First sale, homemade gifts and framing fun!

December 1, 2014.

December is the month of giving and there is nothing better to give than a beautiful, thoughtful handmade item.  My husband is busy working on driftwood and stumps making beautiful coat racks and end tables.  Last year I took several gorgeous old wool sweaters that my mom had knit way back in the 70's and made my daughters mittens out of them.  Various family members also felted pictures, made cozy flannelette pillow cases, wooden candle holders, mason jar lanterns and chalkboards from old frames. My older daughter made a family set of prayer flags. None of these ideas are particularly original.  Pinterest and Etsy provide tons of inspiration.  There is something so wonderful as giving and receiving something homemade .Quilting opens up a world of opportunity.

I am happy to report my first two sales of my quilted landscapes.  I sold my "Secret Lake" on Etsy with great excitement. It was shipped yesterday.  Another one was sold to a friend for a wedding gift.

Ready to be shipped.

  The thing with designing and making quilts from your own memories is that selling or giving them away is almost like giving away a pet, because there are so many wonderful thoughts and memories wrapped up in them.  And of course, there is always the anxiety that the person who purchases it won't love it the same way you did!  It does however, feel very good that someone appreciates and likes your art and creativity.  Thank you dear customers.

 The real secret lake, which remains small and nameless on maps, does exist and  is mostly unknown to all but a few of us.  My family and I hike there from our home one or two times a year.  My favourite time to go is at Thanksgiving.  We love to lie on the warm rocks in the moss and gaze up at the sky and across the lake.  The rotten remains of an old cabin, add mystery to the lake.  Who used it?  How long ago? Thinking about someone in that small space in the dead of winter allows the imagination to go wild.  Stumps of trees all around the cabin indicate there was someone there at sometime in the cold. Judging from the height of the stumps, there was significant snow on the ground.  This cabin is far from the main road.  Rusted remains of an old wood stove are still evident in the rubble.   I think I will have to make another secret lake landscape from a different perspective.  It is, of course, impossible to ever make the same quilted landscape twice.  Winter may offer a very different view as would spring, when the ice melts and the lake comes alive again. Ideas are brewing.

Secret Lake

 My Etsy store is called Piecefullandscapes.  I hope you have visited or will visit soon.

I am just finishing the quilting on my latest landscape, Starry Night.  My husband saw it and  had a brilliant idea.  He brought home some very old windows from a job site he was working on. Starry Night fits in the biggest part of the window but there are also all those tiny windows to fill.  I am working on an idea to do small quilted landscapes in the teeny windows that all tie in together with Starry Night.  Suggestions gratefully accepted.

Stay tuned to see this finished product.  Meanwhile, I am just doing the hand sewing on my skier landscape and it will be posted on Etsy when completed.