Twenty Crowns : :

At the end of last week I spent two days making the twenty crowns for my Summer Princess Crown Sale! A huge thanks to everyone who ordered! This crown is one of my most favorite designs ever and is made in my very favorite color palette. Still, making twenty of anything is a pretty big undertaking, especially during these busy Summer days when sewing time is hard to come by! Is anyone else having this problem?



I broke into my newly stashed Aurifil Aurifloss Set from the Fat Quarter Shop to add my hand-stitched flower details. This beautiful quality 6 strand floss is perfect for hand-embroidery and quilting. I'm so excited to have started a new collection!



Today I'll continue the crown making until I'm all caught up with my Etsy orders! For those of you who missed out on my crown sale this time, I'm hoping to plan another with a new design, for August sometime!



I'll be back soon with something quilty to share! ♡ Maureen

A Felt SALE : :

This time every year I get the itch for handwork, projects that can easily be taken on the go for those longer road trips or just to have to work on while outdoors enjoying the beautiful weather. In the past for me that's either meant a simple knitting project or some kind of embroidery hoop work that I never seem to finish. Well, this year I'm planning ahead and I'm putting together a portable basket of my wool blend felt and embroidery floss with supplies for making all the beautiful felt flowers!



I recently restocked my Etsy shop with my favorite wool blend felt colors, adding a few new options to the mix that I'm really excited about! So today I thought I'd share a sale with those of you who might be looking for something new, portable, and fun to do, as well!!





Now through the end of May use Coupon Code: SUMMERLOVE for 20% OFF any Wool Blend Felt order in my Maureen Cracknell Handmade shop! I went ahead and added a few easy felt flower tutorials to my "Just For Felt" Pinterest Board to help you get started!

Thanks in advance to those of who support my little shop, I really appreciate you! Happy hand-working!!

♡ Maureen

Felt Work : :

Over the weekend I finally received my big restock order of wool blend felt and spent what little sewing time I had catching up on Etsy orders. With all the quilt work that's been happening lately it was a welcomed change to push the fabrics aside and work with felt for a couple of days. It's such a different kind of sewing for me. It's my time for handwork on the couch, to replace the rotary cutter with scissors for a little while, to create little pictures and characters and something small but so personalized, unique, and special.







New custom order requests so often have me picking a new crown favorite, like yesterday's Pirate Crown!



As this little hobby-turned-business changes for me and new opportunities come my way, continuing to make these crowns and sell this felt that I do love so much, is something I'm always thinking over. I have to ask myself often, overall is it enjoyable work or do the days spent feeling like an assembly line drain me too much creativity? Well, certainly those days do happen, but not too often. Do those rare, dreadful customers that try to steal time, money, and energy make me want to check out from time to time? Ohhh yeah! It's amazing how one stranger can make you want to completely give up. But thankfully the wonderful still largely outweighs those occasions. Then there's the biggest question of all -- Will my Etsy shop always take the time that could be spent working on more quilts and a quilt pattern line? Offering quilt patterns is a big goal of mine, and yes, the time spent making Etsy orders is the time I'd need for this new venture. The reality is, not having my Etsy income would be a huge adjustment for us and as long as I find joy in this kind of work, I know I'll continue to talk myself out of making the change. Can you relate, do you have similar struggles of your own with trying to find some semblance of a balance between doing what you love and running a business?

Thanks in advance to those of you willing to share your thoughts with me! ♡ Maureen

Luminous Field Flowers : :

Today on my table is fun project idea I have for my Quilt Market booth using my GO! Baby fabric cutter, an assortment of Accuquilt's amazing flower dies, and a collection of my wool felt in colors inspired by my Wild & Free Luminous Field print!




I love making felt flowers, and during these busy Quilt Market prep days where I'm behind my sewing machine for hours on end, it's so nice to disrupt the routine with a handcrafted project!



I hope to create several wildflower felt crowns & floral arrangements to have in my booth. For a little bit of picture taking fun & because of the obvious, no watering needed!! Love that! Since felt flowers do last forever, in addition to some of the Wild & Free quilts and pillows I've created, these will make one more perfect keepsake for me to have to remember this first fabric collection experience! 









Since I'm such a fan of my GO! Baby Fabric Cutter, my friends at Accuquilt asked me to share their current sweepstakes! Prizes include their brand new GO! Big Electric Fabric Cutter and FIVE GO! Big dies!!

Enter by simply clicking on the image above and filling out the entry form, which includes just your name and email address, before midnight CST on Sunday October 5, 2014. There is no cost to register or enter. The winner will be drawn at random and announced on Monday October 13, 2014!

Good luck & happy sewing! ♥  Maureen

Fox Pillow Morning : :

This morning I had four fox pillow orders to make to ship out later today. I really do love making these and someday hope to make a whole mess of them to offer ready-made in my little etsy shop!



These pale aqua and orange fox pillows are by far the most requested, so I love it when a customer requests a different color combo or a little extra added embellishment like this King fox!





After finishing up each appliqued pillow front I auditioned fabric backings and settled on the colorful Cloud9 Fabrics organic, quilter's weight Enchanted collection By Michelle Engel Bencsko!



I pulled out two of my favorite prints and love the way these turned out!





My busy week of sewing is off to a great start! How about you, what are you working on this week?

♥ Maureen

Sewing with ♥ : :

This weekend was another busy one spent making mostly etsy orders during my sewing time, but we did find a little stint both on Saturday and Sunday for some handmade holiday sewing. Valentine's Day has always been a favorite in our house and here on my blog for crafting. My celery stamping project remains in my top ten most popular posts! But really we all just want a reason to keep the house looking festive after the Christmas tree comes down and these slow, cold winter days present lots of time for creating!

First, we made a few Valentine's Day versions of my crown of flowers. I have enough flowers made to offer a few for sale later in the week! If you happen to have a Valentine that you think might like one, feel free to put an order in!



I'm very happy to have decided on a final special use for what's left of these spools of recycled rope I purchased from Anthropologie a couple of years ago. I love how it finishes off these crowns!



There were a few fox pillow orders made as well! I especially like this one with the burgundy bow and Daisy Janie's Tilly Mumsy in Dusk for the backing!





On Sunday Haila and I had a sewing session date, this time she made a quick heart felt garland! My boys and I have made this garland before, first discovered on Betz's wonderful blog two years ago, oh my! You can find her tutorial here on Craftzine, it's so quick & fun! I knew it would make the perfect decor sewing project for a newbie to tackle!



We started with just one 9" x 12" piece of wool blend felt, a spool of red Aurifil, some red & white Divine Twine, and our cutting tools!



Two quick stitches later, a little measuring & cutting, and she had made a dozen hearts!



I love, LOVE this photo! We had some fun with black & white focal editing and I had to share it!



In just a matter of minutes, after carefully threading her hearts onto the twine, she had made her very first strand of garland! Yes!



Making this for yourself or with a little one eager to start sewing, will surely start you're February off right! We highly recommend it!

Happy sewing!  ♥ Maureen

Felt Ornament Making : :

Back in early Fall I shared a post called Felty Things, including some of my most favorite felt projects, gushing about how much I love to sew with felt this time of year. My talented friend & fellow felt sewing fan Betz White was reading that day and invited me to create one of the amazing felt ornaments from her brand new, Holiday Stitch-along Ornament Club! I chose to make the Peace Dove Ornament in a pretty Sky Blue wool blend felt and I love how it turned out!



I consider myself a bit of a beginner when it comes to embroidery, but with the handy Stitch Glossary Betz provides with each pattern, the Blanket stitch, French knot, Backstitch, & Lazy Daisy stitch needed, were a cinch!



It came together quick and in the end I had a beautiful, well made, two-sided ornament that I would love to make a few more of! Haila has even asked to make one for herself to hang on her door, which I think is both a great idea and something she could totally do with a little help from me!



It's not to late for you to sign up for Betz's Holiday Stitch-along Ornament Club! This months ornament is scheduled to debut on Betz's blog today. You are welcome to join in any time and will receive patterns for the two already-released ornaments, this Peace Dove and this super, cute Hot Chocolate, along with November's design, and the final ornament on December 2nd!



If you're in need of high quality felt for ornament making or for any other felt sewing plan you might have, stop by my etsy anytime this month and use coupon code: FELT20OFF for 20% off any Wool Blend Felt purchase!



Happy Monday!  ♥ Maureen

A Thank You GIVEAWAY : :

I can't even begin to write on how wonderful reading yesterday's comments were! Once I began stitching on each of the free flying butterflies I had started to second guess myself a little. When I shared my sketch and the photo of my pieced quilt top in the window, I had left off the appliqued butterflies as the unexpected surprise for when I shared the finished quilt. Throughout those few days I had it hanging in the window, that corner of negative space had really grown on me and I almost changed my mind. After reading through all your sweet comment, I'm really glad I didn't! To have so many of you appreciating my creativity is really something, thank you so much!



Today I'm working on etsy orders -- pillows, crowns, and packaging of felt bundles. Then I'm hoping to start a new quilt or two.. I have a niece Josie who's requested that her quilt be a "Princess Quilt," I'll be working from my stash with many prints from the Once Upon A Time fabric collection for this one, with a castle quilt pattern in mind, hmn? The second is for my niece Sylvia who's two, lives in Hawaii, and loves Koi fish. Her mama and I agreed on the beautiful, new Koi collection by Rashida for Cloud9 Fabrics for Sylvia! I love this fabric collection so much!!





Keeping with the rainbow of color I shared in my new quilt yesterday, inspired by the sight of an order I received for one of each of the felt colors I carry all bundled up, and to offer something different than my usual weekly Fabric Giveaway -- I thought today I'd have my very own for a rainbow bundle of felt!

All Fifty-Two colors of the high quality wool blend felt I sell in my etsy shop, all packaged up for one of you! You can see all the colors I have available right HERE!



I'm also continuing my 20% OFF Felt Sale using coupon code : FELT20OFF along with your choice of either a designer fabric scrap or felt scrap stack included in each order, throughout the duration of this Giveaway!

Enter to win! 

Here's how,

1. Simply add a comment to this post! If you'd like, you can share with me what you'd stitch up with all this wool blend felt? (one entry) 
2. Followers of Maureen Cracknell Handmade get an additional entry, too! Just let me know that you do by making a separate comment here to record that entry. (one optional entry) 

3. Help spread the word!! I know that many of you already do, so I thought it would be nice to add that as another way to enter! Whether by instagram, tweet, facebook, pin, blog, etc... (one optional entry)

Please enter now thru Monday, September 9th. Mr. Random will pick the winner and I will announce their name at the bottom of this post, here on the blog!

* Note * This giveaway is open to EVERYONE! If you're a "no reply" or an anonymous commenter, remember to include your email address in your comment so that I can contact you, should you win! Please check to make sure you can be contacted!

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Thank you to all who entered the Giveaway!!

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *    
 

From 1,180 entries, Mr. Random says the lucky winner is...

    Comment #592 --   * Darcy *   

Congratulations!!! I will be in touch shortly!  

Felty Things : :

There's something about the imminent Fall weather that makes sewing with felt so soothing to me. I love it! Each year around this time, I feel this strong pull shifting my crafty mind to sewing projects of all kinds using colorful, cozy wool blend fiber. See!











Handmade goodness galore, there is just so much to make with felt! Plus you know I'm always busy making my Birthday Crowns!

SO, I thought I'd have a little felt sale in my etsy shop now that the kids are back in school in case you have some felty-sewing-crafty ideas of your own! Just use coupon code "FELT20OFF" to receive the 20% discount on any felt purchase!


Here's a look at the colors I carry!





I will also be including your choice of either a fabric scrap pack or felt scrap pack with each order!! Just specify which you'd prefer in the comment section when you order!





And, be sure to check out my Pinterest board "Just For Felt," which includes many of my own felt projects and a growing list of great felt-y inspiration!!   ♥  Maureen