Interview with an Artist: Alyce of Fabric Greetings

Our featured artist this week is Alyce, the woman behind the Etsy shop Fabric Greetings. Alyce combines her artistry and sewing wizardry to make fabulous quilted fabric postcards, ACEOs and pillowcase greetings. I just love how her sense of humour and excellent craftsmanship shine through her work. I also love the fact that her products make beautiful keepsakes.

One of Alyce's quilted postcards

Alyce was kind enough to share with me tidbits about herself and her work, and some words of wisdom too!


Hi, Alyce! Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and the part of the world where you are?
My name is Alyce and I am the wife of a fantastic fella I married almost 46 years ago. We are the parents of an adult daughter. I am originally from Connecticut and he is from Georgia. We have sort of settled in the middle in Maryland in a little town at the head of the Chesapeake Bay. This town was the place that everyone on the east coast eloped to because there was no waiting period. Our town was lined with wedding chapels when we first moved here.

How did you get into sewing? Who was your main influence?
My mother was a huge influence on my sewing. In the late 40's she made dance recital costumes from our home. I was allowed to play with all the scraps of material and sequins, etc. My baby dolls had some very fancy duds. Sewing helped pay for some of my college expenses and it just went from there.

How did your craft business start?

My business started over 25 years ago when I decided that I was making all these items and needed a way to reduce my inventory. I was a SAHM (stay-at-home mum) and decided to give a few craft fairs a try. It just has gone on and on from there. Now I am pretty much established in the sewing/textile field.

Your fabric greeting cards are beautiful and make wonderful keepsakes. How did you come up with this concept?
I have always sent cards to celebrate an occasion or for no reason whatsoever. But finding the right card in the mass-produced market is not always easy. I actually saw some fabric postcards on display at the International Quilt Market in Houston about 9 years ago. At the time I was looking for something else to do in the sewing line as I could no longer do the hand sewing required for my whimsical cloth dolls. The only problem was that the cards I saw required an envelope for mailing. And true postcards don't. So I worked to refine the concept and figure out how to make them totally mailable. Fortunately, we have a great postmistress who was willing to talk with me at length and examine the prototypes.

A beautifully quilted ACEO

What is/are your source(s) of inspiration? 
Not to sound trite, but inspiration comes from my everyday life. I might hear a phrase, a song lyric, read a quote, look out my window or find a piece of fabric that trips the creative juices.

What is your workspace like? Can you describe it to us please? 
My workspace is a little piece of heaven. It is a large room (14ft x 18ft) three stories up with a bank of windows overlooking a stream and the woods. I have a dedicated space for the sewing machine and serger, a space for storage, a cutting table high enough to not break your back, and room to move around. Each wall is painted a different colour and it is a happy place.

Alyce’s well-organised workspace with her trusty sewing machine and serger  

How does a normal working day go for you?
 
We are retired, so that means there is nothing normal. Some days I spend hours in my sewing room and other days I hardly make it there. If at all possible, I do try to spend several hours each day sewing and catching up with computer work. The computer work is my least favourite part – only because I am not that computer-literate.

 Part of the workspace—lots of storage space. I love the rows of doll clothes on their hangers! 

What do you do to relax?
I read, I bake and I walk. But I honestly relax the most by sitting at my sewing machine and sewing. I have an offline business of making doll clothes for the 18” dolls. They are fun to do and a great form of relaxation for me.

Alyce's doll collection

How do you market your work? Do you do a lot of trade shows? Do you have any online marketing tools that you use?

I do several craft shows a year. I have joined a couple of Etsy teams and I participate in the Etsy forums to a degree. I have no idea how to blog, Tweet or use Facebook, so my marketing is a challenge. There is a store that sells my cards locally.

Alyce also makes beautiful bookmarks like this.

As someone who’s been in the handmade craft business for a long time, do you have any advice for beginners? 
I think my best advice is to find something you are passionate about and do it. Success doesn't come overnight for most of us, so don't be discouraged. Start with a plan and just be true to yourself. If it was meant to be, it will be.



Thank you so much Alyce for being so generous with your time and allowing us a glimpse of your wonderful world.

Please go visit Fabric Greetings on Etsy to see more of this remarkable woman's splendid creations!

My sewing and crochet hats

First of all, apologies if you're a reader of my homemaking blog and you've seen these photos before. I just felt like sharing them here as well.

Second, a big, warm hello to the mums and dads coming to this site from their Parentmail! Thank you very much if you've signed your kids up for my art classes. I'm really excited about the sessions we'll be doing in April. I would also like to assure you that I don't spend all my time blogging here; I have also been spending a lot of time working on the lessons I'll be teaching the kids! :)

Anyway, as a lot of people know, my main sources of pleasure are drawing and painting, reading all sorts of books, and watching films. Apart from these, I also love crochet and sewing. Whenever I get ill and have to stay in bed, I cheer myself up by crocheting toys and planning sewing projects.

It was half-term last week and one of my daughter's sweet little friends was celebrating her birthday. A perfect excuse to bring out the sewing machine and the crochet hooks.

I made this little tote from my stash of Japanese fabrics

and crocheted this little striped teddy.

Little Teddy (who has since been named Kelly by the recipient) fits perfectly in the bag, with lots of room for a little girl's favourite things. :)

This present was quite a hit, and my friend (the recipient's mum) has been encouraging me to sell similar goodies. Hmm, I'm not sure yet. On the one hand, I love the idea of selling these as they're fun to make and it would be lovely to be able make a bit of money from doing something this fun. On the other hand, I know that times are tough and many people would probably consider handmade items such as these a luxury. Ugh, it's so hard to make business decisions these days! I'd definitely love to give selling these a go, so I shall do my cost analysis next week and come up with a decision on how to sell them. I'm sure you'll find out straight away as they'll pop up on my Etsy shop if I do decide to sell them!

Coming up on The Art of Whimsy

'A Good Day', a tiny painting made with watercolour and pencils

Howdy, folks! Today's a good day, I reckon, to announce a lovely thing that's about to happen here at the Art of Whimsy.

Starting next week, we will have a new regular feature. You'll get to have a glimpse of the works of fellow artists and crafters I admire. And, more importantly, I will don my journalist's hat and interview some of them as well! I'm really excited and feel so fortunate that these wonderful people have been gracious and generous with their time to answer my snooping questions.

This is what I love about being an artist/crafter in our time. I may occasionally moan about our hi-tech society, but one thing I am really grateful for is how technology has given me the ability to find a lot of kindred souls and connect to them. Thank you, Internets. :)

Birdies!

Lately I have been enamoured of birds. I think it's mainly because I find their presence a source of consolation in this incredibly cold weather. There's nothing like the sight of colourful feathers and the sweet sound of birdsong to remind us that pretty soon, the ice will melt away and spring will arrive in all its wondrous glory.

I grew up in the grimy suburbs of the Philippines where trees and birds were a rare sight. Imagine my surprise then when I stumbled upon this site which told me that there are more than 600 species of birds in the Philippines, over a third of which are endemic! The website also has an extensive gallery of photos taken by birdwatchers in the country.

The photos have been such an inspiration that I'm planning to do a fair few illustrations of Philippine birds. My favourites are the kites and the flycatchers. Such gorgeous colours!

In the meantime, here's a quick watercolour I made a couple of weeks ago when I was feeling a little overwhelmed with my many deadlines:

Onwards

Yay, I managed to finish my sketchbook just in time to post it on the 31st of January! It had taken up a lot of my time last week that even after I posted it, I would still suddenly get the urge to add a few more details to one of the sketches.

Here are some of the pages that I scanned.The sketchbook will be available to view online as soon as it's scanned by the good people of The Sketchbook Project. I'll put up a link here once it's up on their website.

I originally intended the book to be just a series of sketches, but somewhere along the way, it became more of a mini-memoir. I have to say that the whole process has been quite cathartic for me, as this was the first time in many years that I had actually sat down to ponder on certain memories of my childhood. Hey, who needs a shrink when you can just sketch your psychological issues away? :)

Anyway, now that the sketchbook is over and done with, I am moving on to my next few projects. There are art and craft projects a-brewing over here at the Art of Whimsy. I'll be working on them in the next few weeks. Plus, the blog will have a new feature which I'm really excited about. It involves reaching out to other artists and crafters and learning from their experiences. I'll make the big announcement soon.

On top of all these, I'm also organising an after-school club for kids in our local school where I'll be teaching them an introductory course on drawing. I'm looking forward to working with the kids, as I'm sure it will be a great learning experience for them and myself.

I definitely have great hopes for 2012, and it already looks very promising. :)