’t have these props yet but some of them can be found cheaply at thrift stores and yard sales. We have no other use for a crib but I’ll be on the lookout for a rocking chair… and a local friend with a baby. 🙂

 

Linking up to Show Off Saturday.

Jasmine’s Wedding Quilt – In Her Words

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My cousin Jasmine is today’s guest blogger. I got to sew simple log-cabin quilt blocks for her wedding guests to sign. Now it’s a treasured quilt. Here’s what she has to say about it:

 

 

 

Getting married to the guy you love is such an awesome thing.

jas time professional photo

But you know what was almost equally as awesome about our wedding day? That ALL the people we love came from all over the country to be there with us.

wedding party jas

Seriously – when else in your life does that happen? Everyone in ONE place??

fire jas wedding

So one of our favorite gifts we got was the signature quilt that Megan made for us. She put fabric blocks out for everyone to write notes to us on, and then quilted them together into this exquisite quilt. The colors match our wedding day – a beautiful red-orange-yellow fall day in Massachusetts. It’s super fun to read and re-read the messages all our loved ones left for us.

close-up photo of jas quilt

And the quilt itself is such good quality that I’m not worried about ruining it in the wash, or leaving it out as decoration on the couch. Thank you Megan, for such a thoughtful gift that keeps on reminding us of all the love in our life!

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20% off coupon

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SALE! Use coupon code: THANKS to get 20% off purchases totaling $25 or more in my etsy shop now through Cyber Monday.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/QUILTArtbymegan?ref=hdr_shop_menu

This 20% off includes any custom order placed before the end of the day on Monday. Contact me at mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com for more information.

 

These items and more are eligible for the 20% discount! Just type THANKS into the coupon code box at checkout.
pink crumb placemats chevron kids quilt orange runner redflowersskirt1 heartonchair Tropical Starburst

 

 

Custom? Yes Please.

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I’m so glad I did the sales booth! It was on Thursday at the Santa Clarita Valley Quilt Guild’s meeting. Baby bibs were the biggest seller and these cute tree ornaments got some interest too. tree ornaments I didn’t make many dollars that day, which was a little disappointing. What was successful was the connections made. People asked about my crumb piecing. I’ll be pitching that class to guilds and shops for the new year! My November 7th class was postponed. I’ll let you guys know when it’s been rescheduled. pink crumb placemats

Quilters asked if I’m interested in doing projects they’d been asked to do but had no interest in. Yes! I loooove custom work. I’ll gladly make a quilt out of uniforms or grandma’s linens. Right now I’m making baby quilts for two girls. Next in line is pillow shams that match the bedding in a new family’s master bedroom.

I’m still unpacking and reorganizing things. When I figure out which pile the camera is under I’ll show you guys some photographs of my booth setup.

My etsy shop was on vacation mode but is now back up and running. I’m revamping some listings and adding new items so it’ll be filling up over the next few days. Expect to see the tree ornaments, crumbs place mats, and this cute chevron quilt in the shop soon.

chevron kids quilt

There’s still time to get a custom order in to be completed before the holidays! First come, first made. Let’s talk. mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com

Goal: Have a Sales Booth in 2014

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I made some new year’s resolutions in January this year. Usually I don’t bother but mine in 2013 really helped keep me focused. It was two things: be my own advocate and focus on the good. For 2014 I had some specific things in mind for my business. One was to have a sales booth for my quilting items sometime this year. Well, it’s happening!

I’m get to have a sales table during a quilt guild meeting on Thursday night. This is for my old quilt guild where I used to live, about an hour away. Due to some kinks in the new laws about non-profits, among other factors, the guild’s a little low on funds this year. So my proposal was simple: please let me help you by running a fundraiser. I love when opportunities turn out to be win-win.

So here’s the deal. Most craft fairs run for 1-2 days at six-eight hours not including setup. Depending on the size of your spot and how popular the fair is the fees to have a table can be upwards of $100. What I worked out with the guild is that they will get 50% of the sales from my card holders. Then they’ll also get 25% of all other sales. No money up front from me. If all goes well they’ll get more than the traditional $100 booth fee. No risk on either side of a loss… and an opportunity for both the guild I love and myself to make some moneys.

Sometimes it pays to be creative! I suspect that if I just asked to have a booth flat out the answer would have been no. What’s in it for them? Now there’s plenty in it for both of us. booth card holders

As you can see, I made a LOT of card holders! 108 to be exact. There’s actually another layer underneath the ones photographed. They’ll be on sale for $6 each and have been pulled from my etsy shop. I’ll get the leftovers back up on there after my sale. booth box 2 booth box 1 I’m busy organizing my inventory and adding price tags to everything. Above are two of the boxes-in-progress.

If I have time, I have five small tree skirts, 11 baby bibs, three baby quilts, two table runners, and four pincushions in various stages of sewn-up-ness. They’ll be added to the inventory as I finish them. If they’re not completed (and they can’t ALL be) by Thursday night no biggie. They’ll go up in my etsy shop for you guys just the same.

 

The December holidays are coming! Birthdays too. Let’s collaborate on the perfect gifts for your loved ones. I specialize in custom work. mrs.megan.null @ gmail.com Let’s talk.