ra-ra-renegade!

Hello friends!
If you're wondering where the heck I've been the past couple of weeks (because I sure as heck haven't put up a blog post in a while), I'll tell you -- I've been working my butt off getting ready for Renegade!

Renegade Brooklyn, my very favourite of the yearly craft fair events is coming up THIS WEEKEND. woohoo!

I *think* this is my sixth year doing Renegade; wowsers!

So, mostly these past couple of weeks I've been stitch stitch stitch and sew sew sewing. One new thing that I did and put into the shop, (which you may have noticed if you follow the chez-sucre-chez Instagram or facebook or twitter, or etsy) is the new Go 'Round the Roses kit:

I figured I'd carry on that roses kick/theme I was on and go ahead and create an x-stitch pattern/kit.

The inspiration for these particular roses -- both the shape and the color, came from two things:

One - traditional rose tattoos. B got some done on his leg recently (by the talented BJ Betts) and now I seem to be seeing rose tattoos everywhere. Almost makes me rethink my "no more tattoos (except maybe a teeny little bat)" thinking...

The second source of inspiration is the very roses in the above photo. Right behind our house, there's a sweet little building. Our landlords call it "the chapel" because, when this place was a convent in the 1960's that's what it was used for. I'm not quite sure what it was used for before that, but one of the coolest features of the tiny little structure is a set of hinged doors in the floor that open up onto a large stone-rimmed circular pit -- said to be a hiding spot from the days of the Underground Railroad!

Aaaanyways, there's a lovely little old rose bush that grows up the trellis outside the front door. Last month, those roses were all abloom, and I meant to take some photos. I never got around to that, and now they're all trimmed back and done... boo. But before they totally faded, my kit was finished and those are the roses that I used for the listing photo. I was really impressed that, without trying, I chose pretty much the exact colors for my stitching!

So -- that's a teeny little update. I've got to hop off now to get back to work in my prep for Renegade (of course, the event is only four days away and I've just come up with two new ideas that I want to try to execute....). If you're local enough to Brooklyn, you know I'd love to see you at the Renegade event. Check out all of the details and the line-up of amazing vendors here, on the Renegade site. Have a great week, all!