Finally, Got the HTTPS configured on Blogger!!!

I have tried many times to have allthingscrafty.com blog configured with an SSL certificate to allow for https to work on the URL.  No matter what I tried on blogger, it kept saying I don't have the authority to update my own blogger.

Turns out, because I created my blog more than 10 years ago, I needed to walk through the steps to delete my custom domain from blogger and then re-add it again.  I'm soo soo glad I finally ran across mommybytes.com post on configuring Blogger for https.  It was exactly what I needed! If you are still having issues like I did, please visit this page under mommybytes.com.  It will walk you through the steps.

Now that my blog is secure, I think it's time to start posting more.  I've been crafting up a storm during the last 6 months.  Some of the things I've been working on:

• Deleting old posts from this blog
• Creating boat covers for our pontoon - this has taken a lot of time!
• Working with heat transfer vinyl and my Silhouette Cameo - I love it!!
• I purchased my first cricut - a cricut joy!!  Perfect for cards!!
• I'm looking into sublimation printing!!
• Always making cards
• Sewing quilts, not so much but hopefully this will pick up more.

 Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Back to removing old posts from this blog...

Thanks for stopping by!  

~*~Trish~*~

Cleaning my Blog House and Cutting files

I've been cleaning house on my blog lately.  Deleting older entries.  I'm planning on completely changing the layout, look and feel of this blog.  I can't believe I've had it since 2009 wow.  So much has changed since then.  I still love crafting when I can find the time.  Stay tuned for a new look!  

 Lately I've been spending time using my Silhouette Cameo 3.  I finally took off the dust cover and got started playing with the Studio software and some vinyl cutting.  I love it!!  I've made many vinyl stickers for myself.   Most of the files have been free files from the internet for personal use.  Amazing how you can spend so much time looking for files and seeing what everyone else is doing with their digital cutter or quilting.

Here's a couple items I completed.  I also created my first Rhinestone template and rhinestone iron on.  Boy that was an adventure.  Not my favorite although I love rhinestones.

 

Thanks for stopping by! 

~*~Trish~*~

Finding my SewJo again - Bright Stars

It's been a while since I've been sewing.  Whether it's work or family events, everyone experiences slow downs in their favorite hobby.  I have finally started sewing again.  It started with one block to practice and then that turned into two.

Primarily I wanted to practice the star block.  It turned out so well, I thought I would keep going.  I put together 3 x 4 star blocks.  Then I loved it so much I needed to make it bigger.

But, I already didn't have enough of the bright colored fabric I used from a Pillowcase kit I used.  So, I introduced some new fabrics.  I think I'm going to call this quilt "Bright Stars" since they are very bright.  Here's where I'm at now.

One more row to go and then I have to brainstorm on how I want to border this quilt.  I'm glad the creative juices have returned!  Looking forward to sharing the progress again.



Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Organizing Excessive Digital Content

As crafters, a lot of us collect files and patterns we want to do but, never get around to completing.  I took a couple years off from crafting to deal with the day to day issues that we all deal with.  Recently, I've taken a returned interest into crafting!!  Thankfully, I didn't get rid of a lot of my crafting items that I purchased along the way.

However, I'm having an issue with all the digital files I've accumulated across the years.  I no longer remember what I purchased across the years.  Here's an example.  I wanted to embroider a couple hand towels.  I had a USB stick that had 4 letters from my favorite font for embroidering on towels!  Here's an example   The issue is, I wanted to do more than the 4 letters I had on the Memory stick.  How did I find the digital fonts I previously purchased??

I opened the files and then looked for some copyright text, didn't find it.  I looked at the date in which the file was created and searched my computer for a zip file that matched the date.  Nope, not there either.  I guessed at what I might have renamed the zip file and searched several backup drives I had, Nope.  I searched my favorite embroidery sites with names like rope font, rope text, etc... Nope.  I finally searched my blog archives and I finally found a post from 2011 with a link to the original website where I purchased the embroidery font.  Wow, 8 years ago.

I solved the mystery!!  Did I find the original file I purchased, no.  I purchased the font again!!!  I need to figure out a way to organize all my digital craft content!!  How do you organize your digital content across many years??



Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

My New to Me - Used - Janome 15000

My new to me (used) Janome 15000 sewing / embroidery machine has arrived!  I waited for a long time for the prices to drop and I finally found a good bargain.  I'm so excited to learn more about it!  Unfortunately, the sewing foot needed to sew out the decorative stitches was missing so I'll have to wait to test that out  until my new one arrives.  For now, I just do some straight stitching and turn it back off.

To be honest, I also use the auto thread cutter on the foot pedal and the auto needle threader.  I think that's the auto needle threader is one of my first favorites.  For someone who has a hard time threading a needle, that's a big thing!  I look forward to sharing the things that I'm learning on this machine.  If you have one and have some favorite items you do with it, please share!
Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Meet my newest distraction - Kloey

I have high hopes to return to crafting.  It's been a rough year and I'm ready to start getting back into things that make me happy!  First would be crafting and second would be having a dog back in our home.  Meet Miss Kloey.  She was named after my sister's initials KLO.  She's growing quickly.  The last photo she is 13 weeks old.  Here's to a happy and productive 2018 to all my crafty friends!!

Thanks for stopping by!
~*~Trish~*~

Finding my creative outlet

It's been too long since I've crafted or even had a blog entry for that matter.  I've made cards here and there but nothing on fabric like a quilt or wall-hanging.  It always seemed that we were either packing up the old home, remodeling the old home, selling the old home, unpacking, etc.  Then I started dealing with difficult items.  Both my dogs passed this year in March and September.  They were 15 year old yorkies and were the apple of our eyes.  Mindy and Mandy.

 

As I finally come to terms with losing them, I was hit with another loss.  My sister passed away at the beginning of this month.  She was only 55.  She fought a long and hard battle with Systemic Scleroderma .  I'm hoping that by getting back into the blogging scene and crafting, it will keep my mind distracted as I work through these losses.  Thanks for visiting and I look forward to sharing my new craft room photos.  Here's to some new crafty adventures.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Goal - Coming back to blogging in 2016 - Sharing Free Downloadable Planners

Happy New Year to Everyone!

One of my goals for 2106 is to return to crafting and blogging.  It's way past time and I miss the enjoyment of crafting and sharing ideas and links with friends.  It's been too long.

To start the 2016 year off right, I'd like to start by sharing some of my tons of crafting bookmarks.  As with everyone, I have great goals of being organized for 2016.  Because of this, I'd like to share two of my favorite sites for downloadable/printable organizational calendars and printables.

• The Printable 2016 Planner from The Handmade Home! -This site has numerous designed downloadable pages to create your own 2016 planner.

• Organized Home's many printable library of Calendars and Planning and time management printables.

Here's to a New Year, New You, and a New Start for everyone!!  Happy New Year Everyone!


Thanks for stopping by!
~*~Trish~*~

Encore Post - Valentines Day Card with Embroidery

I love combining crafts to create items. This time it's embroidery and cardmaking. I searched for the perfect heart pattern and found this heart at abc embroidery designs. I knew this was going to be on my card the moment I saw it.

I then cut it out in a square size a smidgen smaller than my cardstock. Placed double-sided tape on the back and placed it on the top section of my card.

Then I placed half inch strips around the corner to hide the edges and double-taped them down and trimmed around the heart. I finally adhered the corners with rhinestone tacks and there you have it.

Hope you enjoy your valentines day!

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Finished Halloween Quilt Binding

My 2014 Halloween Quilt binding is completed.  OK, I'm 2 days late but I'm so happy it's done.  Time to celebrate a finished quilt!    I decided to try and complete the binding by machine.  I used the Clover Wonder Clips on the quilt to wrap the binding to the back and hold until I would sew it.  I would give the clips a B+ on a review.  Here's some pro's and con's that I think of them.

CONS

• It takes a lot of them to hold the binding.  I placed one about ever 2" So you'll probably need to buy multiple sets.
• If you open them with too much force, the spring mechanism breaks or stretches so they don't hold anymore. 
• It's hard to move the quilt around with all those clips on it.  They get caught on things.
• I still had to go back and resew a couple areas where the binding wasn't caught on the back.  Good thing was that this was black binding on back backing.. you can't see the resew areas.
• Taking them off is a little slower than other type clips I've used.

PROS

• Amazon has them on sale for about $11 for 50 clips.
• They hold the binding a lot better in place than trying to sew on binding without them.
• Hey, 90% accuracy is great in my book when it comes to binding.
• Sewing went slow but it was a heck of a lot faster than hand sewing the binding to the back.
• It only took me maybe 20-25 minutes to finish a 60 x 80 quilt.
• I'll definitely use them again when I want to machine sew a binding on.

Here's the spacing I used on the clips

and here's the finished binding.

Now on to quilting the Christmas Present Quilt with a Christmas Present Panto I created.


Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Happy Halloween - Quilting Finished

Well I finished this earlier in the week just in time for Halloween.  However, I did not get the binding sewn on in time.  But, who knows, I may finish it today.  Since the Halloween quilt is so colorful, it is hard to see the quilting.  You can see it in the black separator bars.

The backing was completed with a glow in the dark spiderweb fabric.  I used black thread for the back and a grey spiderweb color for the front bat pantograph.

Happy Halloween.

Thanks for stopping by!
 ~*~Trish~*~

Creating Quilting Pantos

I've been working in my Art n Stitch software to create pantographs for my quilting machine.  There's an option where you can create meandering patterns with a few items placed in the loops.  I've been trying to come up with a quick Halloween Pantograph to finish my Halloween quilt.  I had a delay on finishing it with some family items.  Now, I'm speeding up to try and finish it by Halloween.

Here were some pantos created and tested with stitch outs.

I call this one BATTY LOOPS

I call this one BATS and HATS

I call this one GIFT SWIRLS
Thinking ahead for when I need to quilt my Christmas Present Quilt :-)

Finally... Webbed Spiders

After much consideration, I decided to go with Batty Loops (first one) on my Halloween Quilt.  I wanted something quick and not detailed since the quilt is so busy and you won't really see the quilting too much.  Time to square the backing and load the quilt!

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Halloween Tumbler Quilt Top Completed

As soon as I finished the Christmas Present Quilt, I decided I wanted to try and squeeze in a Halloween Quilt.  I order 20 fat quarters off of eBay in a Halloween theme.  When they came, I didn't realize all the brightly colored patterns were more of a children's theme.  I was determined to use them.

I used my AccuQuilt Go and the 6.5 inch tumbler.  I was able to cut 6 of each out of each pattern and I have a lot of scraps left over for a pillow or to place on the back of the quilt.  In one day, I cut out all of the tumbler blocks cut out.  The hardest part was organizing the blocks in a random pattern lol.  I could have done a better job but I got tired of rearranging them.

So, here are two strips started. As I finished up all of the rows sewn together, I figured there was too many bright colors so I decided to add some black and orange rows to break up the many colors.

The it was time to trim up the sides.  I was going to add the orange and black all around the edges but I thought the orange was a little too bright as well.  So, I planned to trim the sides straight and add a basic black border all around.  Here's a photo where the black sides were completed.

It's hard to see the sides since I trimmed the photo so closely.  All that was left to complete was the top and bottom borders and I finished those today!  So now I have a finished Halloween quilt.  I was hoping to have it added to the quilting machine before the end of the month.  But, happily I have a vacation coming up and the ocean is calling me!  So one less week to sew...  stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

The Moda Flurry Present Quilt top by Kate Spain is finished!

Hello.  I was able to finish the Moda Flurry Quilt top by Kate Spain today.  I made a few changes on the bordering.  I did not place the outer 2" border since I modified the corner blocks.  Since I was not using the Flurry fabric, I did not have a cute snowflakes for the corners.  So, I was going to use the dark ornaments fabric as large corner block.  I just didn't like the way it looked and I was too lazy to add another 2" white border around the complete outside.  So, I took 4 of the small 2.5" blocks and surrounded them with the 2" white border strips.  I like how they turned out.  They float sorta like the color blocks separating the presents.

Now to decide if I want to try and quilt it or do I send it away to someone.  I still might have time to whip up another Halloween quilt!

Here's a closeup of the modified corners

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Flurry Borders Created

I finally finished piecing the flurry border for the Christmas quilt.  The piecing wasn't the hard part, the ironing of these borders and ironing the seams to the center dark was the pain.  I think it took longer to iron thenm than piece the borders.  However, I like the outcome next to the flurry quilt.  The photos below do not have the borders attached, just hanging next to the quilt center.

Next up, squaring the center, finding the corner blocks and attaching the borders.  I'm thinking I should be done this month!

Thanks for stopping by!
~*~Trish~*~