Chopping Wool

I'm a little obsessed with using as much of my craft supplies as I possibly can. When I cut felted wool, I always have bits and pieces left over. Generally they collect in a paper bag until I have the time to sort through them.



When I have the time (or when the number of paper bags full of wool scraps gets to be too much), I'll got through one of these bags and set aside the pieces that I think I might be able to use again. The rest get chopped up into small bits to use as stuffing material. I like the weight and firmness that wool bits give my ornaments; polyester fiberfill just doesn't feel right to me. Also, the wool scraps certainly don't cost anything and it's just another form of recycling.

Chopping wool is time consuming and messy. Wool felt may not fray, but it does shed many, many tiny fibers. I prefer to cut my wool felt outside on the deck, where the wind can blow away the lint and tiny scraps, but the weather doesn't always cooperate for this in the winter. If I chop wool inside I try to do it in a container that will catch most of the lint, but there's always some that escapes to form multicolored dust bunnies under the furniture in the living room.

We had a nice day early last week and I was able to process one of my bags of wool scraps out on the back deck. I'm glad I took the time to chop all that wool, too, as my customer in Texas asked me on Friday if I could make another 25 heart ornaments in time for her wedding!

Using a Light Box

Much has been said about the value of good photography when you're selling online. A potential customer can't pick up your item to examine it, so you have to be able to convey a great amount of detail in your product description and through your photos. You probably won't make the sale just on your item description alone so it's imperative that your photographs be crisp, attractive, and informative. And you need more than just one photograph, too.

I prefer taking photos outside in natural light, but at this time of the year it's very hard to get a good shot because 1) it's always dark, 2) it's often windy with some form of precipitation, or 3) it's dark, windy, and either raining or sleeting. On the rare occasion that it's not dark and not windy, and some form of water isn't coming down from the sky, the sun will be so low on the horizon that the light is harsh, the shadows are too stark, and all my pictures look like crap.

So what do you do when you need to take good photographs of something you want to sell online, but you don't have any natural light to work with? Use a light box.

Steve built me a light box out of a cardboard box for Christmas. There are many tutorials on how to do this on the web, just search for "DIY light box" and you'll find them. Essentially a light box is a box with windows covered by thin white material or tissue paper. There are lights outside the box shining light into the middle of the box, which is where you place the object you want to photograph. The light is filtered through the material or paper to eliminate harsh shadows. A sheet of curved white posterboard provides the background inside the box and also produces a pretty cool effect known as the "infinite sweep" or "infinite horizon" in your photos.

So what does a light box look like? Here's my light box set up on the dining room table. The overhead light provides some illumination, but the desk and work lights set up around the box are what really makes it work.



No, it doesn't look like much, but look at what it can do:



Florescent lights will give a yellowish cast to the light. Here is an original, untouched photo.



However, you can clean up most of that using a photo processing package.



Be judicious about correcting colors in your pictures. I removed the yellow cast in the above photo, but I was careful not to overcorrect the colors. Colors can vary from monitor to monitor, but your photo should always be faithful to your actual article. You don't want your customer to get upset because the item she received from you doesn't resemble the picture you posted!

Or you can also avoid that yellowish cast by adjusting the white balance on the camera before taking your pictures. I haven't played around with my white balance yet, but it's on my to-do list now.

FYI, I started using a digital camera in 2007. A year later I began using Flickr to upload and store my photos. I use the associated photo editing package Picnik to do at least some nominal clean up. I've taken a couple of seminars on photography through Virginia Tech, but much of what I know about digital photography has come through trial and error. I do not claim to be a professional photographer and there is much I'm still learning about photography.

And that funny little piece of pottery seen in the pictures above? That's a mochaware pepperpot or caster, the 1800s version of a pepper shaker. I found it at a tag sale back in the mid 1990s in Tidewater, VA. I don't know anything about its provenance other than the sale was held by a well respected auctioneer who had been in the business for years. He had wonderful tag sales every so often, presumably to move merchandise that didn't sell at auction. The auctioneer would let you put your finds together in a box and then charge you by the box lot after he gave it a once over. Sometimes he'd pull everything out to see what you had, and other times he'd barely give it a glance. I remember this particular box was full of assorted kitchenware, some Texas ware, vintage pottery, and this pepperpot wrapped up in some vintage tablecloths. The auctioneer gave the box a glance and waved it away. We paid $20.00 for the box, so that was probably only about $2.00 or $3.00 for the pepperpot.

I'm pretty sure this auctioneer would have recognized the value of this piece, so I don't think he realized it was in the tag sale. I've seen similar pieces on line described as English ware from the early to mid 1800s. This particular piece has a baluster form with engine turning on the shoulders and has both dendritic and slip applied decorations. Online these pieces are priced anywhere from several hundred dollars to $600-800 dollars. Christie's has auctioned them for several thousand dollars. Needless to say, that was a great tag sale!

For more information about mochaware, I recommend Colonial Sense's page on mochaware.
(Oh look! They used a light box for many of those photos, too!)

Valentines for the Bride

A bride to be in Texas contacted me on Etsy about making favors for her upcoming wedding next month. Her wedding date is right before Valentine's Day. One of her colors is a hot pink. She's marrying Mr. Buttons.

Have I got just the right favors for her!









These little valentine goodies will be in the mail for her tomorrow. Best wishes and congratulations to the future Mr. and Mrs. Buttons!

Featured!

My rustic wool heart ornaments were featured over at North Wood Rustics as part of Featured Friday for the Rustics Reign Team on Etsy! Thanks, Chris!





http://northwoodsrustics.blogspot.com/2012/01/feature-friday-for-january-20.html

Quilts in 2011

I'm very pleased that all three quilts I posted in my Etsy shop last year were sold by the end of the year. That's a pretty gratifying way to end the year.

In 2011 I also made a quilt for my mother and another one that was a commission.

And I made a pair of quilted table runners for Christmas presents.

Not a bad year at all. But now it's 2012, and what have I done lately? Back to the quilt mines!

Sweet Dreams, Baby Girl!

I just finished this little crib quilt for the newest member of my husband's side of the family, Molly Claire.



I've been working on this quilt on and off for a couple of months. The pattern, one from a circa 1996 quilting magazine, combines pinwheel, half square triangle, and Irish chain blocks. It's the first time I've done an Irish chain and it came out better than I thought possible. The smallest squares in the Irish chain measure 1.5" finished and I don't think I'll attempt making them any smaller!

But it wasn't the little squares that threw me off on this quilt. No, it was the flannel backing. Even though I used a walking foot on my sewing machine and had basted the quilt well, it was plagued by a myriad of little pleats and puckers when I quilted it. Every single line had two or three annoying little pleats! First I threw the quilt down and swore at it. Then I debated ripping out all the quilting seams and redoing it, but then decided against that. There was no assurance that it wouldn't just do it again if I redid it, so I decided to take out sections of the seams and then re-quilt those sections while trying to ease out the pleats the best I could.

And ya know? It worked. I was able to remove most of the pleats and puckers and I'm largely satisfied with the backing now.

I was afraid that the pretty pink and purple flower pattern in the binding would be lost against all the other pinks, so I added a pale green border with the pink corner blocks to the original design. I think it helps set off the pink squares and relieves some of the intensity of those hot pinks. 

There's always a moment when I question how I've designed and made a quilt. Those seams aren't straight, those squares don't measure up, I've got pleats on the back, and I'm not sure about those colors. Thankfully much about a quilt seems to improve after it's been washed and dried. I felt much happier about how this one turned out the moment I took it out of the dryer and held it up to see it.

I hope Molly Claire enjoys her new quilt. In fact, I hope it's completely stained and bedraggled by the time she goes off to first grade, 'cause that's how you know a quilt has been really loved by a baby girl.

Joeseppi's Victory Garden of Tomorrow on Etsy

My next featured shop on Etsy is joeseppi, which offers some wonderful vintage looking posters and t-shirts with a gardening theme. Got someone on your list who gardens, preserves, or keeps chickens or bees? You can find great, affordable gifts here for $20.00 and under!

Joe Wirtheim, the shop owner, states in his profile that he draws the inspiration for his artwork from the NYC World's Fair of 1939 and World War II era propaganda posters. That's readily apparent in his art with its retro mix of victory garden and atomic age themes. The letterpress printing with a mix of nolstagic and futuristic colors and fonts, make these posters and 

A good friend of mine recently sent me this Grow Food poster for my birthday, which now  hangs proudly in our kitchen. I can't look at this very optimistic chicken without smiling.

Some of the items have a distinct "The World of the Future" feel. These would be great for an gardener who also appreciates science fiction or space exploration.



Other posters are just awesome propaganda for composting, beekeeping, and canning.



In addition to the very affordable posters, joessepi also carries t-shirts and postcards with the same images. You can read more about Joe Wirtheim and his modern campaign for civic innovation at his blog, http://victorygardenoftomorrow.com/