Vacation

Good evening all you lovely followers, I am just letting you know that I will be on vacation from June 5, 2010 thru June 18, 2010. I am going to visit my Mother in SC. We will spend a day at the beach, then work on some more items for the shipment to Chicago. I will be sending some sewing items also, since they asked me if I could do that.

On the 12th I will be driving to the Outer Banks to meet up with my son, daughter in law, grandson and the rest of the family for a few days before heading home.

Hope you all have fun, productive, and wonderful days!!!!

Will check in once I get back and add some photos!!! Stay tuned...

Memorial Day

Good morning on this day of rememberance of our troops and Heros.

As you all go about your weekend please remember what this holiday is truly about. It's not about pools opening, barbeques, picnics, and getting drunk. It's a day to celebrate the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces that have laid down their lives for you, so that you may enjoy the freedoms that most of us take for granted every day. Take a moment this weekend and say thanks to all those brave warriors.

I have a son in the Army National Guard who has served in both Kosovo and Iraq. He and all his fellow soldiers came home safe from Kosovo, but unfortunately they did not all make it back from Iraq. Just listening to the horror stories you hear on the news isn't like when you hear what they have endured first hand. It makes you wonder how these honorable men and women can function within the "normal" things that we take for granted each and every day. My son has stared down the end of an AK47 pointed at him, but somehow managed to stay calm enough to save his own life and those he was with. I know he has a a lot of things he deals with each and every day from being over there. I just can't imagine what the wounded deal with each and every day living with what has happened to them and how it happened.

Did you know that Since April 19th 1775; 1,237,635 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines have laid down their lives defending our freedoms?

At 3pm Monday May 31st please join the rest of America in a national moment of rememberance.

And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave. ~Joseph Drake

 May God bless each and every one of you.

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What's been going on here?

Hello, sorry for not posting in a while. I have been trying to create enough to have a shipment for Chicago. I now can slow these fingers down a little and concentrate on more things....is that really possible???

I will be incorporating some sewing in with the crocheting and am looking forward to getting to know the sewing machine again. LOL it has been a long lost friend. On May 7th my daughter text me a picture with my grandson sitting up, since he is doing so well I now realize I need to remake his high chair cover! We have decided to remake his cover in the Florida Gator material that was used for his infant carrier. I have the cover in pieces right now, but I will add some pictures when it comes together again.

Also I have been making a table runner in crochet that is to be 42" long and 171/2" wide. This one is done starting on the side and working the length of the runner. I have found that I like this alot better than making all those squares that seem to take forever, however I do like the pattern they make when joined.  I am also glad to announce that I have finally found some mantle scarves that are sewn, but it gives me an idea of the dimensions needed to crochet one. Those will be a treat to make since the average length is 84"!!!!

I will be taking pictures of the current table runner so you can see what has been taking all my time, hopefully tomorrow when the sun is to be back shining again!!!! Can't wait for the warmer weather to be here to stay.

Keep you creative juices flowing and I will talk to you again very soon!

New Banner and Avatar

I have the most wonderful banner and avatar now thanks to Kristin from KNN Graphics. I asked her if I could feature her on my blog and show some other work she has done. This is what she has to say:

My name is Kristin. I am 21 years old and I have been doing graphic design for just about a year now. I am a designer specializing in logos, banners, and business cards. I love photography and do it on the side. My ultimate goal is to expand my business in graphic design and ensure the highest level of customer service. I only use the best software to ensure that all designs are of the highest quality.

I work solely based on you, the client. Customer satisfactions is my ultimate goal, that will be fulfilled with unlimited revisions.

I want you to love your design, and I believe that naming the number of revisions it will take to make the design is not a good way to accomplish that. So I offer unlimited revisions of all my design work. As a result of this policy, my clients are free to work with me until the final designs are perfect and fully met their expectations.

Some of her other designs are added for you to see what an awesome job she does! 

Logos:

 I just love that, he looks like he's having fun!!!

Business Cards:

Banner:

 So if you need any graphics, see Kristin! As you can see she does a great job with anything you need!
You can visit her pages here: http://www.facebook.com/KNNGraphics
                                            http://www.etsy.com/shop/KNNGraphics
Tell her Diana sent you!

Update on business card, hang tag, and table runner...

I have finished the creation of both the business card and hang tag!!! I used Corel Paint Shop Pro! Never knew you could do so much with this program, it gets very involved, but now I know I can figure out anything...until the next time I need to use it. LOL

I took your advice and removed the "stitching the day away" squares! Thank you so much for your input!
and the hang tag...I hope this will work, it needs a price location yet, but I think I can add that to the back??
If anyone knows how to do this, I would appreciate the help!

I have finished the table runner, but not sure if it needs more around the outside for the border???  I think it does, however this is all the pattern calls for. What do you think?

This is a closer picture of the design:

A closer picture of the border, and all the detail of the flowers:

I was thinking a shell type border to make it wider, what are your ideas?

Want to share....

I have been receiving complements that are awesome and would love to share them with you! I am so not used to this so it is a little overwhelming to read or hear them.

From my Aunt Fran:"you crochet just like Mom (my grandmother) did, it is hard to tell the front from the back and that is when you know you have quality work. You should charge so much more to let people know they are getting quality work and not something cheaply made"

From my cousin Gail "Diana, these are beautiful!  You carried Grandma George's legacy through the generations!"

Mountgreenwoodgifts Giftshop

Great job, Diana! Just when you were getting discouraged! WAY TO GO! We are very excited about getting your products stocked! I have scanned thru your Etsy shop and you do an excellent job! Quality and reasonable pricing! That table cloth has the crafts(wo)manship of an expert and I can see you take pride in your work!

FairyQueenCrochet

New Business Cards

It's time to for an update, I spent my afternoon and evening yesterday helping Eileen of Painting By Eileen create her first blog. I told her we needed to do it while I still remembered what I did for mine. lol  We got most of what she was looking for done, she just needs to add her finishing touches to it. I hope you all check her blog out when she makes her first post!  She was a huge help to me when I started both the Facebook Fan page and the Etsy Store! I would never have the huge fan base I have without her either, she put my links out there to get me started in Link Love. I started this all in January this year and in only 3 months I have over 840 fans and have made two sales. I can't say enough about link love and how it works to get you out there in front of so many people so quickly.

Since I will soon be sending my crocheting to Chicago for the boutique, I am in need of some quick designs for both business cards and hang tags. My son has volunteered to help me out on this and these are the designs he has come up with. 

 I would love your feedback on them.

He used one of my doilies as the background. Do you think I should use the same designs on the hang tag also? I need to have the price on the hang tags along with the care instructions.

Any ideas you may have are much appreciated. I have to get as much done in the next two weeks to send the first of many shipments out!!!

Thank you in advance!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I make everything with utmost care and attention to detail. I would not sell something I wouldn't use myself or give as a gift. You will find doilies, butterflies, and I am working on creating table runners and mantle scarves. But each time I look for more patterns, I find more things I want to make!

I am currently working hard to get inventory stocked up to start selling my doilies, table runners, and mantle scarves in Chicago at a craft/gift shop!
Since this is taking up most of my time right now, I thought I would start a blog to tell about what it is like to find patterns that I like, but aren't quite what I had in mind. Soooo, I am making some motifs and trying to figure out how to connect them and keep the lacy look also. The first picture is a single motif, then I'm trying to show what they are like when joined. I don't like the large opening between the motif's, it would be easy for the threads to break also. If you have any suggestions or ideas for connecting motifs, then please comment and let me know them! One comment I had was to use hairpin lace to connect since it is lacy, but I cannot find the tool needed to do that.

This runner is the current work, since I can't finish the above runner yet. I never liked motifs before, but I am enjoying making this one and love the ability to watch it all come together with the pattern it makes.

I want to show you my dresser scarf...it was ALOT of work and I'm not sure I would make it to sell unless someone wanted to special order it. But I just love the pattern and had to make it!

Since I have been spending all my time creating this blog, I  must now get back to work on crocheting!