Yep. Worked on more pillows over the weekend, but this time they aren’t of the hand-painted variety.  I decided I wanted to try something different and asymmetrical. These are the results (neither has been stuffed yet):

I like this one, but something about it bothers me. Someone suggested last night that maybe I need to change it so that I have more space devoted to a primary fabric with the other as an accent. I think I’ll try that this week.

I really like this one, but once I started stuffing it, I found the flaw: my gold accent trim ‘pops’ away from the pillow and looks bad. So I’m going ot re-do the design so that the gold accent is actually stitched flat invisibly and it will look better.

I’m really enjoying working on pillows at the moment, but know I need to get back to my bears. Hopefully all of this will get listed in my shop soon!

Cord-Trimmed Pillow

So I decided to try something different for me and following the suggestion from a friend on Facebook, I tried fabric painting. I think I’ve fallen in love with it! For my first project, I decided to paint my trademark cherry blossoms onto a couple of pillows. Pretty straightforward. But then I decided to make them patchwork, just like my paintings. I’m very happy with the results.  The first pillow I made I put a gold and red braided trim on. It looks nice, but was a Pain to do.

Knife-Edged Pillow

The second pillow, I left the trim off and went for a plain knife-edged pillow. I like both of these pillows, but think I prefer the crisp, clean look of the knife-edged pillow. Next I’m going to work on making some pillows that don’t have the patchwork background!

A new, fun direction has been opened for me! Yay! Let me know which type of pillow you prefer: trimmed or not!

Introducing ‘Ty’, my first plush bear for sale. No, he’s not a ‘Faire Bear’ though I suspect he’d like to go on his days off. Ty is a hard working bear, rarely seen without his removable tie, and he likes to sit back and drink iced tea and watch the trees blow in the wind on the weekend.

Ty is going into my shop today and marks my first new listed item in THREE months. Let’s hope his friends and relatives get listed soon too!

Well, I am slowly making progress on new items for my shop. But these aren’t paintings! These are bears! Cute little plush bears that will charm the pants off of you! Right now they’re pretty naked themselves, but soon they will have all sorts of costumes and clothing!

I’m also working on the first apparel items for my shop. Hopefully I’ll have some way to get them modeled soon!

I realize no one knows I make apparel, and even less know Ive been asking for measurements, but if anyone is willing to provide me real-world measurements using this:

http://www.simplicity.com/index.cfm?page=section/fittips/howmeas.htm

then I can start ensuring I am making clothes for real-world sizes. I have dress forms for all sizes but haven’t had ‘real-world’ measurements to try and base my clothes off of. I do dresses, skirts, tops, costuming, hats and so on. I just haven’t listed any in my Etsy store as I usually do them on-demand.

(I also have a more detailed measurements sheet I use for special orders, but no one online wants to fill that out as it’s VERY detailed. )

So if you’re willing, please send me your measurements at keith@mindlesspursuits.com! I promise not to share them!

Nope! But I am calling this tote the Rooster Tote! I know, I know… I need to work on snappier names but it’ll do for now. The Etsy Mindless Pursuits shop has been getting all of the love for the last couple of weeks so I decided it was time to take a break from painting for a night and make something worthy of putting into Keith’s Craftworks. The result was this quilted, over-the-shoulder tote made of fun rooster fabric! Read More

OK, here’s a post from my now-closed previous personal blog. It’s for a worthy cause so I wanted to repeat it here. The Snuggles Project is an effort to create ’snuggles’ for pets in animal shelters. I became involved last year due to my developing fondness for Kiki the Wonder Dog, and so have made 3 of these to date for a local shelter. A snuggle is a little blanket/quilt thing that you make and the animals can snuggle with it instead of sleeping on the cold cement floors found at most animal shelters. Because of this, the animals tend to be more at ease, which makes potential adopters more at ease and so adoption rates increase. 

If you have any sewing talent, or even if not, check out the site and make a snuggle for a pet today!

Yesterday I completed a new tote that I really enjoy. It measures 14″W x 13″H x 4 1/2″D and I love the fabric.  The tote handles are sewn to the inside and run down 10″ into the bag for strength and sturdiness. I did not want to sew the straps to the outside of the tote, as is so common, and cover any of these wonderfully colorful lizards. I was about to list this today in my Keith’s Craftworks shop but was contacted by a friend on another site who may wish to purchase it. If not, I’ll post it tomorrow but either way, it’s going to be hard to give up this fun bag!

This is the tale of a humble little garden tote. It is a story of high hopes, of humble beginnings and of cruel rejection… or is it? In the creative process, and definitely in selling crafts, a little harsh reality and rejection can sometimes be a good thing. Today we’re going to look at this humble little garden tote and why it was consigned to a giveaway to a family member instead of being put up for sale in my craft shop.

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