quick post

just a quick post , because i have soooo much to do today - but here are two custom pieces i did over the past few days:

one, this piece that i'm so happy with, to complete (or just add to?) lo's lovely little collection:


she asked for one of my "listen to your heart..." pieces, but in the scripty style of the smiths pieces. i did the lettering to look a little more like actual handwriting -- varying some of the letters and spacing. in the end, it all went into a 12.5 inch hoop -- the biggest i've done so far!

and then, a single O, like in my l.o.v.e. letters, but bigger:


sweet, eh?
have a great day!

celebration

there was birthday cake:


and cards, and presents, and drawings, and photos, and so many sweet sweet facebook posts and messages and emails and phonecalls. i love my friends all so much --- you make me realize that i am such a lucky girl - to know so much love. tomorrow i'll be continuing the celebration with an adventure to joshua tree. and then i'll be back to work and posting next week. x's and o's to you all.

busy, busy busy, busy scissors...

...and needles and threads...
lest you think i'm just hanging out here in l.a. -- lounging poolside or something...
here are just a few of the projects that have kept me busy this past week:

quite a collection going out to lo in brooklyn:


she and i seem to have similar hearts.

a custom piece that'll be a gift from a bride-to-be for her man:


(from the band of horses song "i go to the barn because i like the")

lots more strawberries for terrain:


how perfect is that berry box?!

and many more smiths pieces (was there some blog mention of them somewhere that i missed?), and experimenting with cute little jam jar covers (more on that later -maybe?), and two large-ish wholesale orders for sammy wraps, and some other fun custom work. oh, and painting my house. and starting to stitch the hot air balloons. and lounging poolside.

a little bit of home in my new home

today a very special package arrived at my new home in los angeles:


it's one of sara smedley's dutch heart tea towels. hooray! my place was really needing this so i put in a special request. and now my little home has got a little bit a of PA dutch charm and a reminder of one of my favourite ladies back east. (love it? need one for your house? get it here!) thank you, sara!

the red balloon project

those of you who have been following for a bit may remember the beginning of this project - which kind of started last year.


every year for the past three, in september, my mama does a 150 mile bikeride to raise money and awareness for research towards a cure for MS (multiple sclerosis), a disease that's affected the lives of many people we know. last year, i stitched up nine of these red balloons and donated the money from the sales to her fund. really, i wanted to to 99, as in "99 red balloons," but being as i thought of the idea about a week before the event, that wasn't quite possible. (see the post from last year's project here.)


it ended up that these little balloons, which i stitched up really quickly with basic embroidery stitches -- nothing fussy or mind-blowing, caught a lot of attention and got some really sweet press notices (some of which you can see here). all of the pieces sold. so -- i'm thinking, this time around, i have the time -- i'm gonna do the 99 red balloons.


but i need some help -- i need drawings of hot air balloons! i did the initial pieces from clip art and simple vector illustrations that i was able to find online. but that's not gonna cut it for this year's project. so -- i'm looking for artists and illustrators who'd be willing to donate line drawings of hot air balloons that i can then stitch. the drawings should be simple -- not too much detail, because the idea of this project is that i can stitch them up rather quickly, and then sell them for a good, low, attainable price. last year i donated the entire portion of the sales -- but this year, with the larger scope of the project, i'm gonna have to scale back a little and donate just a portion, which i havent yet figured out but it'll be at least 50%. so, if you are decent draw-er, (which i am not - which is why i need you), get out the crayons and the pencils! draw me a hot air balloon (or two! or three!) and send it on over!
some pieces may have up to three balloons in them - i'll be stitching a total of 99 balloons, not 99 pieces, so keep that in mind. also please note that i may need to change the scale or some of the details of your drawing to make it work with stitches. of course, if i use your drawing, i'll send you a photo of the finished piece!
please send drawings to: kimberly scola/chez-sucre-chez, 5074 glen iris avenue, los angeles, CA 90041. (i'll also accept love letters and checks written for large sums of money.) or, you can send it via digital format - pdf, ai, or jpeg, to chezsucrechez at gmail (.com) thanks so much!

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!

i'm a leaving,

on a jet plane...


L.A. bound, friends. i'll resume the posts as soon as i get settled in and back to work. x's and o's to you all!

renegade recap

thank you so much to everyone who stopped by the chez-sucre-chez tent at renegade. it was a super great weekend -- here are some shots and some of the highlights:

here's how the day begins:


and then, with the help of good friends dana and mike, shop chez-sucre-chez is set up and open for business:



this guy was my neighbor -- totally sweet. he makes screenprinted t-shirts.

i had my z-town gals, karen and melanie, next to me:


sort of right across from us, the magnolia photobooth was set up and being run by the designer/inventor of the booth itself - this guy, who is totally sweet and totally cute and was really great about coming over and encouraging us to jump in the booth while there wasnt a line. IT WAS AMAZING. magnolia and renegade have it worked out that they can do free photos all day long. they've got a pile of props and the photobooth set up is out-of-control great. those of you who know me personally know that i am a photobooth freak, and i am usually not so psyched on digital set ups, but really - this guy has got it down. the booth is beautifully designed, the lighting is fantastic, the color on the prints is unbelievably beautiful -- wow. seriously, if you've got an event and you want to rent a photobooth, go with these guys (check it out here). if i had loads of money, i'd want to buy one of these just to have at my house. because then i could do this all the time:



this lady, who makes great dolls (like the tattooed lady and strongman from the circus) and other stuffed things, was in our booth neighborhood as well. check out her work here. she's very nice.

other than about three hours in the afternoon on sunday, the wind wasnt TOO bad, and my set-up stayed in place relatively well. i was pleased with the way my pieces all looked on the wall:



moo and etsy teamed up to bring vendors packs of free business cards:


they were so cool that i almost didnt want to give them away, but before i knew it, i had -- there was only one left for me to keep for myself. i love their cards. and the packaging they send them in!

here are some other random shots:






so many friends stopped by to say hello; huge thanks to dan colby, and greg, and ron and jay, and michele and the babies, and other dan and baby, and tiffany, and leila and patrick, and bananas, and sarah and her mama, and jessica, and jason, and joe, and suzy, and suzanne, and kirsten, and sal and katie, and siri. and i probably forgot to mention one or two others and that makes me a jerk. it was a busy two days!

it was a great event - a great two days. i'm really glad that all the hard work that i had been doing in the months before seemed to have been worth it. now i'm doing my mad-dash packing and i fly out to los angles on wednesday - whoa!

do it yourself!

chez-sucre-chez patterns are here! well, at least, the first one is:


schoolhouse script home-sweet-home is one of my favourite patterns, and now that i figured out how to use the computer to help me put all of those x's into squares i've got a way that i can market these things! hooray! so now you can make your own home-sweet-home --- get the pattern, here.

fun guys

my sewing desk is growing mushrooms.

linen, canvas, and lace

these were the projects of last week:


friend sara smedley gave me some of the linen scraps from her amazing tea towels and aprons so that i could play around with the material.
i really like the way these stitch up on linen:






and then these --
in my attempt to use up some of my overflowing crates of fabric and trim before my west coast adventure -- i put together these:




i really like the juxtaposition of the utilitarian canvas and the delicate frilly antique lace.
i may get to putting some of these into the shop or onto etsy-- but they'll definitely be there with me at renegade.
more new work to follow....

(update -- they're now in the shop!)

california dreaming

chez-sucre-chez is gonna be operating from the left coast this summer, friends. hooray! i've bought my ticket, i'm beginning to organize my bags. renegade brooklyn is in two weeks and i fly out after that!

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!

more hanky panky!

the boyfriend hankie embroider-it-yourself project kits are up!


here's the story: as you may remember, from here and here, i had made a few embroidered hankies for my bf. well, because i think they're kinda cool, and because i know that at craft fairs there aren't so many things to buy for the dudes, i was gonna stitch up a bunch of them to sell at art star. but then, as i was stitching the first or second one, i thought, "wait a minute -- why am i doing this? it would be so much cooler if the girl stitches the hankie herself, instead of just buying and giving one that was stitched by some other girl." so -- the kit idea came to me -- this way, i didnt have to do the stitching work, i could offer it at a cheaper price, AND it's sharing the how-to and creative empowerment with others! woo-hoo!
they were pretty well received at this past weekend's fair, so i got some more hankies and put together more kits. i tweeted this sneak peek preview yesterday


and got a pretty great reaction, so this morning i got these babies listed in the shop.
the photos aren't ideal - i need a new camera... these are taken with my phone -- soon i'll get better shots, but these'll have to do for now. sorry.
here are the kit contents:


and here's what you can do with them!


i included a lot of different choices, like sweetheart, and my love, and darling, and sugar booger, and stuff like that, mostly in easy-to-stitch script fonts. i'm hoping, too, that some people get the kit and then, with the materials, put their own creative flair into the project. fun! want one? get it here!

who's reaching out to capture a moment...

here are some shots from this past weekend's art star craft bazaar, where melanie and i made do the best we could with the outrageous wind:


we met up the week before to plan out and prep the boards that you see in the back for our hanging displays. i really thought that we had it all together and that our plan was solid.
and then we started trying to put it all together on saturday morning, and that took a little more than expected... and then we started hanging our pieces on the "wall" only to find that we had not considered the power and problem of off-the-water winds... for the first three hours, i felt like we were at constant battle with that wall and the pieces that we were trying to get to stay up there. i apologize to anyone who walked under our tent those first few hours -- man, i was CRANKY.
my mama showed up to visit me somewhere in the middle of this - at the point where i had just about thrown up my hands and given up - and she, sweetly, fixed it up for me and tied the pieces on their hooks with twine. (thank you, mama!)


this shot was taken on the second day, which was a little less hectic than the first. we ended up using the tent sides, so things werent blowing around quite as much (and karen, who was next to us, didnt have to keep picking up pieces of mine that blew into her tent).


boyfriend hankies were a hit! (more on them later...)


and this was one of the highlights of the weekend for me -- happy customer skyler in her new chez-sucre-chez apron; it looks perfect on her!


thanks to those of you who came out to visit and hello to those of you who discovered chez-sucre-chez for the first time at this weekend's event! next up: renegade brooklyn. i've got two and a half weeks to prepare!

holy smokes; i'm a gonner!

i pulled up to my local mennonite fabric store bright and early this morning, only to find a sign outside saying "closed for ascension day." ascension day! oh no -- then i remembered this sign of PA dutch lore that karen stanford recently posted on her blog: (read more here.)


ahhh! i even marked it on my calendar: "no sew!"
oh, but that so isn't happening today - i have many many stitches to make in preparation for art star. i'm hoping the lightening doesnt find me....


philadelphia, eastern PA, jersey, and delaware people, please come on by and see me this weekend if you get the chance! the weather is supposed to be good (let's hope it stays that way!) and this should be a really good event. i've got a LOT of work that i've been hiding - waiting to reveal. it looks like i'm probably not gonna get around to getting a sneak-peak preview photo on this here blog, so you're just gonna have to come out and see the new work for yourself! 11 - 6, both saturday and sunday - penn's landing, philadelphia. i think i am at both number 51 -- something like that - sharing it with melanie linder of spread the love, and karen (skylark studio) will be right next to us!

put it all on the plate, i can take it!

why do i do this to myself?
on thursday, i was thinking and feeling okay in terms of my preparation for artstar. and then on friday, i walked into my local fabric shop just to pick up one thing that i needed, found myself wandering the stacks of calicos, and walked out of there with ten yards of fabric and the intention to turn it all into kids' aprons.


what? i wasn't planning on making more aprons! i so didnt need to do that! but i did.... and now the fabric is all washed and dried and ironed and cut. so i guess i'm sewing more aprons. and creating my displays. and making business cards. and framing unfinished cross-stitch pieces. and making more kits. sleep? who needs it; i love this stuff!

lots of m's and m's

last week brought me two cool jobs for personalized embroidered towels. i was particularly excited about this one:


breanna contacted me to see if i could/would do towels in the traditional three-letter monogram style. of course i said yes, and i am happy that i did. each towel was a lot more work than i had originally anticipated and quoted for, but i think the results are well worth it. she had me do four of them, one for each sink in the two bathrooms at her wedding reception. so sweet, right? i'm really pleased to have been asked to contribute to her special day. and of course this is a cool detail in that the newlyweds can then use the towels in their home!


then the next big monogram project was for a set of eight towels all with M's on them. i didnt get the details on if they were to be for any certain occasion, but they sure do look cool all together.


and in between all this stitching, i've found time to make some extra towels with a whole assortment of letters - they'll be coming with me to the summer fairs - hopefully i've picked the right letters.