Rhonda Bracey: At Random

My friend Bobbie has decided that we need a challenge — a quilting/crafting challenge that is. She’s decided to invite 5 friends for a weekend retreat in September at her wonderful rammed earth house, and I’m honoured to be chosen.

The challenge started off mysteriously — Bobbie asked to bring along an issue of any magazine that our husbands, sons etc. get. Four of us met at the Craft Fair on the weekend and we exchanged magazines. The challenge is to make something from the inspiration you get from page 35 of the magazine you received!

Flora got a computer magazine from me — and page 35 was an ad, but at least it had some bright colours; Michelle won’t get her magazine for a few days as Glenys wasn’t able to come to the Fair; Bobbie got a dog magazine from Flora and her page 35 had all sorts of dogs in coats, as well as lots of bright pink and purple; Glenys will get her magazine in the mail from Bobbie; and I got  a reptiles magazine from Michelle! I love reptiles so I was pretty chuffed — and even more excited when I opened page 35 to see a whole swag of bright green chameleons!!

The other part of the challenge is that we have to use a technique we’ve never tried before somewhere in the piece we make. And we have to have our creation completed by the end of September when we all get together for a ‘show and tell’. I have NO idea what I’ll make, but I know that I’m going to enjoy the process.

Challenge rules for Year 1 (2009), as set by Bobbie:

Parameters:

1. Select a magazine that has nothing to do with quilting/patchwork/sewing.
2. Swap magazines with the person nominated on the list.
3. Open to page 35 and use that page for your inspiration to begin.

Other conditions:

• Can be any project, any size
• Must be finished by retreat date
• Must not be revealed beforehand to any other participant
• Must include a technique you have never tried before

On Sunday, my friend Bobbie and I drove to Perth and back, just to attend the Perth Craft and Quilt Fair at the Convention Centre. It was a long day — nearly 7 hours of driving, and 7 hours on our feet at the Fair. But it was absolutely worth it!

In addition to lots of booths selling all sorts of goodies, there were several quilt exhibitions with the most fabulous pieces of art (it was hard to call most of them ‘quilts’ — at least in the traditional sense of the word). The West Australian Quilting Association (WAQA) had their annual exhibition with many prize-winning quilts displayed in all sorts of categories; it was the last chance to see the “Under Flynn’s Wings” exhibition of quilts made to celebrate 80 years of the Royal Flying Doctor Service; and the 30 winning finalists from the Australian Patchwork and Quilting competition I entered my dragonfly quilt into were on display. There were other exhibitions too, but as they were all in the one large hall, it was hard to tell them apart.

We were allowed to take photos for non-commercial purposes, so I did! My pics are here, but there was no way my photos could do justice to the incredible techniques or amazing artistic detail from some very creative women (I don’t think any of the quilts were made by men, but someone please correct me if I’m wrong). It was hard to pick a favourite, but for sheer gob-smacking, jaw-dropping awesomeness, I couldn’t go past the farm scene.

Bobbie and I had lunch with our friend Michelle, from Raggedy Stitches. Michelle had a booth, but she has some great staff so she was able to get away for 30 minutes or so.

I also spent some time catching up with Susan, my work colleague — we last saw each other in February, though we talk on the phone almost every day.

(I just realised that I hadn’t mentioned that late last year I entered my dragonfly quilt into a national competition! 30 finalists were selected — I wasn’t one of them, but I got a letter from the magazine asking me to send them my quilt to be professionally photographed as they want to include it in an issue later this year. How cool is that? Of course, now that I’ve seen the finalists, my quilt looks like a very poor relation in comparison…)

I’ve been busy making luggage tags! First I made a pattern (and yes, I’ve sold some already), then, as I had to test and tweak the pattern, I ended up making some to sell in my Etsy store. I finally added the photos and descriptions today.

If you’re interested, you can purchase them from my Etsy store (http://RhondaMadeIt.etsy.com), or request a special order if there’s a colour you’d like.

Here are some examples:

Do you need graph paper for your quilting or craft project, or kids homework? Can’t find what you want at the store? Or it’s midnight and the stores aren’t open?

Then try this free service where you select the type of graph paper you want, select the paper size, the dimensions, the color etc. and get a PDF generated of what you want, ready for you to print out and use:
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

Pretty cool!

[Link last checked May 2009]

I can’t believe it! As I was writing the last post, I got an email to say that my same fabric art piece is featured in another Etsy Treasury! http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=55642 (also due to expire May 4, 2009; theme is “Dreaming” and it looks like all the items are related to Australia in some way)

Here’s a picture — it’s the bottom left item “Underneath the Australian sun”:

Featured in an Etsy Treasury -- Dreaming

One of my fabric art pieces has been featured in an Etsy Treasury! Treasuries are collections of 12 pieces chosen by members from all around the Etsy stores, and typically on a theme. The theme mine is in is “Luscious Color”. Because Etsy Treasuries are only available for a few days, I took a screen capture of mine! You can try this link too, but it may have expired by the time you read this: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=52418

Oh, my piece is the third one down in the centre column.

Featured in an Etsy Treasury

I realised that a lot of my photos just weren’t showing up very well on my Etsy store. I’d taken them several times, trying to get the light and resolution right.

One of the issues was that small items are hard to take with a bog-standard digital camera (no macro lens), and then there was the light and shadow, and my early attempts at reading and understanding the photo rules for Etsy. I thought that Etsy photos had to be 430 px wide, so I diligently resized everything to be 430 px wide… only to find out that 430 px is the minimum width, and 1000 px or wider is recommended to avoid blurry photos.

I also found out some more information on the Etsy Forums, including a link to this great tutorial on how to make a light tent or light box for taking photos of small things, and information on such new subjects (to me) as white balance, etc.

I fiddled around with the settings on my camera and experimented with my light box and my new (free!) OTT-lite daylight desk lamp, and hunted out my husband’s old camera tripod. After a good day of taking photos, loading them up, experimenting with setting after setting, I think I’ve got a better handle on taking photos of my fabric art items.

I’ve now uploaded the replacement photos for most of the items, and I’m happier with them. They’re still not perfect, but for the purposes of displaying my work, they’ll do.

And the light box definitely makes a difference.

Oceanic Blues

After some months of making products, taking lots of dud photos, writing descriptions, defining shop policies, etc. I have FINALLY opened my Etsy store! Woohoo!

It’s called “Rhonda Made It” and it’s here: http://rhondamadeit.etsy.com

I’m selling some of the little fabric pieces I’ve been making that I’ve featured on this blog, such as sets of coasters, landscape fabric art cards, bookmarks, etc. And there are some that haven’t appeared on this blog too — I wanted to keep some as a surprise! Go take a look!

I think I’ve mentioned before that there’s little to no money to be made in handmade crafts because you pretty much can’t charge for labour. My store is a case in point — some of the pieces took 5 or more hours to create, in which case they would be well over $100 even at a low $20 an hour for labour. The Japanese Meshwork, for example, took more than 8 hours to create plus there was a workshop fee of $45. I’m selling it for only $60, which *might* cover the costs of the workshop and the materials, but only just.

Anyhow, my store is now up. I’ll report back every so often as to the views it’s getting, and how the sales are tracking — or not.

(BTW, I have lots of timeout issues with Etsy on Firefox, but not on Internet Explorer, so if you can’t access the store easily, try it in IE — even if you’d rather not touch IE!)

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that another friend loves pink, which is why I didn’t make the laptop bag for Char in pink!

So before I left for the US, I decided I’d better make something for Sue otherwise she’ll give me a hard time about ignoring her… Sue loves pink, so pink she’s getting (well, she should already have her gift now as I’m writing this a few days before I leave, but post-dating it for after I see her… confused?)

Here’s Sue’s gift — very pink coasters! (all nicely fabric protected too):

Pack of four coasters for Sue

All the coasters

Front and back of the coasters -- yes, the back is pink too!

When I made a quilted tote bag for my laptop a week or so ago, my good friend Char from Boston was very taken with it and asked how much it would cost for me to make one for her. Well, as anyone who’s tried to price craft knows, the cost is horrendous if you include labour (and as one of these bags takes 4 to 5 hours to make, that’s not a cheap exercise). So we left it at that…

Meantime, I decided to make her one anyway as a surprise! I’m actually writing this blog entry on March 19, some 10 days before it will appear. I want to make sure that it doesn’t get published before I have a chance to hand over the bag and surprise her! I’ll be meeting Char at Seattle Airport on March 28 (our flights arrive within 45 mins of each other) and we’re rooming together for the conference we’re both attending and speaking at. I’ll give her the laptop bag then — along with the Dragonfly quilt that she knows she’s getting.

I did ask her the size of her laptop and what colours she likes, in case I had some time to make her a bag… with no promises of course! She said she likes all colours (that makes it hard…), but preferably not pink. We have a mutual friend who is a pink person and she knew that our friend — who is also going to the conference — would want it if it was pink!

I hunted through my stash looking for something appropriate. Japanese navy and maroon? (classy and subdued) Celtic brown/gold and brown? reds? yellows? (too garish for an office environment — Char regularly travels to client offices and meetings), greens? Then I saw it… the blue Aboriginal fabric I’d purchased over the internet some time back just over a year ago. Char’s been to Australia and I’m pretty sure she’s been to the Great Barrier Reef (she’s been to Queensland, at least), so I thought it would be perfect — a little touch of Australia every time she uses the bag. I found a matching blue with green spot fabric and put it together for her.

Here’s how it turned out:

Char's laptop bag

Free motion quilting as shown on the lining

Fabric detail and free motion quilting

Free motion quilting - metallic and rayon threads