At Last! An Alternative to eBay and Etsy!

Announcing Luulla! Luulla is a new marketplace and community for handmade items! A brand new site, Luulla already has a ton of gorgeous handmade items that make their pages fun to browse. Although we at 44th Street primarily sell supplies, we are excited to support a new venue for the sale of beautiful, one-of-a-kind items.

Luulla is a Finnish word that means imagine and believe. The team at Luulla believes that, with passion and determination, they can build a community that can bring success to buyers and delight sellers.

Check them out! Listing on Luulla is, at this time, by invitation only but they are making it a comfortable, friendly place to list your items. There is no fee charged when you sell an item (unlike other similar sites that even take their cut of shipping costs) so you can charge less for your products. That makes the buyers happy. If Luulla will just stay as user friendly as they are now, they should be a big success. We love them!

Two Blocks Down, Two to Go

Well, never mind about finishing my Valentine's Day wallhanging...I started this yesterday. It's a quilt from a pattern called "Patio Pots" by Jan Patek. She makes all her quilts in lovely primitive colors and she has a huge following. I just thought how wonderful it would be to have the bright colors I like (and that I stock in the shop) in her primitive patterns. This quilt has a lot of the Happy fabric line from Jennifer Heynen. Just thought I'd show you. Obviously I still suffer from A.D.D....sigh... Maybe it's a reaction to our unseasonal warm weather...

I think I'm going to like this little quilt.

Valentine's Day Wallhanging In Progress

In progress...quilting to start this weekend...and it might be done by Valentin's Day!

Trying to Decide About Dear Jane

I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions for a few weeks now. I almost never follow through on them even though I have great intentions. Like many of you, I'm just SO busy. I've had the book shown above, Dear Jane, for almost a year. I look at it often and dream about how wonderful it would be to complete a quilt with 225 unique blocks. That means thousands of pieces! Each of the blocks is 5" x 5". I was thinking that if I made 10 blocks a month, it would take over 2 years to just piece the quilt. But, look at it! It's a real masterpiece. The original quilt was made by Jane A. Stickle during the Civil War. The block patterns were replicated by Brenda Mangos Papadakis. Is anyone else out there starting one of these in 2012? Please let me know if you are! The one bit of information I cannot find is how much background fabric it requires. I would hate to start it and then run out and have something that doesn't quite match. The book does have a recommended fabric however I don't want to buy more when I already have a ton of fabric here.

So make one or not? Sigh...I'll probably try it.