Let's have a giveaway!

It's time to celebrate National Sewing Month!  Yea, cause for a celebration!  Check out their website at http://www.nationalsewingmonth.org/.

The website has several topics of interest, including projects, contests, and articles.  If you like to sew or know someone who does, this is another site to visit.


Now, let's talk contest!  I'm thinking that since it's the month for sewing, it would be fun to put together a sewing package.


20 piece pack of tumbler blocks
Pincushion/storage jar
Sewing repair kit 
**two yards each black, white, khaki thread
**needles
**six buttons (3 black, 3 white)
**safety pins (different sizes)
**straight pins


One of the really nice things about rafflecopter is that you can enter in several ways AND you can enter daily.  Isn't that cool?  The giveaway begins Saturday, so tell your friends.  And of course, tell me what you think about this giveaway.  Just leave a comment for the heck of it.

Etsy Shop Profile: Lola Pink Fabrics

Do I have a treat for you!  This Etsy shop profile comes from Janet and Jennifer, a mother/daughter team who sells (how could this be better?) FABRIC!  If you are like me, you just can't seem to get enough.  And if, like me you are infatuated with the new designs and colors, this is the shop for you.  I've had the pleasure of walking into their Lafayette store and would return every day for a week, if only my husband would not ride with me every time I go in that direction!  He's horrid, my darling is.  Take a moment to enjoy the eye candy then take a trip to their Etsy shop here. 

1. When and why did you decide to begin selling fabrics on Etsy?    We started an Etsy store called Pretty and Preppy in Oct. 2009. We were buying a lot of fabrics for our water bottle holders, baby items, sachets, eye masks, key chains, etc. We decided in order to make money we were going to have to buy our fabric wholesale. I must add that Jennifer was a bit of an “addict” when it came to buying fabric but, she is pretty good at picking out the right fabrics for our shop. That was the start of Lola Pink Fabrics.

2. Who are some of your favorite fabric designers?   There will be too many to name but a few favorites are: Kate Spain, Jenean Morrison, Daisy Janie, Cloud 9, Patty Young, Joel Dewberry, Laura Gunn, Tina Givens, Jennifer Paganelli and Valori Wells. This is just the tip of the designers we love and respect so much.

3. Describe your partnership.    50/50 We have an absolutely wonderful working relationship. We would not want to be partners with anyone else.

4. What other items beside fabrics do you carry in your Etsy shop? Do you carry different or additional items in the store?    We carry a big selection of patterns, i.e., quilting, children’s and adult patterns. We hope to be adding thread and notions in the near future.

5. Do you have plans for carrying kits and such in the future?    We are just starting to carry kits and hope to have them listed in the shop very soon. We have a pillowcase kit and we are working on a pin cushion kit that everyone seems to be wanting. 

6. What does "handmade" mean to you?  Handmade is something that is made by you, with all of your heart and passion going into your gift. It is taking your time to make something for someone to cherish and use. It is not manufactured or mass produced. Each thing we make is unique in it’s own special way.


Is there anything else you'd like others to know about yourself or your shop?
We just opened a brick and mortar store in Lafayette, LA. We have been open three months now and it is going great. We are working hard to expand our fabric lines. We now carry Mettler threads and a variety of notions. We will be carrying the Aurifil thread very soon. We will continue to update our site as soon as our new fabrics come in. The best part of our Etsy shop is reading the wonderful comments from our customers. They are the best.

Thank you for profiling us,
~Janet and Jennifer

Thanks to Janet and Jennifer for allowing me to profile their shop.  Don't you just love their fabrics?  Aren't they yummiest?

Marketing

How much marketing do you do for your Etsy shop?  I've worn myself to a frazzle trying to market my wares....to no avail, of course.  Why?  I have no idea what I'm doing.  Soooo.....


On a late night whim, I ordered help.  Yep, just click a button and in two days Sarah sends a report telling you that your shop has been submitted to the major search engines.  Plus she submits it to about 30 smaller engines (not one of which I have ever heard of) and then she sets up something called a backlink.  Well, it's no wonder I haven't been getting anywhere!  I haven't a clue!   


How do people do this, you ask?  Simple, they don't, they pay someone else to do it for them, duh!  How do those people do it?  I have a theory that 1) they know what they're doing (based on the idea that they have computer brains), and 2) they don't speak real English (so the rest of us have no clue what they are talking about when they explain it).


Will it help?  I can't wait to find out; I figure it can't hurt.  Besides, Sarah is very reasonable and just sweet about the whole process.  So, in appreciation of her work, I'll tell you how to find her:  


Find her facebook


Go to her webpage http://www.sarahsmarketing.com/

Thank you, Sarah.  Happy Quilting all, Mary

Which are you?

Teaching English 1001 for LSU-Alexandria requires that I read many of the essays in our text.  Of course, I have to read the essays assigned for the course, but I do occasionally read other essays simply because I need to absorb written  words.

Tonight I spent a couple of hours reading the assigned text.  While doing so, I wrote notes in the margins analyzing the essays and highlighted passages that I want to discuss with students.  Imagine my surprise when I read Anne Fadiman's essay, "Never Do That to a Book."  It's an interesting essay in which Fadiman divides readers into two distinct groups: courtly lovers, who treat books with overzealous respect, and carnal lovers, who make books their own by writing notes, underlining, etc.

Have you figured me out yet?  I'm a carnal book lover but only when I'm reading one of my own personal books and only when the book is a text book (or my personal Bible) and I need to be able to see my notes and the text together.  It's so helpful to me to have the note RIGHT THERE, where the literary device is.  I love big white space--all that room to take notes is wonderful.


I've said many times that I'm a wolf reader, meaning that I wolf down words, all words, as though my appetite can't be satisfied.  Gobbling them up as though someone else will eat the words before I do.  Others may be able to relish books, tasting every word, reading slowly and methodically, but I could never do that. If I have an hour or a day or even two or three days to read, I want to read as much and as many books as I can wolf down.  After all, there is always another book waiting, another by a favorite author, another part of the series, another author yet undiscovered.  How anyone can read as though time will never end, I can not fathom.


I suspect that heaven carries every manner of books, that we'll be able to read as part of our adoration of God, but I also suspect that Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Wharton, Eliot, and the rest are also still writing.  Thus, while I can read for eternity, how can I ever read it all?

In the end I've discovered that I'm a carnal book lover with a wolfish appetite!  How would you describe your bookish self?

Rain, blogs, quilts

We have gotten buckets of rain over the last few days.  Tropical Storm Lee made land and showered us with a slow, soaking rain for two days.  Then the cool front came in and Lee was stuck over Avoyelles Parish with still more rain, so we got a wind-howling deluge for another day.  In three days the bayou that runs through town changed from a dry, cracked grassland bottom to a dangerous water shed overflowing its banks.  The small lake on our land has almost filled to the brim, which is great for the duck hunters in our family, and the catfish now have room to move since the pond is refilled.


Have you tried the new Blogger interface?  I am forcing myself to use it and Google Reader for keeping up with my blog reading and the blog itself.  It's very different but clean, and I'm sure that once I get used to where the buttons are I'll enjoy it much more.  I've read on other blogs that there are, or were, many glitches, but I haven't found any problems.  If you haven't tried it, you might give it a go.  For now you can switch back to the old interface if you don't like the new one.  I assume that eventually Blogger will faze out the old one, so I'm just going to get used to this one right now and get it over with.


Finally, on to quilts.  With the three day weekend I had hopes of getting some quilting done.  I did make some advancements, but not anywhere close to what I was hoping for.  I worked on my sister's quilt.  It's one of those for her grandchildren.  I have no idea how I am to finish all in time for Christmas.  Every weekend there's something else to take me away from the studio.  Today for example, we were to run in to town pick up a few items and get home early.  Almost six hours later we pull into the drive, and I'm exhausted and frustrated.  I also missed my guild meeting, which I very much wanted to attend.  


I'm getting close to finishing up this quilt for Seth.  Do you remember these pictures? I posted about it here.  How did I go from April to August without so much as touching the quilt?  Back in the spring I thought I had gobs of time to finish a few twin sized quilts.  Now it's fall and I'm getting worried.  Not that I procrastinated, honestly.  But Rich was working on the studio, then had surgery, then I had surgery, then Rich painted the studio floor, and then school started and Rich had surgery again!  Can you believe that we went through all that in the course of only four months?  Wait, it's now September!  Oh goodness, I'm going to have to do some explaining!  I think I have nine quilts to make and I have yet to finish the first one.   Hmm, I wonder if Angie will be moved by my tears?  She does react to the tears of her grandchildren.  Guess I'd better get to the studio!


In the meantime, what do you think is the best course of action for explaining to Angie that she's likely not going to get all of her quilts in time for Christmas?  Please do advise.....

Book Review of Lois Lowry's Gossamer

A quiet day of rain and cool weather means only one thing for me: reading!  It is gloomy, damp and dreary, so the best thing in the world is to curl up on the sofa under a bright light with a great book.  I am so lucky to be a high school librarian--it means that I have access to more books than I could EVER read.  In the case of my high school, literary thousands.  


Wait, it gets even better!  The wonderful librarian who was there before me (25 years) has been volunteering her time to help me get the books in the correct Dewey order.  Straightening shelves and putting books in order is one of her favorite jobs, so I can't feel very guilty about the amount of work she's done in the last two weeks.  I am so very grateful to her for helping.  I shouldn't even say helping, she is doing it almost completely alone as I've been busy with classes and teaching.  

Photo from Amazon.com

What else has Miss Pat done?  Recommend books, of course.  She hands me one or two every day.  At this rate, I won't even catch up with her recommendations!  But, Friday was relatively quiet, especially since we didn't have a football game--it was Thursday night--and I was exhausted from having worked the game.  So, I managed to find a quiet corner and began one of those books: Gossamer by Lois Lowry.  

Littlest One is a tiny creature learning her job of giving dreams to humans. Each night she and her teacher, Thin Elderly, visit an old woman's home where she softly touches beloved objects, gathering happy memories. Littlest One pieces these bits together and presents them to her sleeping human in the form of pleasant dreams. But the dreaded Sinisteeds, dark fearsome creatures that plague their victims with nightmares, are always at work against the dreamgivers. When the old woman takes in John, an angry foster child with a troubled past, the Sinisteeds choose him as their next victim. (Blurb from booksamillion.com). What I really enjoyed about the book is the way Lowry switches from what the woman and John are doing to what Littlest One and Thin Elderly are doing.  She also does a fabulous job of connecting the dreams that the creatures give to the humans with the humans' behaviors and dialogue.  It's a small book that is an easy read.  In fact, I finished it in just a few hours.  I started it at school Friday afternoon and brought it home to finish up before supper.  I'd definitely recommend it to many of the students, especially those who enjoy fantasy.  However those who may not generally choose fantasy may still enjoy this novella simply because it's so short.  There's no big commitment as with the majority of fantasies, which are usually quite long.  


I've read a few of Lowry's books and have been very happy with each one.  She's a versatile writer with several awards for some of her earlier books.  I truly enjoy it when a student discovers her work as I know that he or she will be hooked!


Don't forget to vote for my blog on Picket Fence.  We're climbing pretty high and I'm hoping to get 100 votes in just a few more days.  In fact, I'm going to encourage everyone with a giveaway.  I'm still deciding what the winner will receive.  If you have suggestions of items from my Etsy shop, please leave a comment.  I hope to have the giveaway post up by about Tuesday.  

Etsy Shop Profile: Cottage Light Studio

Say hello to Cindy Taylor of Cottage Light Studio who, it turns out, is the sweetest of ladies.  Her Etsy profile notes that her goal is to provide original fine art photography prints and cards that feature romantic light-filled images of garden flowers, shells, beach glass and vintage treasures.   Take at look at some of her beautiful artwork and dream of the peace and quiet that we crave in our busy lives.

"Where/when did you learn to take such beautiful, light-filled photography?"   Thank you! I feel like I've always been the "girl with the camera!" Along with travel, online workshops, and photography courses, I've learned so much from journaling and examining my own favorite types of scenes and studying images that really "speak" to me. I live on the water and am continually inspired by it's ever-changing color, light, and mood.   

"What are some of your favorite scenes?"   I always say, " I like images that reveal the art in people, places, or things, but I LOVE the photo that begins a story." My favorites include everyday scenes of beauty or a small touching moment inviting the viewer to imagine what came before or just after... I especially love anything that speaks of romance or adventure!

"How would you describe your creative process"   Anxiety-filled~ ha! Seriously, I am still so thrilled when an image just has that quality I was looking for but it's usually not on the very first try! Many times it's through concentrating on looking at scenes in many different ways, taking loads of photos; often coming back to a scene. Staying open to new ways of looking at things, experimenting, and relaxing are all important!
"Do you feel that your photography fits a particular mold?"   Though I hope my photography is ever-evolving, the common thread in my photos is a desire to share and inspire through color and light my optimistic and grateful view of the world and the beauty that surrounds us. 
"Who has influenced your art the most"   

I'm very lucky to have a wonderful family and group of friends who have always encouraged me. Joining the online flickr community has also been an amazing experience. It has been so much fun connecting with other photographers from all over the world; continually learning, growing, and sharing the enthusiasm for this career I am so passionate about!
"Tell us a bit about your Paris photographs"   

The Paris photos came from a surprise trip from my husband and it was love at first sight ~for both my husband and Paris :) The incredible city of light is beyond words. I loved finding it's special magic around every corner!
Is there anything else you’d like us to know?   Cottage Light Studio is my dream work ~ I'm doing what I love!
Cindy has a great deal for everyone!  Tell us about your coupon.

Thanks again Mary, I invite your readers to use the coupon, TAKE10, at checkout for a 10% discount on any orders through November 15th from the shop.  Visit Cottage Light Studio by clicking here.