Sunday, October 10, 2010

Creative Inspiration Competition!!! Lookee...!!

Found this inspiration board at Dutch Blue to give you a little idea of an idea you can send to enter into the competition!!! Pass the word around... I'm trying to generate a few more followers!!!

Tonight I'm back from our church women's camp and now off to do a little sewing! Tomorrow I'll let you know what I bought at the Craft Show on Friday! Very exciting!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Creative Inspiration Competition!!!

Okay, I've decided to have a LITTLE competition for y'all! So here's the thing...! Yesterday I bought a design board which is big but boring at the moment! Today I went to Ikea and I bought a nice bright set of cards which is what you will win if you enter!
So, what do you have to do to enter? There are three ways you can enter and you can enter as many times as you like!

1. Send me a link to an inspiring design board idea which you've seen on the internet!
2. Find another person to sign up to The Crafty Camel facebook page and put a note on the comments here that you have.
3. Become a follower on my blog!

You can enter as many times as you like. DD2 will draw a prize on Wednesday 5pm EST and the postcards could be yours to decorate your design board with or write notes to your friends! Good luck!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Parcel Post!


Buying fabric in Australia can be so expensive... up to $28 per metre! It's no wonder, especially with the Aussie dollar being so competitive at the moment, that I buy most of my fabric online overseas! My favourite shop is www.thefatquartershop.com because they have a great range, good postage rates which they reduce if they can when they post (often you save more than you think!), great specials, and they often have a 50% off facebook special. I can highly recommend joining their facebook fan page! It is not surprising then that a package arrived in my mailbox today... it included 24 fat quarters "Art Journal" by Bari J. Ackerman. Not my thing really but I hope will make some pretty quilts that someone will adore! Stay tuned...

Tomorrow I am having a day out with mum to help supervise DD2 (18mths). We are off to the Craft Expo in Melbourne. I'm hoping to find a few things I am looking for to kick my business along, as well as check out all the fabulous quilts and stalls I know will be there! Maybe you'll find The Crafty Camel there in a couple of years!


While I was out tonight I bought an invaluable tool... a design board... it's big... 80x120cm. Tomorrow I'll be launching a little competition tomorrow so stay tuned!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

A BIG start!

It has been my 10 year plan (I'm realistic!!!) to start a crafty business of some sort... designing patterns, creating, stitching, painting, sewing, whatever! That was 8 1/2 years ago!!! 3 children and many ideas floating in my head later I am finally making a start along the road to reality! Stay tuned and you'll hear more as the journey progresses! Exciting times ahead! In the last month I have bought 3 key pieces of equipment to start the process rolling!

1. Brother PQ-1500S

This is a straight stitching machine which sews at 1500 stitches per minute (or 25 per second as my daughter likes to point out!). Apart from being a beautiful machine to work with in general it's purpose it to do quilting on my second purchase! I hop e that I will be able to both quilt my own quilts, sell some, and do a little quilting for customers as far as the machine is able. At this point I believe this will be predominantly all over patterns up to a 6"pantograph, depending on the size of the quilt.

2. Brindabella Happy Jack Quilting Frame

This frame, with legs, is now set up in my studio, ready for the leader cloths to be made and the first quilt to be loaded on! It takes up most of the lengt h of the room but the machine just glides on it! I can't wait to get started! I have dreamt of buying one of these for years now and have eyed them off at every quilt show I have attended over the years!

3. Electric Quilt 7

For a while now I have been trying to figure out how you get from t he design in your head to the professionally finished design you market to the world! I can't wait to try this program out!


So! There you have it! You can say you were here when The Crafty Camel took it's first steps into the wonderful world of textiles! Who knows how it will all develop... you will have to wait and see! There are so many ideas buzzing in my head! My next major step is to set up my studio in a workable order... that requires some plastering to be finished, some painting to be done, a design wall to hang... till the next installment...