Twas a few days before Christmas

Twas a few days before Christmas and all through the
house mass chaos ensued!

Sewing like mad to meet all the orders due!

Four quilts on the table and fabric a strewn

Rolls of thread everywhere and pins on the floor.

When all of a sudden a knock at the door..

The children are running from room to room

helping Mommy get ready for her big deliveries.

I run to the door to see who it may be,

another customer asking what she could see.

Choosing from placemats, runners and splat mats,

She excitedly found what she was looking for!

With a smile on her face and her bag nice and full

She exclaimed with great joy I am ready now

to continue my wrapping and ready to give such

lovely presents that you carefully have made.

With a twinkle in her eye she went out the door

ran to her car and off she went.

Does she know how much her sale really meant?

This year she has helped me put food on my table

so for my girls there was soup in the ladle!

How much it has meant that my customers have helped

keep my house warm and presents under my tree.

My girls will know when they are older

how much we have tried

to make sure they never knew how tough times have gotten.

They will never know really how many times I have cried.

And then this year 2009 I turned it around with just a stitch and some fabric

with all things that have been hanging around in my attic.

Thank you all for your purchases, I have sewn with great care.
There is so much love put in them, and of course with great flare.

May next year bring good fortune and good health

and of course to you all the same plus great wealth!

Happy Christmas to you all, and to all a great New Year!!!

Happy Holidays!

Well the fall has slipped by and here we are into the Christmas shopping season I have been sewing like a mad woman, so much that my machine pooped out and I was down for a couple of weeks..... needless to say I had too much time on my hands and began to cut more and more projects for the Christmas season.

My girls and I had such fun digging through boxes of fabric, trying to decide which ones to use for runners, and placemats, splat mats and of course quilts. I did however lose some fabrics to dress up and princess capes.

The giggles and laughter from this was all so wonderful!

I was able to complete a few Christmas quilts, one still is on my 'workshop' aka dinning room table to be pinned and top stitched. The Christopher Quilt, the Noelle Quilt, the Nicholas and Faith Quilts all are so sweet and soft.

This time of year always brings unexpected guests at my home, (I am not kidding about this!!) The phone rings or a knock at the door comes... "Hi we're on our way out, was wondering if you have any placemats, or bottle bags, or splat mats, how about a runner that might match where I am going". True story I was at my mom's baking apple tarts for some friends and the doorbell rang, a friend of my mother's knew I was there and was ready to hit the road and needed a hostess gift! It is a wonderful thing to constantly have repeat customers not only does it make me feel good, to quote my Aunt Kathy "It does indeed show the quality and appeal of your items to have repeat customers" So very true!!

Also between the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and cooking for Thanksgiving dinner I was sewing and listing all I could on etsy... still have more that will hopefully go up before the first week of December is out!

Placemats, Splat Mats, and Runners abound as well here and are ready for quick ship. You can always reach me for questions and comments. A Very Special THANK YOU Treacle and Ink at esty.com for including me in her treasury list of gifts, for my Candy Cane Hostess Set, very special indeed.

Thank you all for your love and support during this fantastic and crazy time! Happy Shopping and Happy Holidays to all! May you all believe that Christmas miracles do come true... I have hope they will so very much this year!!!

The Summer Flew By...

So it has been an amazing summer of sewing (caring for two little girls with swine flu, fifths disease and many other childhood ailments) and getting ready for the upcoming Holiday season. I have been sewing non-stop at night once my girls go to sleep since January.

I have explored all my secret stashes of fabric, to push my creativity along and have put together great prints to be used for my winter and spring releases. It was interesting and most cathartic to go through the bins of fabric that I have been collecting for some time and with a few trips to my all time favorite fabric shop about one and a half hours away from my home plus shopping on line I have some great color coordinated collaborations to put out for new girl quilts, although I am still searching for the perfect fabrics for those little boys. Suggestions are always welcomed from you my customers and followers!!! With my etsy shop http://www.craftsbykj.etsy.com/ I have met some most wonderful customers and suppliers, though many don't know it they have been my angels with their kind words, and of course with their support of my shop by purchasing my wares. I am very thankful to have had made some fantastic connections!! I am feverishly getting four Christmas quilts together to list and have made some changes of how I make my baby quilts. I am now placing my label on the back of the quilt which I stressed over and once I completed my first one, the 'Nathaniel Quilt' shown above I fell in love with this new design placement.

I have also made a reconnection with my dusty, neglected drafting board. I cleared and cleaned it off and sat down to my delight to many ideas that just began flowing from my pencil. It also has given me the proof I was searching for that my 'baby brain' is beginning to dissipate! All you mommies out there know what I am talking about!!

I have laid out a new size quilt for toddlers, slightly wider and longer than the baby size, which I will begin executing for my winter line. I also have plans for next Christmas for handmade ornaments. I am always looking for ways to use as many 'scraps' as I can since once I fall in love with a fabric I would like to use it to the end and not let it go to a landfill.

So here we go into fall a crafters dream, I will be out and about at a few craft shows and will list what I can on etsy.... keep an eye out!

And as always I will put out there... feel free to contact me with any requests or comments I love the feedback! Thank you all for your love and support!!

Getting Started!

Hi to all! Welcome to my new world of Etsy, blogging, twitter, photographing, listing, posting, marketing..... Not to shabby for someone who has been a slight step behind in technology for a few years. I have been home with my two girls, a side step from career and life I never thought I would take. (But love every minute of it!)

I have been sewing for many years now for the fun of it, then started sewing for giving gifts, for friends, craft shows and now I decided it was time to get into something for me. I am an interior designer and have always kept my hand in it even on my 'maternity' leave. Taking on an occasional client. Now I feel I am ready to ditch the bottles and diapers as my children are doing and get my creative life back.

I have a shop on Etsy... http://craftsbykj.etsy.com/ I thought this blog might be a good start for all of you to see what I am working on and how I progress in the coming months and year. This week I really made a push to re-launch my shop and was greeted with lots of luck and excitement. I was able to work with a wonderful designer on Etsy (lolaness) to get my shop look exactly like I wanted, and my Addison quilt was featured on the front page! I have making and giving these quilts for over a year now to friends as shower gifts, and was truly happy with the comments from the Moms-to-be then and even now how they actually use the quilts and their babies love them.

It has been the kind of start to my re-launch that I really was looking for. I hope you continue to follow my progress and even offer feed back!

I will begin to search for the perfect fabrics for my baby quilts for Halloween and Christmas and all other Holidays in between. Please keep an eye out for 'teaser' photos of my Fall and Winter Lines. Somethings to look for are: Placemats, Ornaments and of course my best sellers the Cotton Print and Minky Quilts. I will be expanding the size of the quilts too, for pre-school age.

Thank you for all your support!