Tag Archives: holidays

Day 27: Magic Dishes

There’s a special dish that’s part of every holiday meal. You can see it in the food photo from our Christmas meal on the left and Thanksgiving on the right.

Here’s what it looks like empty. What is it? It’s a large platter that I decorated and had guests sign on our wedding day. I have the guest book from my parents’ wedding. It’s pretty and interesting and…. sits inside a box. Our dish gets used 3-4 times every year and is on display the rest of the time.

Why is it magic? Because of all the love that went into making it. I started at one of those stores where you can paint ceramics. They’ll fire them in the kiln and you come back to a finished glazed piece. This time I wanted it sign-able so I did most of the decorating in-store. Then I borrowed a black glaze pen and had wedding guests sign with it at our reception. Returned the platter to the store and picked up our finished piece post-honeymoon. Cool, huh?

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.

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.

I hope to see you there!

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. 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.

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

It’s Tree Skirt Season!

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It’s time to sew some Christmas tree skirts and get ’em up in my etsy shop. After Halloween, which is in just over two weeks, the focus changes to the winter holidays. For Christians, that means Christmas shopping. Want a cute tree skirt? There are three medium sized ones up in my shop. Check ’em out! Click the photos to get to their listings.

I have six more in-progress. Fabrics range from traditional Christmas to animals and patriotic motifs. They’re medium and large sizes for now. I’ll be adding small ones for tabletop trees too.

The horses are getting basted to the backing and ready for quilting. This one already has batting. I re-purposed the panels from a bag I meant to make several years ago. There’s one unfinished project fewer and a cute winter horses skirt on its way.

I’m pinning the binding on this one as I watch TV tonight. It’ll be listed in the shop soon. Binding’s the last step! Well, technically I need to photograph it once it’s finished too.
As always, I love custom orders. Sheri L. ordered a skirt last year with her choice of fabrics and was thrilled with the result. These treasures are machine washable and super-durable for years of enjoyment.

I will also have Hannukah items in my shop this year. Perhaps winter solstice, new years’ and other holidays’ too.

Little Things Sale

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It’s often the little moments that mean the most. It’s the first bite into the watermelon I grew in the backyard, laughing at my feminist husband’s intentionally sexist comment, a sweet card from an uncle I haven’t seen in over a decade, waking up (yay, it’s not real,) from a nightmare. It’s catching up with good friends, a new crock-pot, baby pictures, and successful garage sales.

Here are a few of the smaller items in my etsy shop that are on sale for 25% off. The holidays will be here before you know it, it’s good to stock up on some of these early…. especially since this sale ends when August does. Whoops. This should say gift card holders. Christmas and Hanukkah so far. I’ll be adding more holidays’ items soon. Pretty and sweet. Good for cookies and milk, tea and biscuits, coffee and whatever you coffee drinkers eat with that stuff. 🙂 They’re stuffed with 100% cotton batting so they can also be used as hot pads and trivets.

Custom pillows are also available.These scarves will keep you pretty and warm… and pretty warm.

I’ll have photos and prices of some of the quilts that are on sale in the next post. In the meantime, you can see them all in my Etsy shop.

Also, some of my quilts will be in shows in Simi Valley, California and De Moines, Iowa ! More details on that soon.

My Holiday Loot!

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I usually don’t post “yay I got this” kinds of posts, but you might actually be interested this year. Especially since a lot of the gifts I got, I picked out myself. Those came from etsy sellers.

First, my Dad’s side of the family has a secret Santa gift exchange every year. I got a very thoughtful gift this year, a mason jar for pins with a pincushion on top. Oh, and these gifts have to be handmade. It even has a little saying on it with kitty paws.

My hubby got me my own printer, which is awesome. Now I don’t have to bug him in his garage workshop to print something out every time I need that. It even has scan and copy features. Woot. I won’t bore you with a photo of that.

I bought this beautiful photography 2014 calendar from an etsy shop. It didn’t come with those blobs of grey, I added them because I started filling in appointments before photographing it.

I also got patterns from two etsy shops. The first pattern is of a messenger bag. Here’s that shop. The second pattern is for up-cycled sweaters and finger-less arm warmers. You can find that kooky shop here.

I’m on the hunt things made from wool and cashmere to start making my own up-cycled items. A dear friend has offered me several wool scarves that are moth-eaten. Perfect! I’m looking for items that are stained, stretched, shrunken, ripped, or otherwise unusable to you. Please please contact me if you have anything like that you’d like to donate to my cause. I can help with shipping costs if need be.

My next blog post (on Monday) will feature a custom photo quilt that I made for a client who gave it to her husband for Christmas. I’m so excited to finally be able to show it to you! (Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.)

Happy Holidays!

Where’d You Get That Skirt?

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In January my Aunt Laurie asked me to make her a custom tree skirt for this Christmas. You can read about that process here. This year another dear customer wanted one for next Christmas. Here’s the story on her tree skirt. But first, my aunt’s skirt under her tree in all its glory.

This next customer wanted a tree skirt to fit her artificial tree. So, while I was in St. Louis on vacation, we measured the base of her tree (about 1″) and calculated how large the skirt should be so it looks proportional. She was using a tablecloth wrapped around the base, but would much rather return it to the table and I was certainly the gal to help her out with that.

The second step in the process (the first being measurements) was choosing the fabric. I recommended fabric.com because I’d used them before and was impressed with their selection and customer service. She browsed through fabrics while my brother and I watched a scary movie and put her favorite Christmas prints in the shopping cart before calling me over for advice. I recommended that she choose her very favorite print and then we’ll find a coordinating one. So that’s exactly what she did! She loved the flowery fabric and the red with white polka-dots goes so nicely with it. See?

Turns out, she ordered enough fabric (on my request, I usually get more than needed in case of slip-ups) that I didn’t charge her for shipping the tree skirt back to her. I made a second tree skirt out of the extra fabric. It’s up for sale in my etsy shop for $70. Here’s a photo of that one. It’s similar, just the fabrics are reversed. The red pizza slices are larger than the flowered ones.

I’d love to do a custom order for you! It can be a tree skirt, bag, quit, or whatever you can think of.

Also, I’m completely honest about my skill set. If I’ve never done something before but am confident that I can figure it out, or it’s a new patter that I haven’t tested yet, I’ll make a sample before using your chosen fabrics to make sure there are no kinks that need to be adjusted out. If I’m not confident that I can figure it out, I’ll tell you exactly that. Usually I’ll have someone in mind to refer you to as well who can probably do it. I can do almost anything. I rarely say no, but I feel it’s important to be honest.

P.S. To whichever of my quilting friends who suggested I buy a bias tape maker tool, thank you! It has saved me soooo much time when making the binding for these tree skirts. Customers, time saved means less cost since I do charge for my time. We are sew worth it!

The reviews are coming in!

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Hello everybody. This is just a quick post to let you know about a new page on my blog. You can find it here: https://quiltartbymegan.wordpress.com/customer-feedback/

I will be adding to it periodically as more feedback comes in. These are reviews from people who have been gifted, bought, or seen my quilts. Please check out my etsy shop, too. https://www.etsy.com/shop/QUILTArtbymegan Now’s the time to get those orders in for the 2013 holiday season.

Expect a blog post next week about the quilts that a team of us are making for Crystal Lake Camps, where I spent many of my childhood summers. It’s a place that I hold dear to my heart and I’m honored to be coordinating three quilts for the Lodge. There’s a native american theme at the camp, so everyone’s divided into four clans: the turtles, turkeys, bears, and wolves. I’m in charge of organizing the two twin sized quilts for the turkeys room and one larger quilt for the turtles room. I also have the permission of the maker of quilts for the other two clans to show photographs of her stunning creations here.

In case you’re wondering, I’m a proud turtle. GO TURTLES!