Peach Patterns

Selling PDFs The Easy Way :: by My Poppet

Many of you know the wonderfully talented Cinti of My Poppet or at least, like me, have followed her crafty adventures for many years through her blog. Colourful, quirky, retro and the rest(!) - her posts and tutorials are always inspiring and uplifting.

Along with her creative talent, I've always admired Cinti for having the knack of being able to explain technical and business-y issues in ways that are easy to relate to and understand.

Cinti's new ebook "Selling PDFs The Easy Way" is one such example.  It's crammed with useful info for crafty and creative people who want to branch out and sell their products: patterns, tutorials, illustrations, art, recipes, ebooks and other know-how via digital channels.

Image source: My Poppet

As someone who fits into this category and who has often searched high and low for the sort of information Cinti offers, I'm here to tell you that it's not easy to find and certainly not in such a well written, comprehensive package.

There are real life case studies from a diverse group of PDF/digital sellers and even a few well-chosen words of wisdom from yours truly recounting my pattern selling experience with Wink Designs over the last 4 years.

"Selling PDFs the Easy Way" covers the gamut from creating to selling to marketing your PDFs.  Digital delivery options from the popular etsy and Big Cartel through to a whole host of other platforms such as Fetch, Shopify and E-Junkie are discussed in depth.  A highly recommended read!

You can read more about the ebook in Cinti's blog post here.

Christmas circles

Have been inspired by lots of embroidery hoop art I've seen around and decided to make a little Christmas scene of my own with some felt, vintage trim and little house buttons.

The Little Bits Quilting Bee book is an early Chrissie gift to myself.  I love the circles quilt featured on the cover.  It has a 2 star (easy-ish) rating so maybe even the quilt-challenged amongst us could tackle it?!

Liberty Book of Home Sewing

Have just put the Liberty Book of Home Sewing on pre-order for the (what seems like) very reasonable price of $21 Aussie dollars with no shipping cost.

It ships on 1 September.  Can't wait to flick through this one!

Scandinavian Stitches

I know I'm a little late to the party on this one as this lovely book was released way back before Christmas but I only recently bought a copy (the price came down on Fishpond!).

Kajsa Wikman, who creates under the label Syko, is pure genius when it comes to applique, free motion and creative stitching.  My favourite image in the book is definitely the "Love Machine" - how incredible is that tiny patchwork quilt?  (And I see you can buy the image as a stand-alone print in her etsy shop.)

 

While we were in Finland last year I was lucky enough to stumble upon an original Syko.  I found this little pouch in the crafts shop attached to the tourist office on the main square in Helsinki.  There were quite a few of Kajsa's original items in the shop: cushions, prints, pincushions and her signature little stuffed houses.  All so lovely.

The work on the pouch is really amazing.  I've been playing a bit with free-motion stitching lately but it'll be a while before I'm anywhere near this good.  Look at the detail on the daisy!

 
P.S. I haven't bought much fabric of late - just the odd bit here and there - the prints above are some cute Lecien spots and stripes from sewdeerlyloved.

Kids Clothes Week :: Project 2::

Just dropping in to show you the 2nd (and final!) of my projects for Kids Clothes Week. 

I made the "Elasticated Pants" from the book, Making Children's Clothes by Emma Hardy.  (I didn't make the blouse, that was bought from Cotton On Kids.)  The only project I had made from the book before was this hat, which has been a bit of a winner (i.e. pretty much constantly worn).

 
The largest pants size was 4-5, so I added a couple of inches length to get to a size 6.  Other than that, there was no need to alter anything as the pattern has enough ease in all other areas.

 

I used a light-weight denim from Spotlight, added some patch pockets in two coordinating navy and black Japanese floral prints and some linen ribbon with a navy stitch line as the tie.

The only issue I had was with the sewing on of the pockets.  The instructions said to sew them on after the pants had been constructed.  Now, I don't know how the author's sewing machine is designed, but on my humble Janome, this feat was impossible and I had to finish sewing the pockets by hand.  I should have trusted my earlier instincts and put the pockets on first!  Live and learn...

Thanks again to Meg for hosting (she's made some great stuff) and you can see the amazing results of everyone's efforts on the flickr group.

Mrs Blackfort and her friends

I've always been a bit of a font fanatic (a typography geek to be more apt!) and I fell head over heels for Mrs Blackfort when the designer who made my logo suggested it way back when.  It's a lovely font with a retro feel and reminds me of handwriting the way grandma used to do it.

 

I've noticed Mrs Blackfort has been popping up a bit lately in the crafty book department.  Here are two new titles that feature her in their cover design.

One is Handmade Beginnings by the lovely Anna Maria Horner.

 

And then there's Sewing Bits & Pieces by Sandi Henderson, which looks like the perfect book for fans of scrap-happy, quick craft projects. I haven't succumbed to either yet but am very tempted by this one - how cute is that cardi on the cover?

 

Some of my other favourite fonts are Amelie (which is quirky and childlike) and Monterey (a stylish, elegant retro script).  And other than Mrs Blackfort, there is another "Mrs" on my list of favourites: the very popular Mrs Eaves.  

How about you?  Are you a secret (or not so secret) font fanatic and do you have a favourite?