gems on the web

Oh, there are so many! First of all, it’s nice to know I’m not alone. Second, I was over at Heather Bailey’s lovely blog, and I found this super cute free pattern for a bat named Betty Boo. While there, taking in the sites, I noticed a link for Trick-Or-Eat. Feast your eyes on this lovely collection…”nine favorite food, craft & lifestyle bloggers await behind nine haunted houses — with an array of holiday tricks and treats to greet you.” It’s a great collection of recipes and fun ideas…plus the little house graphics are super cute. Great job to all those super bloggers! And while on NotMartha.org – one of said super bloggers, I stumbled onto this fun site…treasure abounds at Ask MetaFilter.

For Halloween at the Blabbery house, we are bionicle crazy. This year’s creation was a big success – in fact, this bionicle costume was the first thing I’ve made for my son that he actually liked. His exact words were, “mom, you can make anything!” and “my costume is awesome!” And then he wouldn’t take it off for two days.

There is no higher praise. Meet Mata Nui…

Houston

I haven’t paid much attention to all the talk of the famed Houston trade-show, the International Quilt Market, I’m just patiently waiting for all the great new fabrics and patterns to be available for purchase from my favorite shops. One such shop though, Fat Quarters (awesome selection, reasonable prices, lightening fast shipping), had a ton of great pictures on their Jolly Jabber blog, and I can’t help but wish I was there.

I’m particularly intrigued by Sandy Henderson and Jay McCarroll. Sandy Henderson has some gorgeous fabrics and some fun tutorials on her blog – including one for shirring! Hooray. The picture of her booth on the Jolly Jabber really grabbed my eye – I LOVE those big fabric flowers around the top of the booth.

You may remember Jay McCarroll from Project Runway…well, in the picture on Jolly Jabber, he’s surrounded by really cool applique quilts. Are they his? He’s also wearing a cool 1970’s string-pieced vest. Is he a quilter? Nothing about quilting or quilts on his site, but you never know…I’m going to research it a little more. Looks like there is a line of fabric on the way…from none other than Free Spirit, my fav. These swatches are from the two lines – one line is called Woodland Wonderland, the other is Garden Friends. I love those trippy little deer and bugs.

Anyway, lots of eye-candy out there. I better start saving my pennies :)

gems on the web

Some new and excellent web finds for the crafty:

• Feeling Stitchy – embroidery galore
• Redwork in Germany – check out that log cabin quilt!
• Doggedknits’ quilts on Flickr – beautifully crafted AND photographed. I aspire to this.

This month’s Real Simple had these cute little cocktail napkins that had fortunes on them. I went to the website, and it turns out it was an Etsy shop – Avril Loreti! How awesome is that. A national magazine – great press for all Etsy sellers because even though only one product was highlighted, how could a shopper turn away from all the rest of that handmade goodness?

By the way, her ideas on coctail napkins and heat transfers are super creative and wonderful. I will be copying them (for personal use, of course) very soon.

If you’re not shopping on Etsy yet, you’re missing out.