f yeah!

yippity yippity there's a new book out on the stands this month that features a photo of one of my little stitcheries.


i'd been contacted looooooong ago by lark, the publishers of this book, asking my permission to include one or more photos they'd found on my flickr page. of course i said yes and now, here it is:


my pretty little f piece out there for all the world to see.
and i'm so happy that it's got me listed as a resident of kutztown.
the book is a collection of photos of individual letters, and it goes from a though z. it's a sweet collection, and interesting to see where the photos came from. wanna see/read more? here's a link for you, and here's a little video preview.

recent mentions and free stuff!

if you are linked up to the chez-sucre-chez facebook page, you may already know this, but this week, i've teamed up with bradford (aka uncle beefy) to do a giveaway of two totes on his WONDERful blog, the bedlam of beefy.


i'd never done a giveaway before but in the interest in clearing out some of my excessive amounts of supplies and stock before packing it all up to move back east, i thought this would be a great time to give it a go. i approached bradford with the idea a few weeks ago and i'm so happy we've made it happen. look at how beautiful he made the post!


if you want the chance to score one of two free totes, get over there and enter the contest! (it's easy, i swear) if you don't want a free tote, you should check his blog out anyways - it's pretty great.

chez-sucre-chez has popped up elsewhere on the web recently, too.
yesterday i got a note from brianne, of petalpetal and modern child vintage, to let me know that she'd featured my little mushrooms in an urban/country chic round-up on petal+handmade=love:


(see the post here.)

also, i found that my little mushrooms that i sent to paris to be sold in the boutique les fleurs evidently made it there safely; they're now up on the shop's website:


hooray! i love seeing them being called champignons! see for yourself here.
now - back to stitching for me; i've got at least three different projects in the works. my goal is to finish them all today!

heaven knows...

... i'm happy now.
my "please please please..." piece was featured in a smiths-themed etsy treasury:


check it out; it's a cute one. here.
also on there is a pair of cufflinks made out of a recycled/repurposed skateboard deck by etsy shop sevenply. i've bought from her before - it's a great shop to know about when looking for gifts for your favourite skateboarder boys (and girls).

treasury love

my monogram tea towels have been getting some love lately on the etsy treasury lists - they've been in two in as many days!

they were here:


and here:




hooray! i feel good about these towels getting into holiday treasuries -- and i feel good about people who are shopping and ordering already; it makes the season so much easier for me, too!
i've also been contacted by etsy about a potential feature of these towels on HGTV, or the HGTV website... not sure if i'll hear more or not, but if i do, you'll be sure to know!

i get around

check out the photo below:


see anything familiar? this was on page 121 of october's good housekeeping magazine. one of my customers with a keen eye spotted the chez-sucre-chez card in the photo and wrote to tell me about it. when she wrote that she "noticed one of your tags on a lamp that they turned into a bulletin board," i didn't quite know what she meant. but then later that day i happened to have been near a barnes and noble shop, so i popped in and checked it out and then snapped the above photo. pretty cool, right? thanks for the heads up, kelly!
and now i'm off to pack up my car for a cross-country road trip! i probably won't be posting anything for another week or so but i will be taking plenty of photos and i will be checking in on the twitter from time to time. got any advice or recommendations for places to see/things to do? leaving tomorrow and still unsure of whether we're going to take the straight-across or the southern route -- i'm up for suggestions! leave comments or send me an email if you've got any tips for me! xo-kj

whoa, that's boss.*

i got an email today requesting that i stitch up another "show a little faith, there's magic in the night" piece.


this part of the story doesnt shock me too much -- i had just stitched up and mailed another one by request last week; that person had seen the original that i had done and posted on etsy (it sold pretty quickly...) and just asked me to make another.
the cool part of this story is that the woman making the request said that she saw the piece on a BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WEB (fan) SITE! hahahahahhaha! holy crap. i didnt know such things existed. but then i never really thought about it. then i checked and found the link (here)-- it's totally rad!


i love the way my piece looks up there on that site! and i love the title of the site! and then, when i clicked on it, i see that lots of people "like" and reblogged it. super sweet. (see for yourself here.) i wish i understood tumblr -- then maybe i could "like" it too....

*("that's boss" is a saying my old pal roger rudd used to say a lot... he probably still does say it a lot. that roger rudd is a pretty swell fellow. he once shipped a bicycle all the way from seattle washington to my home in pennsylvania for me - because he saw it and knew i would love it and that it was actually small enough for little miss short legs to ride properly. what a guy!)

soaking it up

super huge thanks to design*sponge for posting about my new work yesterday!


i woke up at 7am to find my phone a-buzzing with emails and orders and tweets and immediately jumped out of bed and ran to the computer to find all the hubub. wow! it's a great little boost in busy-ness; i've got lots of stitching to do! see the full post here.

a rare moment of proud contentment

i must admit, i am feeling REALLY good about my etsy shop right about now. they've changed the shop layout/design a bit and i've been working my behind off to get new items stitched up, photographed, and listed in the shop. this is the first in a long time that i can say i'm pretty darned psyched on how my shop is looking. check it out -- it looks like two etsy treasuries:



so, if i can just figure out how to get back to getting noticed -- i havent done any PR/marketing work in a looooong time, i may be starting to get chez-sucre-chez back on track!
please take a look for yourself (here), and if you've got any advice for getting my shop some more traffic (or, well, say, you want to blog about it or something like that...) please let me know!

holla day

it's a happy day when i find that chez-sucre-chez has gotten a sweet little write up somewhere on the web, like this one, from the folks over at holiday matinee:


they were there at renegade L.A. this year and their booth caught my eye - on sunday morning as i was walking back in to set up. there was nothing even in their booth at that time but a single banner, or flyer, or some signage that said something awesome and amazing and positive (something along the lines of "if you see something cool, tell someone RIGHT NOW"). later in the day i met dave and got to hear about what they do; i was quite impressed with their wit and their smarts and their mission to promote good things that good people are doing. i think you should check them out - click here to do that. and while you are there, you can see the full post {and give it a little facebook thumbs up, and twitter it - please!} here.)

caught it

last night i happened to have logged on to etsy and saw one of my items on the front page:


hooray! i never catch that stuff when it happens -- it's pretty cool.

in de fix

hi all! after long delays and what seemed like really long flights (with no movies!) i'm landed here in sunny california and i've already unpacked and started setting up my new little house. it's great!

while en route, i got the message from jen, over at indie fixx, letting me know that the interview they had done with me a few weeks back was all put together and posted on the blog.


check it out here. thanks, jen and katya!

the berries get picked again!

the lovelies over at terrain got in touch this morning to let me know that our strawberry collaboration made it onto creature comforts:


hooray for us! (see the post here.)
i just made some more -- to take with me to renegade brooklyn; it's coming up - june 5th and 6th!

berry cool

the berries that i did with terrain caught the attention of design sponge:


(see the post here.) so i guess it was good timing that terrain placed their first re-order to be rushed out this week! (yay!)
batch number one went out today. i love them in those berry boxes!


(see that the whiter the berry the smaller it is? because that's the way they are in real life, of course!)


happy little berry box.
thanks, nice ups man, for helping me get these out a day early!

mentions and notices

here are a few mentions of chez-sucre-chez on blogs that have come to my attention recently:

one on belgian blog la vie en mode (in english)


see the sweet post here.

one on the cross-stitch/embroidery blog mr. x stitch:


the post is here -- it was recommended by the sweet and talented nicole, of astulabee (you gotta click on her link and look. at. those. ponies. !!!!!!! scream-into-pillow freak-out awesome!)

one on beautiful blog freshly blended:



here's the post.

and one more ( which i meant to put up last week!), from the super-duper blog super duper things:


here is that post.

thanks so much, bloggers! one of these, or all of these, or one i missed, sure did bring a bump in traffic this past few days. hooray! thanks again!

like strawberries in summertime

my little fabric stuffed strawberries and strawberry sachet sets are in the february issue of country living magazine!


they're included in a round-up of 50 "brilliant bargains" that all cost under $50. man, i am loving country living magazine; and not just because they've been so good to chez-sucre-chez. i've said it before and i will say it again, it is so much more of a hip magazine than it used to be - or than i remember it being. maybe i just never gave it a chance, or maybe now that i'm old i think it's cool. or maybe it's because i live out in the country now... whatever. those of you who miss domino should really give it a looksie; i think they're working (and doing a pretty good job) to fill that void, but in keeping with more of a country than an urban aesthetic.


i'm happy that people seem to be noticing and responding to my little berries -- they're selling as fast i can make them; which is fine with me, because i actually really enjoy making them. the bushel in the photo above is completely empty now that i've filled my orders from last week! another cool thing is that so many of the customers who have placed orders for the berries have been so sweet in the notes and email exchanges they've sent.

in making the latest batch i found a new scrap of red in my fabric pile and i LOVE the little berries that it makes:


okay -- i'm off to make more berries now...
but wait -- with all this talk of strawberries, let's think about summertime for a moment, shall we?


aaah. from this past summer, when my friend molly and i went picking organically grown strawberries at a local farm (whose name i forget). they may have been the most delicious berries i have ever tasted.

best wishes

found a chez-sucre-chez mention (here) on the blog wishwishwish. i'm happy for two things: one, chez-sucre-chez shares a post with anna karina and two, that i've now discovered another great blog -- it, and its author, is adorable. see for yourself here.


(thanks, carrie!)

little girl blue

i received a note last night from lindsey of lost and fawned letting me know that my "please please please" smiths piece is included in an etsy treasury that she created.
check it out (here) -- it's quite lovely!


(i JUST learned that the more people who click on a treasury, the better chance it has of getting to the front page. dang - shows how much i still have to learn!)

update - i received another email the other day, letting me know that this treasury, and seven others, were featured on the blog s and o productions. this was my first time seeing this blog -- it's really sweet. see the post here. wonderful!

merry thanks

i'm feeling rather great and thankful.
i've gotten quite a few really really nice emails from customers and from friends across the web these past few days that have made me very proud and happy. it makes all of this busy-ness so worth it!
thank you to design sponge for including my custom cross-stitched initials/letters in their $50 and under gift guide today:



see the post and all of the other beautiful gifts they've selected here.

samantha, from the experts agree, wrote to let me know that they'd chosen to include my striped monograms in their round-up of tea towels:


with so many really lovely tea towels out there, i feel super-flattered to have had mine included! see the post and the rest of the stunners here.

and erin, from slipcover your life, included my cross-stitched reindeer hoops in her round-up of ornaments:


i feel good about seeing chez-sucre-chez alongside jonathan adler and crate and barrel and kath kidston! see that one here.

thank you, too, to jenny hart and sublime stiching for tweeting about my smith's quote "please please please..." pieces!

if you've written or commented and i haven't yet gotten back to you personally, please know that i sincerely appreciate that you took the time to get in touch and that i will be getting back to you as soon as i can!
tomorrow's another full day; filming 10 videos for howcast and then going to the opening reception for "sewing circle" at hello bluebird! i gotta get some shut-eye! but before i do, and while i'm on this "i'm so grateful and full of love" kick, let me just say, friends, i love you!

in stitches and the sewing circle

last night i went on over to hello bluebird, in west reading (PA), to drop off my work for their upcoming showcase "sewing circle," which opens on thursday. wow, that shop is looking great. if you are local and you haven't yet been, you really should go. the shop itself is adorable and it's packed to the rafters with so much really great (and affordable) artsy crafty things.
so, anyway, the show is opening on thursday and it goes on until the end of january. again, i am psyched to be sharing the space with such amazingly talented artists. also showing will be; gillian bates, gemma rodrigues of amor and stitch, and cindy steiler of mary's granddaughter.


i'll be there on thursday night for the opening, come on out if you can.

also, i saw some photos of the "in stitches" spotlight show hanging in the renegade handmade shop in chicago. it looks fantastic! there's so much work by so many talented artists! here's an image of my work hanging:


i stole this photo from renegade's flickr site - click here to see the whole show. dang, i wish i could go to see it in person (and to say hello to danny, sue, and kate).
you can read more about the show and its featured artists on the renegade handmade blog and you can shop for items in the show on their online shop, here!

readymade teeth

yay! my little toothbuddies made it onto readymade magazine's handmade gift list!

(don't they look so happy in their photo?)
see this and the other great gifts here.