sparkle and shine

Inspired by this wonderful feedback;


"I have been desirous of one of these cloud embroideries for years, so I was very happy to be able to purchase this little collection. It looks just perfect in a corner of my new house."
(big smiles from me -- i love my etsy customers!)

I've been spending this cloudy week stitching up a new batch of clouds (among other projects):


i recently found this EVER so light blue aida cloth in my collection -- i have no idea where it came from or what this color is called, but i love it for these clouds. the color is SO subtle that the silver lining jumps out much more prominently than with the other colors i use. usually i prefer the subtle lining, like a little surprise that you see after you see the cloud (just like the metaphor), but i'm really liking these ones.



i've got packed-full days of things to do and people to see tomorrow and friday, but i expect to have some new clouds, including a grouping or two, in the shop next week.
have a great rest of your week/weekend!

fairy teeth

my niece is about to lose her first tooth so, as i did for my nephew, i'm sending her a tooth buddy:


i've been told that she's got another wiggly one as well, so i've gotta get crackin' on making up some more! (they get one for each of their four front teeth...)
happy wednesday, friends!

all for fall

the air is crisp, the leaves are starting to change colors, apple season is upon us - autumn officially begins tomorrow.
it's time for a little sale, don't you think? i do...
today through sunday night, take 20% off your order from the etsy shop with coupon code CELEBRATEFALL2011 - hooray!

frame thy fearful dissymmetry

continuing on my yellow kick, i bring you a new kit!


i'm calling this one "ring around the posy" and i've got to admit, i'm thrilled with it. this pattern and the colors of the materials are so different from my other kits, i think it's a really nice addition to the collection.


i'm so feeling this yellow on the cool modern grey! it feels so right for the season that we're entering into here. and these goldenrod flowers are all over the roadways here in eastern PA --- i think they've maybe worked themselves into my subconscious and that's where all this inspiration is coming from!


i enjoyed creating this pattern, and trying something a little different from my normal - i specifically designed it NOT to be completely symmetrical. oh, look at me, gettin' all crazy.
other happiness of the day: canon made good by sending me a brand new camera! i sent my old one (the one with the spot behind the lens) back to them to have fixed under warranty, and today i received a new camera. ta-da. hooray. all is good. thank you, big company, for being good to me.
see/purchase the new kit here.
have a great weekend!

some pulp

a custom order going out today:


(lyrics from pulp's "something changed")


happy wednesday!

aprons up!

making kids' aprons has been my outlet and excuse for fabric-buying for the past couple of years and although they sell well when i bring them to craft fairs, i've rarely offered them through my shop, primarily because it's such a pain in the hiney to photograph them for the listings.
last week, however, i planned ahead -- knowing that i would be seeing my neice over the weekend, i whipped up three new aprons, in three adorable prints that i bought over the last month, with the hopes that i could convince her to model them for me.

haha -- her idea of modeling sure has changed in the two years since i last had her do this for me. this was then:


gah! i can't stand the cuteness! (and there are more here.)
and here's what modeling means now:



look at that sass! ha -- adorable. she's awesome.
here are a few of the other shots and the other aprons:




cuteness! i love them. i love her.




hey lookie - there's our house! we live up on the third floor -- my studio is the window all the way to the right.

the three styles of aprons are up in the etsy shop (here) and they're available sewn-to-order in a variety of sizes (2T, 3 -4 years, 5 -7 years, and 8 - 10 years) check them out and if you happen to know someone with a little one who loves to bake or play dress up, please send them the info; thanks!

cutting the mustard

i saw this color tea towel at my favourite mennonite dry goods store the last time i was there, and i passed them up. then i kept seeing "mustard yellow" trending all over etsy and totally regretted not getting them. so, i picked some up while i was there on saturday and each time i look at them, i love this color more and more.


look how good it looks with grey stitching! and today, just minutes after i did the listing, i got an etsy convo asking if i could do this color with peacock blue green stitching, and i realized, THAT would look fantastic, too! they're here.

keeping with the mustard kick, i did some zippies with mustard yellow zippers.


i bought the zippers a long time ago, with this exact combo in mind, but then i second guessed myself and i thought maybe it wasn't as cool as i thought it was.... but now i think i was maybe right in the first place. i like them. i'm happy with them.

i also really like this photo -- even though zippy pouches have no context next to tomatoes....


i did two sizes:


one's the size that i usually do for zippies -- about 7 x 5. it's good for use as a wallet/purse sort of thing or little makeup bag.


and the other's a little deeper - which makes it a great project bag! it fits a five inch hoop easily - making it a handy little catch-all for your latest work in progress. throw it in your tote bag without worry about your embroidery floss getting all tangled up in your hairbrush and keys. organized = good. i'm getting there -- little by little....

wind and rain and balloons and buttons and pies and bracelets and more

man, i was on such a roll with posting, and now, oops, it looks like i've fallen behind... sorry! i've been busy busy with custom jobs and other little things but here's a run-down of some of the other happenings since my last post:

i became obsessed, for about four days, with friendship bracelets.


two weekends ago, b and i spent some time with my family down at the beach and i brought my floss boxes with me so that i could organize them, and because i had it in my head to make friendship bracelets with my niece. i figured, heck, i've got about every color imaginable in this floss collection of mine; there's plenty here for bracelets!


well, the bracelets didn't happen that weekend, but when i mentioned my idea to b, he was just about as psyched as i was. so, the next weekend, as hurricane irene soaked the east coast with rain, i knotted strands of floss together to make a total of six of those grade-school-favourite accessories. b now wears three of them, i sent a couple to some boys in nyc, and i've got one here in the studio waiting for a friend...
and then i got over that kick... for the time being.

i sent out a mailer about the urban outfitters thing and my red-balloons-for-good project and then, about 30 minutes later, the electricity went out in our house, and stayed out for the next 22 hours.
in that time, the initial two balloons that i had listed in the shop were snapped up, and i was grateful to your positive response to my project. i stitched up three more and then photographed and listed them when the sunshine and electricity returned.



they're in the "red balloons for good" section of my shop, if you're interested....

also in shop news, i added a new section, which i'm calling "add-ons;" the idea being that these items can be added to an order with no additional shipping fees.
i added hoops:


i am a huge fan of these hoops that i've been using -- they're SO much better quality than the ones found at the usual craft stores, and i often get requests for additional hoop purchases from customers who've bought my kits and used them. well, now they're easily available through the shop! i put up a listing for the 3 and 4 inch hoops, and if that goes well, i'll probably add additional sizes.
i'm also thinking it's good to have the hoops in shop as an additional item option for the boyfriend hankie kits; it really is a heck of a lot easier to successfully do that project if you use a hoop. i don't include hoops in with the kit, though, because i figure that a lot of people have them already, or they can borrow them from a friend or a grandma who does -- and by not including them, i'm keeping the cost of the product down for my customers. well, now there's an easy way to add a hoop onto that item if a customer needs one. hooray!

also in the add-ons section, i'm putting together little bundles/packages/collections/selections of trim and notions. i've got A LOT of really pretty ribbon and trim and rickrack and vintage buttons and such and, even though i realize that i couldn't possibly use it all in my lifetime, i can't stop buying more when i come across it. SO -- i'm going through my collection and making nice little measured-out bundles and listing them in the shop. i put together and photographed two listings when my back-up camera died on me. (my regular camera has developed an annoying spot on the inside of the lens.)



that new add-ons section of my shop is here. check it out often to find more treasures!

on tuesday, i baked this pie:


peaches and blackberries soaked in bourbon and vanilla - yum, but i didn't cook it quite long enough... the bottom crust wasn't *quite* crisped enough. but what i DID do right was put the bourbon/vanilla/peach juice that was drained from the fruit before it went into the pie into a cocktail -- mmmhmmm delicious.

and lastly, today, i finished and framed this piece:



obviously, i'm going to need better photos. i'll be on the phone with canon tomorrow, hoping to get mine fixed through the warranty... ugh.
have a good long-weekend, everyone!

red balloons for good...

...are back!
it's that time again and for the sixth year, my mama is cycling 150 miles over two days as part of the city-to-shore ride to "create a world free of MS." that's 75 miles a day and it's all for the cause of raising money and awareness toward research and a cure of MS (multiple sclerosis). my mom's pretty great, huh?


two years ago, i started stitching these red balloons and listing them in my shop as my way to contribute to my mama's fund. half of the price of each balloon is donated to the fund.


last year i had it in my head that i was going to do the 99 red balloons -- but it turned out waaaay to ambitious a project. i didn't get anywhere even close. this year, i'm planning on just stitching them up whenever i can and listing them in my shop with the hopes that people appreciate their simple charm and the chance to score a sweet little piece of home decor while contributing to the greater good.


you can read more about the beginning and purpose of this project here, in this post from two years ago.

and now, the first two of this year's balloons are stitched and photographed and listed in the shop. please check them out if you have a chance, and, actually, even more important, please help spread the word if you are interested. i'm hoping to list several more pieces in the coming weeks - and it'd be super great to see them all go and then to have a nice little sum of money to donate to the cause! here's the shop section where the balloons will be listed.


ps -- related but unrelated -- my camera has developed a spot. very annoying. it seems to be a piece of dust trapped INSIDE the lens, and now every photo i take has this spot on it. this is very uncool. does anyone know anything about this? how to get rid of it? it's a canon -- i think i'm going to call the company tomorrow. very annoying.

apple peaches pumpkin...

good news to those of you who are liking the little pumpkins i've been posting about but are too far away to make it to terrain to scoop up a jar of them; they're now available from terrain online! i love seeing them as part of the autumn harvest collection on there! here's the direct link.
but while you're there, you should really poke around the site a bit - i just noticed that they've got a recipe of the week section! and this week it's for apple spice cake?! dang! i love apple spice cake!
oooh, we've got a big thunderstorm rolling in to this little part of PA right now -- fun!

peanut, peanut butter

b and i hosted birthday brunch at our house this morning.


he and his family are all peanut butter maniacs, so i made this cake:


being not such a peanut butter person, this was new territory for me. i searched around for recipes and this one, posted over at smitten kitchen, came up looking like the best bet. oh my goodness, it may well have been the most rich cake i've ever baked.
the recipe is amazing -- super straight-forward and easy peasy, and it sure as heck makes for one deliciously intense cake.
there were six of us, and this is all the dent we were able to put in it:


phew! who wants to come over to help finish it?!!? have a delicious weekend, friends. xo.

samples stitched

little things that happened over the last couple weeks; one, i finally took a better photo for the embroider-it-yourself boyfriend-hankie kit listing in my etsy shop. the one i had up there for well over a year was terrible! a few weeks ago, i got a new batch of hankies and the prettiness of seeing them all spread out before me as i made up the kits inspired me to take a new shot:


i'm not sure if it totally shows the product -- this kit, and the cross-stitch kits, too, is kind of hard to capture in one photo!

also stitched up and photo'd a sample of the new sage green tea towels that are now available monogrammed-to-order:


and then there are the new stripes; i like these a lot!



and this one i just stitched up for fun:


i got these towels in because i love the simple retro style of them (and they are SO soft!), but i'm not quite sure what i want to do with them yet... this was the first idea... not sure if i'm going to go with it or not. comments? suggestions? opinions?


until i figure that out, though, i've got a home-sweet-home for this particular towel. lots of friends have moved into new homes lately, and i love sending out mail, so...