My Yo-Yos Cubed Pincushion and Ornaments Pattern is now posted on Etsy.com!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick note to let you know, my Yo-Yos Cubed Pincushion & Ornaments Digital Pattern is now posted for sale on the Etsy site.

It can be viewed here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/237592843/yo-yos-cubed-pincushion-and-3-yo-yos

Hope you will check it out, and give it a try. I would love to see what you create!

The projects make great gifts and ornaments for the holidays, or for everyday use.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Denise A. Buchwalter-Losczyk

Resettling and Creating

I haven’t written in a while! Sometimes life gets in the way of creating and writing. We recently had the good fortune to sell our real estate property. This lead to packing boxes of belongings and donating and tossing items no longer needed. You don’t realize how much you have accumulated, until you have to pack it all in boxes. I plan to downsize some more this year and hopefully it will become a habit!

We were lucky (blessed!) to have a wonderful real estate agent who helped us through the selling process. I highly recommend Kiki Ress, of Coldwell Banker, if you are planning to sell or buy a property in the Chicagoland area. She handles both commercial and residential properties and is a very knowledgeable, caring and helpful agent. She truly takes the time to assist her clients and maintains a positive, cheerful and professional manner. Her assistance made the process much less stressful than it could have been. You can read about Kiki Ress and Coldwell Banker at: http://www.coldwellbankeronline.com/real_estate_agent/8109/Vaciliki-Kiki-Ress.aspx.

Even though I’ve been busy with moving and resettling, I find myself still needing to create – I recently finished and submitted an entry for Piecework Magazine's Annual Pincushion contest. The design I submitted is a new variation of my yo-yos cubed pincushion. My yo-yos cubed pincushion and ornaments pattern can be purchased and downloaded from the Craftsy.com and Patternspot.com websites. You can view them by clicking the links on the side of my blog page.

For my entry in the Piecework contest, I used fabrics I had hand painted, and added hand embroidery embellishments. I plan to experiment with painting additional fabric in the weeks/months ahead, and I hope to post photos of the results here on my blog.

I love creating and entering challenges. I believe I’ll complete some creative projects this year, even though life has gotten busy in a good way. Taking the time to create art can also bring joy to life and enhances it in a very good way.

Hope you will take time to create and enjoy life!

Denise Buchwalter-Losczyk

Published My First Pattern on Patternspot.com (yeah!)

I'm writing to share some news - it is a first for me, I've self-published my first pattern design on Patternspot.com. (Yeah!)

I first learned about Patternspot.com from TheQuiltShow.com. I believe it was in one of their newsletters/blogs. I kept the information in mind, and finally was able to use it to publish my first designs. After the work of writing the instructions, it was very easy to post my pattern on their site. If you are interested in publishing your designs, it is a fun place to check out. There are also many nice designs on the site for purchasing, and some free ones to try out.

My pattern is for a Yo-Yos Cubed design I created several years ago, and have wanted to share for a while. It includes instructions for a pincushion design, and 3 ornament variations.

I've attached photos of two of the designs. Yo-Yos Cubed Pincushion and one of the Yo-Yos Cubed Ornaments made from stacked Dupioni silk yo-yos.

I had wanted to publish a book for awhile, but decided to self-publish the designs as patterns, instead. I like the immediacy of getting the patterns out, rather than spending tons of time submitting proposals to publishers. (Life is too short!) It still took several weeks to self-edit my instructions. I plan to have additional related designs in the future. First, however, I am looking forward to taking a bit of a break, and working on the in progress quilt project in my studio!

Has anyone else self-published their patterns before? What experiences have you had? I would love to hear from you, if you would like, please leave comments below.

The link to the design on Patternspot.com is http://patternspot.com/patterns/sewing-patterns/4705-yo-yos-cubed-pincushion-amp-3-ornaments, if you would like to take a look.

Take care and have fun creating!

Denise A. Buchwalter-Losczyk