Onwards and upwards...

I'm working on some changes over here at Telltale Thread, starting with an online address change.  I hope you'll follow me over to my new hangout:  http://www.telltalethread.com/

I'll be working on the site slowly and getting it prettified and organized, plus adding my shop to make life easier.  Exciting times!

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

That didn't take long...

Just over a month since my last post and while I have no 'after' photos of my craft space for you (it's still a mess), I can tell you that we found a house!

We have a bit of work to do before we can move in so we probably won't be living there until some time in September (oh, and I guess we should wait for our closing date at the end of August).  We have lots of plans already for both the inside and the outside spaces - we're going to have to pace ourselves.

There's a small sun-room at the back of the house that I think will become my new craft space.  Almost the same as what I'm currently using but slightly bigger.  Right now it's painted a very bright blue, which I don't mind, but will probably change so that I can really put my own stamp on it.

Hopefully, you won't mind if I ramble on about home decor and DIY's in the coming months.  I've been waiting a long time to get the chance to decorate a space that is truly my own - I am beyond excited!

BUT, in equally exciting, yet more rapidly approaching news, my baby girl is going to be ONE on Sunday.  How the hell....where did the time go??  We're having a small, casual gathering of people - a bbq, some beer and a cake for the Kid to smoosh around as she pleases.  The weather has been great so hopefully it hangs in there for another few days.  Having recently returned to work, I've failed miserably in the crafty mum stakes.  I'm going to try to get a couple of things made for Sunday.  If I'm successful, photos will follow.  If not, well...I'll find some pictures of cats to post instead.

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

No Sewing Machine = Trying to Keep Myself Busy

I decided it was about time I took my poor Pfaff in for a service.  She'll be gone about a week and my craft table is looking rather bare.  Since there's a little more space for a bit, I decided maybe I should try and get things organised and give you a peek at my creative space.

 Here we have the beginnings of getting organised - fabric piles, paper piles, stack of thread boxes, snaps everywhere.  Off to the right Tiny Donnie watches over all.  He's not much help though.

Even my chair is in a state of disarray, covered with a half finished quilt.

Underneath the desk, behind the chair, is a stack of batting in bags - 4 different bags, all with differing amounts of batting.  Usually my yarn bag is under there, too but it's currently residing in the living room.

Chaos!

The madness continues to the left.  Piles of fabric and two new boxes to house my jewellery findings, brooch backings, etc and all of my oven-bake clay and molds.

We won't discuss what's happening in the blue drawers.  At least it's contained.

More chaos!

Okay, this next section isn't so bad - it's almost neat!  Fabric is folded or wrapped around comic book backing boards (super easy and cheap way to keep any yardage you have under control), books are on the bottom (over-sized books stacked on top), and my Game of Thrones figurines are watching over everything.  The white boxes with coloured labels in the bottom right corner are where I keep all of my fabric scraps.

Under control!

Outside of this small sun room, I do have use of a hutch for storage as well.  Oh, and there is a wheeled wire rack that houses some fabric - not sure how it managed to escape being in the photos.  Oops.

While getting organised will help make things a little smoother when I'm working on a project, for now the purpose is mainly to make things easier when this all gets packed up and moved.  We're about to start looking for a house of our own (Eek!  First time home buyer excitement!) so, I'll be figuring out a new creative space some time in the next few months.  Really looking forward to that because it will be the first time I'll be able to paint and decorate without having to consider ease of reverting everything back to it's original state when we move.  Can't wait!

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

Good News for the Crafters of Victoria!

The other day I found myself in need of some more white Kona cotton (seriously - I should just break down and buy that shizz by the bolt) and batting so, The Boy, The Kid and I trekked down to one of the best stores in Victoria - Capital Iron.

Like an old time-y General Store but with new stuff!

Up on the third floor is the home decor and fabric department, which I had kind of forgotten about until I wandered in there a few months back.  I had been looking for some blackout lining for curtains for The Kid's room, and they didn't disappoint.  Since then, I've gone back a couple of times to restock on the aforementioned white Kona, and to pick up some laminated cotton.  They have a pretty decent selection of quilting cottons, some nice big bolts of cotton and cotton/bamboo batting, and a whole bunch of home decor weight fabrics, vinyls, chalkboard cloth, etc.

Victoria has a couple of other fabric stores (which I'll review and tell you about later) but in general, we're pretty hurting in locally available modern or new prints.  Plus, prices can be a little high.  While I love the thought, and try as often as I can, to support local businesses, the selection I find and the prices (even with shipping) while shopping online are hard to beat.

BUT!  The fabric gods have smiled on the quilters and crafters of Victoria!  On my last trip to Capital Iron, I got some great news.  There has been a lot of action going on up on the third floor - at first, I was afraid they were downsizing or phasing out the fabric department.  Luckily, I was wrong and as the lovely lady who was cutting my fabric informed me, they are actually rearranging everything because their selection will be expanding!  Come June they will have an even bigger range of quilting cottons, including Moda and Kaffe Fassett.  Exciting!  I will definitely be going back in a few weeks to see how things are coming along.

Also, and I didn't know this until my last visit, Capital Iron has a Sew n' Save card that you can get ($5.00 annual fee) that gives you 20% off fabrics, notions and some other items that have fallen out of my brain (excludes: sale items, drapery panels and hardware, blinds, foam and patterns).  Since I was purchasing a few meters of batting and Kona, my card paid for itself in one trip.  With that discount, CI is now more than competitive with online shopping, with the added bonus of not having to wait for things to come in the mail AND supporting a local business.  Hooray!

P.S. Sorry to everyone who doesn't live in, or near, Victoria (or Sidney)!  Please also note, this post is in no way sponsored by Capital Iron.  I just wanted to share the info and show support for one of my favourite shops in Victoria :)

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

New Quilt for a Silent Auction Fundraiser!

 Next Saturday this event is taking place to raise money for the family of little Owen (pictured above).  Owen is currently undergoing treatment for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (and responding really well!  Yay!).  Unfortunately, the treatments, for the first month and periodically thereafter, take place in Vancouver.  Now, that's not a huge distance from Victoria but the cost of accommodation, travel, food, etc all add up.  Not to mention all of the other bills the family has.  Too bad there's no 'pause' button on all of those!

I'm donating a small baby quilt to the silent auction.  I've made one for the auction and I'm finishing up an almost identical one for Owen.  The only difference will be on the back, which will have a strip of the car print.  I have it on good authority that wee Owen likes cars :)

Front (wrinkly due to washing but so soft!)

Back

I quilted it with a light blue Aurifil 50wt in a grid pattern about a 1/4 inch from the blocks along the sashing, and used a fun rainbow stripe for the binding.  I wanted to make the quilts bright and colourful to bring a little happiness to Owen and whoever the lucky recipient of the auction quilt will be.

If you're in the Victoria area, or will be on the 18th, please keep this in mind if you're looking for something to do and would like to help support a good cause.  There will be fun activities for the kids and there are a LOT of really great items up for auction.  Hope to see you there!

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

Giveaway winner and a whole lotta binding!

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Wow.  You guys....my giveaway post had 280 page views and 99 lovely people left a comment telling me what kind of crafts they enjoy.  My blog is brand new and has never seen anything near that kind of action before!  Hahaha!  It's so great that so many people participated, and I hope maybe some who visited here liked it enough to start following along.  I know I found a boat load of new, gorgeous blogs to follow and read.  Thanks Sew Mama Sew for hosting - I can't wait to take part in the next one.  Perhaps something a little homemade as a giveaway next?  Hmmmm....

BUT, let's get to the good stuff.  I used a highly technical process to determine a winner - I yelled at The Boy to pick a number between 1 and 99 and he looked at me blankly and said '72?'  So, drumroll.....bbbbrrrrrdddrrrrbbbrrrrdddrrrrching!  (is that a drumroll sound?  I don't know) the lucky winner is Jaimie (who commented on May 9, in case there is more than one Jaimie!).  Congrats, Jaimie!  I'll be emailing you as soon as I'm done this post.  Thanks again to everyone who stopped by and who left a comment.  You are all the bomb!

In less exciting news, here are two photos of what 24+ feet of rainbow striped quilt binding looks like (pardon the crappy photos - I used my phone and just uploaded them directly with no editing.  Sacrilege!):

Ooooohhhh

Aaaaahhhh

And now I have to go finish attaching some of that binding to the first quilt so that it's ready in time for a soon to be happening silent auction.  I'll post some more about that tomorrow!


Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.

Giveaway Day!

 Happy May 6th and welcome to Telltale Thread's giveaway!

I've been a crafter for a looonnngg time and over the years I have amassed many, many crafting items.  Some things I bought because they were pretty, other things I bought because they seemed useful, other things I just. had. to. have. for no good reason.  I know I'm not the only craft supply hoarder out there.  Raise your hand and let me stop feeling like a weirdo!

Anyway, the silver lining to the cloud of my overspending is that I know I will never get around to using most some of what I have crowding my craft space, so I offer some of it to one lucky reader.  My current focus is on quilts, clothing and toys for my Etsy shop so I've culled a few things from the cupboards to get someone else started on their own hoarding crafting experience.

All of the things!

I've tried my hand at a number of different kinds of crafts over the years and I'm offering a little range of different kits and supplies for projects that you may not have given a go before. We've got: from Spikey Designs, a Kookaburra quilt pattern (baby size quilt); a flower fairy cross stitch from Janlynn; a Make Your Own paper bird kit that I bought at the Red Hill Market outside Melbourne, Australia; a fat quarter (18x22) of beautiful floral batik; and an alphabet mini-stamp set.

All you have to do for a chance to win is leave a comment (make sure there is an email attached in some way so that I can contact you!) telling me what your favourite craft is, or what craft you would like to try.  You have until 5pm PST on May 10th to enter.  International readers are welcome to enter, too! 

Don't forget to visit Sew Mama Sew for all of the other great giveaways - so many chances to win!

Copyright 2013. Please do not use any images or words from my work without first asking and being granted approval. Thank you.