10.25.06
Personalized Quilted Name Signs
Children LOVE to see their names. Personalized items are always a hit. Several years ago my neighbors asked me if I would make a quilted name sign for their younger daughter. Their older daughter had one made many years ago by a woman who no longer does it. I looked at the sample they had and immediately started planning what I could do differently.
I played with letter sizes, fonts, different colors and fabrics until I came up with a workable pattern for how to put together a nice quilted sign. Their daughter loved the sign I made. I enjoyed making it and began the search for nice “child-friendly” fabrics that would be appealing. I started making samples and taking orders. Fabric stores everywhere have contributed to my large name sign fabric stash. Themes such as ladybugs, flowers, trucks, fish and flames have been added bit by bit. The samples can be viewed at Beth Sullivan Designs.
The children who approach my booth are always so excited to see their name or the names of their friends. I take orders at craft fairs or through my website. When a child wants a new color combination, their sign gets immortalized on the website for all to see – at least for a time. They really are lots of fun.
Lucy learned to spell her name by looking at her sign on the door to her room. “L,U,C,Y” were the first letters she started to recognize. We’d stop there at least once a day and point it out – “L-u-c-y spells Lucy!”
10.23.06
Selling Ourselves Short
At a fair today a customer told me that she makes quilt tops and sends them to a long-arm quilter that charges about $30 a quilt. It made me so sad to hear that. In the same way I am sad to think about the poor workers in China making next to nothing to “hand stitch” cheap quilts, I am sorrowed to think of a woman who has so undervalued her work.
I have used a long-arm quilting machine in my business to quilt the custom T-shirt quilts. I know how much work and money goes into it. The machines are VERY expensive with many of them costing more than a small car. When quilting on a long-arm, it’s not like you can throw the top on and start stitching. There’s so much more to it than that. There is at least an hour of preparation involved in getting the machine ready, pinning up the quilt and backing, testing thread tension, winding bobbins, measuring, basting, etc. all must be done before the stitching can begin. Thread breaks, bobbin changes, etc. add to the time it takes to quilt when actually stitching. It made me sad that a professional quilter would so grossly undervalue what she’s worth.
10.20.06
Dream Dinners Chicken Parmesan – Yum!
We just finished the Dream Dinners Chicken Parmesan from the September 2006 menu which has been hanging out in my freezer for the past month. YUM! Loved it! We actually made it without the spaghetti that came with it and jsut drizzled some of the marinara sauce over it. Steamed broccoli on the side and it was delicious. Tomorrow night we’ll have the second bag of it since I wasn’t thinking and forgot to make this a medium sized meal instead of a large. There are breadcrumbs so this is one meal that’s better cooked fresh – not leftovers.
Red Sox Quilts and More
I am a Red Sox fan. My husband roots for the Yankees but I try not to hold that against him. 
Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Rosemary Bawn who came to Thimble Pleasures Quilt Guild to speak. She is best known around New England as the “Red Sox Quilt Lady.” Her quilts are really quite stunning. Her most recent one “Reversing the Curse” has won a number of awards and recently hung at the New England Quilt Museum as a part of the “Best of New England Guilds” Exhibit. I was also fortunate to have my “Challenge Star” hanging as part of the same exhibit.
Rosemary’s quilts are absolutely amazing. The attention to detail, creativity and workmanship simply awed us all. Her scrapbook quilts depicting the times in her life and in her children’s lives are beautiful. The Red Sox quilts are the most famous but by no means are representative of her entire body of work. She was an animated, funny and down-to-earth speaker. I know my quilt guild thoroughly enjoyed her presentation.
Her quilts left me equally inspired and intimidated. I spend so much time working on my quilting business, “Beth Sullivan Designs” that I rarely have time to quilt for ME anymore. I really need to make more time to do that. *Sigh* Right on cue, here comes Lucy!
10.18.06
Project Runway Season Finale Tonight!!!
I admit it… I’m a Project Runway junkie. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that show. I have seen every episode except the very first one from the first season. Just can’t seem to catch that one in reruns! Tonight is the long-awaited season finale of season 3. I sit here while Lucy is napping trying to do some paperwork and watching the marathon which will lead up to the season finale at 10 p.m. tonight. I am really torn in who I want to win. I think maybe Uli will surprise everyone and take it all. I am NOT a Jeffrey fan and Laura’s outfits all look similar. Uli has had some similarity issues too. Michael’s are OK but I’m thinking he won’t be able to pull off the runway collection. We’ll see tonight… For those who have not seen it, it’s worth watching. Luckily, Bravo replays the shows like crazy so for anyone who hasn’t seen it, it’s not that hard to catch the reruns.
10.17.06
Customer Service Outsourcing – UGH!
VERY frustrating phone calls today. I called to register my new version of “Quickbooks” and got a woman in a different country. First of all, it took forever. She’d ask me one thing and then the computer would have to “think” for a while. Though I spelled everything letter by letter, she still got it very wrong! Instead of “Beth Sullivan Designs” she wrote “Deth Sullizan Designs” and then sent my info. to the wrong email address! Luckily, the other Beth Sullivan was very nice and found me through a search, forwarding my receipt to me. UGH! When I called back it took a long time to get the man (also overseas) to understand and then process my request for the changes. I understand the need to make money and that it’s cheaper to hire people overseas but it creates problems when the people speaking can not accurately take and give information. Grrr….
10.15.06
East Bridgewater – Sachem Rock Farm
I just got back from a wonderful day at Sachem Rock Farm in East Bridgewater, MA. The weather was gorgeous – though a bit cold early on. I thoroughly enjoyed this fair. It was wonderful meeting people – especially the kids. I loved the 3 kids belonging to my friend Dina that had to sit with their fried dough just outside the booth at their mother’s request. The babies that gifted me with a smile were just the best. Chatting with people and hearing compliments on my and my mother’s work was a great boost.
For anyone contemplating going to this fair next year, the kids seemed to be having a blast. There were plenty of food items, pony rides, music playing, an incredibly talented balloon sculpture artists and of course – a great craft fair!
10.10.06
Lucy’s Birthday Party – Preschool Party Ideas
Woohoo! The birthday party is over! We had a wonderful time and Lucy had a blast running from spot to spot playing with her friends and doing the different activities. It was a LOT of work to put everything together. Most of the work to be honest came with trying to get my house “company ready” and though I tried, it wasn’t completely ready. Oh well – a few closed doors and we were all set.
Some of the activities we did were:
My friends were joking that they could tell I used to be a First Grade Teacher! The kids all had a blast and Lucy enjoyed it more than anyone.
10.06.06
Housekeeping
UGH. I hate housework. I mean, I REALLY hate it. I want everything to be neat and clean. I just want someone else to do it! I’ve spent the last 2 days trying desperately to bring my house into some sort of reasonably “company ready” order in preparation for the big 3-year old’s birthday party. I really should have been doing it all along. I even signed up for Flylady so I could get on track. I get and delete the emails. *sigh* There just seem to be so many other pressing matters – Lucy, quilting, computer, emails from my groups, reading, etc. I will find any excuse to get out of the housework. I really should go buy a lottery ticket so I can hire someone to do all this. Back to the grind. One of the cats had an accident on the bedding. This is why I have a cheap store-bought quilt on the bed and my own quilts up on the wall!
10.05.06
T-Shirt Quilt Summary
I am often asked by people exactly what a T-shirt quilt is. They think I had to scan and reproduce the shirt logos in order to get them into a quilt. I’ll try to clarify here a little bit about the process. More can be found in the T-shirt quilt section at Beth Sullivan Designs. When I make a T-shirt quilt for a customer they usually come to my home or send me their shirts. We decide upon a plan for the quilt including how big it will be, how big each block must be and where we need to modify the design to include more shirts or s-t-r-e-t-c-h existing shirts to make a bigger quilt. The fabric choices are also made. I then wash all the shirts and fuse them to an interfacing to make them have less stretch. From there, the blocks are cut and modified as needed. Once the blocks are “quilt ready” with any extra patches, borders, etc., the quilt top is assembled. I no longer quilt these large quilts on my home machine. Instead, I bring them to a friend’s house and rent her Gammill long-arm quilting machine. Once quilted, the blocks are machine tacked with my Bernina domestic sewing machine over the surface of each of the blocks about every 2 inches. Finally, the binding is added first by machine and then sewn by hand. An average T-shirt quilt takes me about 15-20 hours to complete from start to finish.
