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.

gee whiz (look at her door)!

i love this!
diana has been a customer of mine since february of 2008; a few weeks ago, she wrote to me with an idea that she had to have me make a G for her front door to fit inside a wreath she had just hung.
it was a great collaboration - diana had the color-scheme of grey and white in mind and she even sent me swatches of the grey of her paint. wanting this piece to be a little more special than any of my standard fonts, i poked around for some more interesting, but still bold and easy-to-read G's. i sent those options over to diana and she chose the one she liked best. just a few days after i sent it out, looking like this


diana sent me the photos of the piece newly installed inside the wreath on her front door (and they're beautiful photos).


what a great collaboration! thanks so much, diana, for being so great and for coming back to my shop several times over the past two years. these are the kinds of exchanges that i really really love about my job.

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!

scratch report

so the scratch market this weekend wasnt a roaring financial success, but it was a good (although hot) day regardless. melanie linder (of spread the love) and i shared a table and got to see, once again, how superbly well our work works together:


it was good practice and time for planning our attack for art star, where we will be sharing a 10 x 10 tent space. we figure, if it looks this good all mixed up on a little five foot table, it's gonna look great when we put it together according to our plans and drawings for art star.
so, that was one benefit of the day.


it was also great to eat baked goods and catch up with melanie and sara (those are sara's beautiful aprons and tea towels that you can see hanging in the left corner of the photos) and anna and get some work done. (thanks, mel and sara and anna for help with the strawberries!) AND, new friend erin came to see me - which was great.
so -- now it's the two week countdown to art star. lots of stitching ahead.

berry boxes

new packaging for little sets of strawberries!


i'm still doing them in sets of six, but i kinda wanted to switch up the packaging for the craft fairs. these feel a little more fun than the drawstring sacks.


i got the berry boxes over at weavers hardware (that place is great!), and then i filled them with berries, wrapped them in a sheet of parchment, and tied 'em up with pretty pink and red baker's twine (from the martha stewart line of crafty fun at michael's). me likey.
the labels aren't ideal -- i ran out of cardstock and just dont have time to go get it so that i can print smaller tags. i can do that for the next event - art star.


i'll have a few of these with me tomorrow, at the from scratch market in trexlertown. if you want one and you're in the area, stop on by! these would be a sweet mother's day gift....

craft fair season is upon us!

first of all, how great is this drawing? dang, i wish kids drew like this forever. or, at least until the age of fifteen. i hate to think that baby bella will one day (soon) not draw like this.

second of all -- chez-sucre-chez has a lot of events coming up, and i would love to see you, friends and blog readers, at these events. here's when and where you can find me over the next few months:

first -- this saturday, i'll be doing the FROM SCRATCH market in trexlertown, PA:


i did this event last november with my z-town made gals and we all agreed that for a small local fair, this is a good one and worth doing again. so, sara smedley (and her step-daughter anna), melanie linder and i will be there this saturday for the spring edition of the event. it's a little out in the middle of no-where, but if you are in this neck of the woods, come on out -- the vendors last time were really top notch and the food they'll have for sale (especially the baked goods by organizer pam parker) is SO good!

then, saturday, may 15th, there's the art star craft bazaar:


it's held on philadelphia's penn's landing - right by the water. last year i shared a booth with melanie linder (spread the love) and we're doing the same this time around. karen stanford (skylark studio) should be right next to us.

then, in june, i'm doing renegade brooklyn:


it's the weekend of june 5th and 6th. i love that event so super-much and i'll have a WHOLE bunch of stuff all set up and nicey-nice, so plan on coming out to see the chez-sucre-chez tent. (you'll also get to see full set-ups by melanie and karen, who will also be there somewhere near my tent.)

and THEN -- it's los angeles, baby.


i love those renegade peeps so much that i am doing one of their west coast shows, and i couldnt be more psyched. (so much more on that later...) the event is being held july 24th and 25th -- i'll keep you posted with more info as time draws nearer.

words to live by

my friend megan gave me this mug for my birthday when we were in like sixth or seventh grade, and i've just found it! i love this mug and it's little caption. i'm almost embarrassed to admit, but i have visualized those little zebras and that caption A LOT of times over the past twenty years. (i am totally cracking up here to myself as i write that out loud, but it's true!)
anyways, about a year and a half ago, megan and i reconnected (and it wasn't even through facebook!). we were friends in grade school and then she went to a different high school and we lost touch, and then she found me though a mutual friend and we've been sending emails back and forth ever since. (i even got to visit with her while in chicago for renengade last september.) meg was the artist in grade school and i really admired her talent. she's now living in wisconsin and she's still making art. it's been great to have one another to correspond about our work and the need for studio space and finding balance and inspiration. recently, megan started a blog like this one to chronicle her work and inspirations and creative outlets. give it a peep (here); she's really great.
*i just realized that i already told almost all of this story on this post -- oh well, here it is again!

one inspirational mother

growing up, i had these to look at on the walls of our family kitchen:


they were all done by my mother at some point when i was really young. it's funny, i never really thought about it until recently, but i bet these have had a huge influence on me and the work that i am doing.
they're all worked on even-weave or linen, on which i have been thinking it's time i start working.
lookie at this one:


and this one really gives me the excited shivers:


the colors! the stitches! it's so my chez-sucre-chez style! i just realized that one of my first more complex lettering attempts was done with this almost very same font:


yeah -- i'm pretty psyched to have these to serve as inspiration. my mama's pretty cool. hey; it's her birthday today! whoo-hoo. this cake is in the oven, and we'll be together later on with the rest of the family to celebrate. happy b-day mama and thank you for being so good to me.

here's a project that i started last night -- still on aida cloth, but it's this new beautiful platinum colored fabric i just got - i love love love it with the red:


ooh lala! i've got a framing lesson with the multi-talented karen stanford sceduled for this thursday. then i'll be able to get all of these new works framed and photographed - yippee!

home is anywhere

i finished this one a few weeks ago while in L.A.


and then i got to spend some time with the painting that inspired it while spending the week at the home of friends greg and alec. look on the wall behind me to the right:


(self portrait in a borrowed house and a borrowed scarf taken after quite a few cocktails with the lovely laura.)