Vermont Etsy Street Team

For lovers of all things Vermont and all things handmade, we now have a Made in Vermont Etsy Street Team, a group of Vermonters marketing their arts and crafts through etsy.com.

You can preview our new blog at http://vermontetsystreetteam.blogspot.com/, or look for us on etsy.com!

Spring Sale!

From now through midnight March 31st take 15% off of your order (does not apply to shipping). Shop, put items in your cart and before check out convo me and I'll adjust you invoice. You may take this additional reduction on items already on sale, too.

After a successful sale and the beginning of my craft show/market season you will begin to see new product lines...more children's items, aprons and clothing, new organic fabrics, and hopefully some new finds from vintage kimono and sari fabrics, french textiles...and new items. Also a more contemporary line!

Fabric Scraps..."Too Pretty to Waste"

I am a lover of all things fabric, and have been as long as I remember. I like seeking it out, purchasing it, laundering it (in Seventh Generation detergent), ironing it (well, as long as the piece isn't too many yards..), rolling it and adding it to my stash. I also love the little pieces left over when a project is completed, and save every bit of worthwhile size, finding them "too pretty to waste".

My daughter Becca, who makes brilliant hats and quilts (check out her barn swallow motif on http://flyinghen.blogspot.com/), recently asked me to bring her some scraps. "No problem," I thought, since I have so many. But then she asked specifically if I could spare a scrap of a green vine print designed by Densye Schmidt for Free Spirit's "Flea Market Fancy". I paused for a minute, remembered she is my daughter, after all, and agreed to share...Some fabrics, I think, are even more beautiful as little pieces than they are as yardage. This lovely print is, and Becca is also in love with it, and has even spotted it used in quilts in magazines. Another print which I treasure every little piece of is by Mary Engelbreit and has little girls reading books on it. One little fragment left over from making a child's apron showed a little girl reading Little House on the Prairie. Oh, how I loved that book! So I took this little piece and recovered one of my aging pincushions.

I keep adding items made from fabric scraps to my product line. I make note cards from fabric scraps, which I call my "Too Pretty to Waste" line. I started making headbands last summer, and those have been very popular. What fascinates people the most is my utilizing scraps to make yo-yo's. I'll blog more about yo-yo's another time, and include instructions, but for now let me say they are really magical...they bring back memories of grandmothers and great aunts, they gather up and change their design identity in the process, and seem to particularly fascinate babies, boys, and men! I have some small table covers in my etsy shop. I also make pins and ponytail holders from yo-yo's, and have made some toys for my grandsons, but haven't listed those yet.

Road Less Travelled and Little Shop of Horrors

The little, one lane private country road that we live off of ("within spittin' distance" was one of my midwestern father's favorite expressions) holds many charms...unfortunately, most of them are seasonal.

It has been a long, hard, snow-drenched winter this year in Vermont, and "cabin fever" is rampant. The only winter sport I have been able to "enjoy" is the one of watching our neighbors try to drive their cars up the hill ("will he make it? no, he won't!") and hoping they don't end up with one or two wheels in the drainage ditch.

The drainage ditch has a brief life as a stream in springtime, assisting the snowmelts past neighboring basements and down the hill. Later, and through summer and fall, it is inocuous and covered in vegetation. It is only in winter it emerges, in my mind at least, as the Little Shop of Horrors. It is hard to believe that so many cars, SUVs and trucks would accidentally slide from the road into the ditch...no, I suspect there is a fiend-plant force there at work, pulling vehicles in and keeping them bound.

A couple of weeks ago our car broke down in Burlington and needed to be left for repairs, so we took a cab home ($70.00 for a cab ride!). The driver, a personable older fellow, we gave specific instructions to do not try to back your cab down the road from here, or you will end up in the ditch. He did, and he did. I offered the driver what help I could, which is very limited. "Once you are in the ditch," I told him, "you can't be pushed out. You can call your dispatcher to send a wrecker, or you can stay right here...you are blocking the road with your taxi so eventually one neighbor or another is going to come by in their truck and have no choice but to pull you out so they can get by." He opted for the later, and was out in 15 minutes or so. Good choice, for our little road is not beloved of the AAA tow truck operators, some refusing to come at all, some finding themselves stuck in the process of helping others, or they work so long they forget and run out of gas.

They say spring always follows winter, but the ice storm of this weekend was particularly a bruiser, and I'm beginning to experience doubts this winter will end, at least not anytime soon. I don't trust the Little Shop of Horrors, so more often than not I've been leaving my car at the foot of the hill. It sits there now with the remainder of my grocery shopping from a couple of days ago still in it, plus the recycling bin. I'm thinking if I put the kitty litter, birdseed and other grocery items in the recycling bin, and take a long dog lead and wrap it around the bin, I can drag it up the icy hill as if it were a sled....

Temporary E-mail Difficulties

It appears that my e-mail address of afterall.designs@yahoo.com has temporarily disappeared! Yahoo is working on the problem. If you have sent me an email in the past few days, you may or may not have received an error message.
For the time being, please use my home account of maggies3@yahoo.com to send or resend messages. Thanks!

Pillows

After All Designs
Signature Two-Faced Pillow

Two faced…not something you want in a friend, but very desirable in a pillow. Our two faced pillows are made of coordinating and complementary fabrics to give you two decorating options – use them both!

Pillows are the most versatile and fun decorating option, like a blind date, they allow you to play with designs and colors without making a long term commitment. Use them everywhere, not just the sofa and the bed, but on chairs, piled on the floor, in baskets, under the cat. A pillow in the boudoir can hold a lady’s broaches. On a chair, it raises a small child to better see the world, placed under the feet of a reclining elder, it provides relief to tired legs. Pillows can be tossed in jubilation and rest our heads in times of desolation. If you think you have enough pillows, you aren’t dreaming enough.




After All Designs pillows are “piecefully handcrafted” at the foot of Mount Philo in Charlotte, Vermont, by an urban refugee. I have been called an artist with fabric but I am really just a matchmaker, a “yentl”, who falls in love with fabric and brings pieces together. The fabric I select are all cottons (and an occasional cotton blend), and are top quality home décor and quilting fabrics. Pillows are double stitched and all fabric has been laundered at least twice in Seventh Generation laundry products before leaving my home for yours to remove finishes, preshrink and test for fading.

Aprons

So many women have an aversion to aprons, recoil at the idea of them in fact. I think it is because they fear that donning an apron would turn them into Donna Reed or a Stepford Wife.

In fact, aprons are making a big comeback, and they don’t just belong in the kitchen anymore! Whoever has found their spaghetti sauce suddenly erupting like Vesuvius, or opened a rocket disguised as a bottle of seltzer will want one, but aprons are needed everywhere accidents happen! Drivers who drink latte on the road need not worry so about potholes with a pretty apron in the car…keep one at your desk at work and you may be able to go into the afternoon’s meetings without vinaigrette on your silk blouse! Whether housekeeping, petkeeping, gardening or baby tending the protection of an apron shouldn’t be missed, that’s why After All aprons are so attractive you can where them anywhere.

One of my most distinct memories of childhood is that of a little apron I was given, so I enjoy making aprons for children, too. Girls aprons which are sweet and feminine, and gender neutral aprons for the child who wants to help cook, assist with the housework, or whose artistic temperment is apt to leave paste and paint splashes here and there.

This year's line will offer more variations in styles in women's aprons, more aprons for men, gardening aprons, and aprons designed for craft show/farmer's market/flea market vendors.